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Speaker 1: What's evicting my people who didn't want to die? Serving

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Speaker 1: lattes to anti mask activists. That's actually one of your

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Speaker 1: best I was like, where are you going? I was like,

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Speaker 1: oh no, they pulled it off. Great job. So this

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Speaker 1: is it could happen here. It's a show about collapse.

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Speaker 1: And speaking of collapse, Um, the Supreme Court just issued

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Speaker 1: a shadow ruling, which we should probably do a whole

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Speaker 1: episode about this practice of like Supreme Court decisions that

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Speaker 1: are it was a Supreme Court decision that was not

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Speaker 1: a Supreme Court decision, So they don't have to issue

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Speaker 1: like a whole justification. They don't have to like explain

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Speaker 1: where everyone landed. They just said, hey, you know the

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Speaker 1: eviction moratoriums that the Biden administration just pushed through Again, Nah,

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Speaker 1: it's not not constitutional. We're not going to say anymore.

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Speaker 1: Uh start kicking people out of their motherfucker and homes

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Speaker 1: and boy, how did that process is started? And we

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Speaker 1: don't know. I mean, I think the the you'll get

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Speaker 1: very different numbers when you try to figure out like

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Speaker 1: how many people are going to get evicted or at

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Speaker 1: risk of being evicted. Like the highest deal here is

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Speaker 1: like thirty to forty million Americans at risk of eviction. UM.

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Speaker 1: I think it was UM. I think it was Bank

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Speaker 1: of America's numbers that anticipated as many as seven hundred

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Speaker 1: and fifty thousand households. Goldman, it was a Goldman gold

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Speaker 1: anticipated about seven and fifty thousand American households losing their

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Speaker 1: homes getting and that's obviously more than seven fifty thousand people. Now,

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Speaker 1: when we talk about like how many of those folks

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Speaker 1: could end up homeless, UM, it's going to be a

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Speaker 1: less than that total number of households because whenever you

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Speaker 1: have stuff like this happened, like in two thousand and eight,

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Speaker 1: a decent number of people who lose access to their

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Speaker 1: homes wind up kind of CouchSurfing, bunking with family. You

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Speaker 1: wind up with two or three families in one home,

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Speaker 1: which is obviously particularly a problem during a pandemic. Right

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Speaker 1: Like if you have families doubling or tripling up in

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Speaker 1: the same house while there's a plague, that's um that

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Speaker 1: introduces additional complications. But it's it's possible, in fact, very

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Speaker 1: likely because about the s the kind of conservative estimate

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Speaker 1: for the number of people who are homeless on American

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Speaker 1: streets right now is a little over five and fifty thousand,

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Speaker 1: So there's a pretty good chance that the number of

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Speaker 1: homeless could essentially double in the next you know, not

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Speaker 1: quite overnight, because evictions it's not like a thing where like, okay,

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Speaker 1: the Supreme Court said you can evict people. Now, everybody's

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Speaker 1: out on their ass the next day. It's it's a

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Speaker 1: process of evicting people. There is like a legal process.

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Speaker 1: But in the near future, we could see a doubling

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Speaker 1: of the number of Americans who are without homes, if

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Speaker 1: not even potentially more than that. So it's pretty high stakes, um,

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Speaker 1: which I think necessitates everybody be thinking about not just

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Speaker 1: ways to fight the Supreme Court ruling or whatever, not

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Speaker 1: just ways to get the government to provide support to people,

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Speaker 1: but also eviction defense. Um, because kind of historically and

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Speaker 1: today we're going to kind of give a little bit

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Speaker 1: of a historic overview here. Um. Historically, eviction defense is

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Speaker 1: it has not in American history solved the overall problems,

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Speaker 1: but it solves it can provide necessary Uh, it can

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Speaker 1: be a necessary like tourniquet for a lot of people

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Speaker 1: and for communities. Um. Before kind of more long term

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Speaker 1: solutions to these problems get get get brought up, and

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Speaker 1: I think it behooves this to talk about eviction defense

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Speaker 1: kind of from that standpoint. UM So I found a

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Speaker 1: really interesting article when you when you start reading about

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Speaker 1: eviction defense, a lot of the eviction defense like articles

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Speaker 1: kind of talking about the Great Depression are going to

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Speaker 1: come from the International Socialist Review or other kind of

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Speaker 1: socialist or outright communists like websites. Um. And there's there's

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Speaker 1: some good reasons for this, which is that the organizations

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Speaker 1: during the Great Depression who were doing most of the

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Speaker 1: anti eviction organizing were communist organizations. Now, I found some

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Speaker 1: kind of scholarly analyzes of some of the reporting on

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Speaker 1: that that will point out that they especially if you're

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Speaker 1: kind of like report if you're if you're studying eviction defense,

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Speaker 1: based on kind of the documents at the time, and

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Speaker 1: it was a lot of like Socialist Worker, UM and

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Speaker 1: Unemployed Citizen and whatnot newspapers with titles like that. UM,

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Speaker 1: A lot of those would kind of tend to deliberately

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Speaker 1: under count the efforts of of non communist anti eviction

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Speaker 1: organizations because there was a whole political fight going on then. UM.

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Speaker 1: So keep that in mind that said, it is kind

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Speaker 1: of worth reading, uh some of these some of these accounts,

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Speaker 1: and I think one that is particularly uh noteworthy is

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Speaker 1: what happened in New York City starting in nineteen one

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Speaker 1: nineteen thirty two, UM. And this was in the Bronx

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Speaker 1: Park East and Allerton Avenue UM. And it started obviously,

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Speaker 1: like the Great Depression kicks off, like nineteen thirty, nineteen

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Speaker 1: thirty one. UM. By January of nineteen thirty two, you've

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Speaker 1: got a huge number of people unemployed and increasingly desperate,

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Speaker 1: and you've got these landlords trying to evict and kick

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Speaker 1: them out. UM. And the communists in the Bronx started

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Speaker 1: an eviction defense network that was very noteworthy, and it

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Speaker 1: kind of it initially crystallized around this series of communist

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Speaker 1: co ops, which were these two buildings in the Bronx

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Speaker 1: that were populated by communists UM. And that had included

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Speaker 1: like a cooperative housing experiment, like some cooperative gardening that

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Speaker 1: sort of stuff. And they were mostly Eastern European uh

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Speaker 1: Jewish like workers, like people who had come over from

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Speaker 1: Europe and in a lot of cases had been socialist

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Speaker 1: activists in Europe, many of whom had like had to

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Speaker 1: flee Europe to the United States because of their activism

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Speaker 1: UM and in January of nineteen thirty two, they organized

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Speaker 1: rent strikes at three larger apartment buildings at Bronx East

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Speaker 1: Park UM and one of the things that they created

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Speaker 1: was what they called the Upper Bronx Unemployed Council. And

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Speaker 1: this kind of was part of a series of decisions

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Speaker 1: that led to the creation of an organization called the

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Speaker 1: Unemployed Citizens Committees I think is they called them UM.

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Speaker 1: And kind of one of the ideas there was to

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Speaker 1: point out that, you know, despite kind of the focus

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Speaker 1: within the capitalist system on people needing to have a job,

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Speaker 1: needing to make income in order to be like citizens,

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Speaker 1: unemployed people were citizens too and embody and imbued with

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Speaker 1: like the full rights of an American citizen UM. And

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Speaker 1: so they were kind of taking ownership of the term

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Speaker 1: unemployed rather than accepting it as a slur UM that like, no,

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Speaker 1: we're like, we're still citizens, and we we have rights

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Speaker 1: in power and will UM will organize in order to

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Speaker 1: enact our power on or in order to UM in

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Speaker 1: order to kind of forcefully try to make the changes

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Speaker 1: that we need. And so these these communists in the

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Speaker 1: Bronx organized three buildings worth of tenants into a rent strike.

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Speaker 1: They were refusing to pay rent until they got their demands,

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Speaker 1: which were a fifteen percent reduction in rent and into eviction,

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Speaker 1: repairs and apartments, and recognition of the Tenants Committee as

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Speaker 1: an official bargaining agent. So they were trying to effectively unionize,

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Speaker 1: like in the same way that workers had just four

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Speaker 1: tenants in a building. UM. Now, these like this rent

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Speaker 1: strike set off a rent riot that eventually more than

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Speaker 1: four thousand people participated in city marshals and the marshals

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Speaker 1: were the people the city would hire to to force

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Speaker 1: homeless people out of their houses. UM, marshals and police

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Speaker 1: showed up to evict seventeen tenants and yeah, about four

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Speaker 1: thousand people showed up to oppose them, and that started

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Speaker 1: this massive street fight. UM. And it was largely and

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Speaker 1: and this would be the case with most of these

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Speaker 1: rent strikes in the early thirties, it was largely women

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Speaker 1: who would do most of the fighting and would do

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Speaker 1: most of the the the like the actual like physical

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Speaker 1: organizing against the police. And some of this was because

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Speaker 1: they recognized that like when their men were there, the

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Speaker 1: cops would beat the ship out of them and arrest them.

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Speaker 1: And so there was a lot of times where they

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Speaker 1: were like, okay, you guys, get out of the house,

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Speaker 1: like the women are going to organize. We'll get up

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Speaker 1: on the fire escapes and balconies. We'll like we'll throw

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Speaker 1: ship at the cops, you know. Um. And these were

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Speaker 1: also very like and I don't want to like be

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Speaker 1: be ignoring this either. These were extremely communist uh like events,

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Speaker 1: Like they would be singing communist songs, they would be

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Speaker 1: like making carrying out communist chance. It was communist papers

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Speaker 1: that did a lot of the organizing. Um. I want

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Speaker 1: to read a quote from that International Socialist Review article

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Speaker 1: that I found kind of like laying out how this

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Speaker 1: particular strike went. Quote. Bronx property owners moved quickly to

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Speaker 1: try to contain the movement. At first, they tried arbitration.

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Speaker 1: Following the evictions at six six five Allerton, landlords in

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Speaker 1: Bronx Park East asked a Blue Ribbon committee of Bronx

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Speaker 1: Jewish leaders to arbitrate the dispute, convinced that an impartial

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Speaker 1: examination of the buildings books would show that the landlord

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Speaker 1: could not meet the striker's demands without operating at a loss,

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Speaker 1: but the strike leaders contemptuously rejected arbitration and indeed the

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Speaker 1: whole notion that a reasonable return on one's investment represented

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Speaker 1: a basis for negotiation when times were good, Strike leader

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Speaker 1: Max Kim a Wits declared, the landlords didn't offer to

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Speaker 1: share their profits with us. The landlords made enough money

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Speaker 1: off us when we had it. Now that we haven't

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Speaker 1: got it, the landlords must be satisfied with less. Faced

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Speaker 1: with this kind of bargaining positions, landlords felt they had

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Speaker 1: no choice but to pull out the stops to suppress

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Speaker 1: the movement. By the second week of February nineteen thirty two,

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Speaker 1: two major organizations of Bronx landlords had formed rent strike

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Speaker 1: committees that offered unlimited funding and legal support for any

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Speaker 1: landlord facing a Communist led rent strike. Using the considerable

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Speaker 1: political influence and legal expertise at their disposal, that developed

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Speaker 1: a strategy that included wholesale issuance of dispossessed notices against

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Speaker 1: striking tenants, efforts to win in junctions against picketing and strikes,

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Speaker 1: agreements by judges to waive normal delay periods and evictions,

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Speaker 1: and efforts to ban rent strikes by legislative enactment. The

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Speaker 1: situation has become much graver than most persons suppose. When

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Speaker 1: Landlords spokesman declared the strikes are spreading rapidly and scores

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Speaker 1: of landlords are facing financial ruin or loss of their

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Speaker 1: properties as a result of them. Former State Senator Benjamin

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Speaker 1: Anton told landlords, this is a peculiar neighborhood. It is

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Speaker 1: the hotbed of communism and radicalism. The people in this

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Speaker 1: neighborhood are mostly communists and Soviet sympathizers. They do not

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Speaker 1: believe in our form of government. Now, one are the

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Speaker 1: things that's interesting about this. So in a lot of

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Speaker 1: cases particularly, there was like this this first big set

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Speaker 1: of riots that kind of ended when the police kind

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Speaker 1: of pushed the rioters back. But because of how many

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Speaker 1: of them there were, they came to an agreement and

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Speaker 1: like the landlords gave concessions to the people in those

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Speaker 1: three buildings. But the next set of strikes were pretty

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Speaker 1: much crushed and the majority of the rent strikes they

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Speaker 1: start popping up in buildings kind of all around this

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Speaker 1: part of New York. In the period they don't win

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Speaker 1: the initial strike um by which I mean people get evicted,

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Speaker 1: the marshals come in, they take these people's furniture out.

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Speaker 1: But what the communists started doing, because they had the numbers,

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Speaker 1: is they would show up after the cops and the

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Speaker 1: marshals left and they would lift like they would put

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Speaker 1: together police systems and lift people's furniture back into their apartments, um,

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Speaker 1: and move them back in. And so part of the

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Speaker 1: understanding was it cost the city money every time they

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Speaker 1: send marshals out because the city was paying to evict people,

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Speaker 1: So will just move them back in after they're evicted, um,

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Speaker 1: And that's going to like make the situation untenable for

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Speaker 1: the city. UM. So that led to the police setting

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Speaker 1: up like temporary police stations outside of some of the

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Speaker 1: buildings that were like most active as part of a

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Speaker 1: long term solution to try to suppress the revolt. UM.

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Speaker 1: The one issue of the Daily Worker noted quote cops

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Speaker 1: patrol the street all day. The entire territory is under

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Speaker 1: semi martial law. People are driven around the streets, off

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Speaker 1: the corners and away from the houses. Um. And so yeah,

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Speaker 1: it you know, kind of this went on for weeks.

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Speaker 1: And there's one of the criticisms that even this this

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Speaker 1: International Socialist Review right up, I found will make of

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Speaker 1: the of the initial rent strike is that because kind

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Speaker 1: of the a lot of the hardcore communist activists came

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Speaker 1: to relish sort of these clashes with police as a

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Speaker 1: result of the evictions and had this belief that they

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Speaker 1: would radicalize the masses um, whereas there was I think

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Speaker 1: among the masses more of like a well, we we

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Speaker 1: mostly want to lose our homes. And when it became

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Speaker 1: when you hit this like they kind of hit this

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Speaker 1: wall where they would come out and fight the cops,

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Speaker 1: but the cops would win and push people out in

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Speaker 1: the end, and the evictions would still happen um. And

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Speaker 1: it it kind of led to this uh kind of

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Speaker 1: loss of of of momentum within the movement UM. And

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Speaker 1: that didn't change until the communists kind of altered their

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Speaker 1: organizing strategy um, and so they started carrying out They

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Speaker 1: started like mobilizing all of the different sort of left

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Speaker 1: wing networks that were in the area to not just

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Speaker 1: do eviction resistance, but to pick it rent striking buildings,

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Speaker 1: to hold street rallies and protest marches. When a protester

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Speaker 1: was killed by the police, they got like fifty people

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Speaker 1: out in the streets and it was just it was

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Speaker 1: this matter of number one, keeping huge numbers of people

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Speaker 1: in the streets, which is you know, expensive for the city,

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Speaker 1: was bad for business in a lot of cases. UM.

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Speaker 1: But they also started organizing unemployed people in to uh

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Speaker 1: like kind of a quasi union sort of situation that

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Speaker 1: didn't just organized stuff on the street, but started reaching

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Speaker 1: out to the government when because this is right around

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Speaker 1: the time that the Roosevelt administration started pushing protections UM

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Speaker 1: and including like eviction protections and like funding to help

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Speaker 1: people stay in their houses. And that was kind of

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Speaker 1: you could you could argue like a lot of those

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Speaker 1: protections came about as a result of all of the

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Speaker 1: people who were doing eviction resistance on the street. But

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Speaker 1: these these unemployed councils they called them, would basically help

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Speaker 1: people go to the government, help people like file for benefits,

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Speaker 1: help people and help people stay in their houses, and

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Speaker 1: kind of in the end, through a variety of different tactics, UM,

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Speaker 1: they were really successful in uh stopping large numbers of

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Speaker 1: people from being dispossessed and keeping a lot of these

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Speaker 1: communities UM together. And the Home Belief Bureaus, which is

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Speaker 1: kind of the government agencies that were formed from like

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Speaker 1: the fund the emergency funding here UM worked with the

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Speaker 1: the unemployed councils to keep people in their home. So

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Speaker 1: it was this you saw this situation where you had

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Speaker 1: it's what started with kind of like physical force confronting

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Speaker 1: the eviction UH teams and confronting the police, and that

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Speaker 1: helped to organize and galvanize people, but it had its limitations.

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Speaker 1: UM and that eventually evolved into a broader sort of

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Speaker 1: series of strikes and marches that were disruptive enough to

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Speaker 1: life that they in the city that they helped to

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Speaker 1: UH to provide kind of UM impetus for government benefits

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Speaker 1: to keep people in their homes. And then once those

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Speaker 1: benefits were there, a lot of these organizations kind of

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Speaker 1: pivoted towards helping people UH like file and get benefits

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Speaker 1: in order to keep them in their homes. And in

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Speaker 1: the end of it, it was just kind of this

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Speaker 1: very multifaceted UH movement that had its missteps and went

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Speaker 1: through a variety of tactics over time, but in the

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Speaker 1: end was largely successful in keeping communities from being forced

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Speaker 1: out their homes. UM and UH, I don't know, I

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Speaker 1: think it's it's an interesting story and it's it's kind

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Speaker 1: of you see when you when you hear eviction events

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Speaker 1: talked about, you people tend to kind of hone in

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Speaker 1: on just the big fights against the police, which were

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Speaker 1: clearly important, or they tend to hone in on stuff

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Speaker 1: that happened elsewhere in the country, like organizations of farmers

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Speaker 1: and sharecroppers who would show up in eviction courts and

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Speaker 1: like threatened police and uh stop you know, sheriffs from

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Speaker 1: evicting widows from their homes and whatnot. And these are

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Speaker 1: important stories, but I think the broader story about like

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Speaker 1: why these eviction resistance networks functioned was that they they

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Speaker 1: pivoted regularly. They didn't just stick with we're going to

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Speaker 1: fight the cops when they try to evict people. They

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Speaker 1: formed these Unemployed Councils UM. And these Unemployed councils were

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Speaker 1: communist organizations, but you didn't have to be a communist

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Speaker 1: to join UM or to benefit from them, and they would,

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Speaker 1: you know, lobby the government on behalf of these people.

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Speaker 1: They would help them get benefits UM and in the end,

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Speaker 1: all of this was really successful in you know, what

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Speaker 1: was the most important battle, which was keeping families in

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Speaker 1: their homes. UM so I don't know. That's that's that's

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Speaker 1: kind of like the what will include a couple of

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Speaker 1: links in here, but um, that's kind of the overall,

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Speaker 1: uh story of what happened in a particularly in New

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Speaker 1: York in the thirties, which is kind of the best

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Speaker 1: documented series of eviction resistance movements. Yeah, quick break, go

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Speaker 1: pee and then continue peeing because you can pee and

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Speaker 1: listen to a podcast. We're back. Um. And before I

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Speaker 1: move on to to Chris's, I wanted to make a

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Speaker 1: note that I've come across a couple of times in

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Speaker 1: my in the readings that I found that like kind

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Speaker 1: of talk about eviction resistance in the thirties, but within

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Speaker 1: the context of either what was happening in two thousand

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Speaker 1: and eight after the financial crash, or what's happening now,

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Speaker 1: which is that evictions are way more common now than

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Speaker 1: they ever were during the Great Depression. Um, both as

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Speaker 1: a percentage of workers and in absolute numbers. UM, it

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Speaker 1: is enormously common. In One of the statistics I found

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Speaker 1: in a New Yorker article about the eviction epidemic is

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Speaker 1: that in Milwaukee, a city which has about a hundred

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Speaker 1: and five thousand renter households. Landlords legally evict roughly sixteen

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Speaker 1: thousand adults and children every year, um. And that's like

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Speaker 1: that that is a significantly higher rate than they were

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Speaker 1: dealing in this period. And because evictions are so commonplace,

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Speaker 1: they don't really attract much attention. One of the reasons

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Speaker 1: why those early eviction defense networks where you get so

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Speaker 1: many people out in the streets, is that the idea

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Speaker 1: that families would be evicted, um, particularly any kind of

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Speaker 1: significant numbers, was was fairly new, and so it drew

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Speaker 1: a lot of attention. People were outraged, um, Whereas today

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Speaker 1: it's something that happens all the time, UM, and it's

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Speaker 1: something that uh, they're a significant amount of infrastructure has

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Speaker 1: been built up to allow evictions. So there are full

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Speaker 1: time sheriff squads in large cities whose only job is

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Speaker 1: to carry out eviction and foreclosure orders. There are moving

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Speaker 1: companies that specialize in just evictions, and the crews for

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Speaker 1: these companies work all day long, five days a week.

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Speaker 1: There is there's so much of this going on in

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Speaker 1: every major city in the country, UM, that there's a

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Speaker 1: significant amount of there's you're not just competing with you know,

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Speaker 1: these these kind of ad hoc teams of marshals and

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Speaker 1: cops showing up to like pile furniture out on the street.

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Speaker 1: You're dealing with years worth of infrastructure to enable evictions.

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Speaker 1: Um so yeah, that sucks anyway, Chris, you why don't

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Speaker 1: you go on? You know, well, okay, what one thing

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Speaker 1: I will say though, is that you know, still even

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Speaker 1: to this date, like the landlords rely heavily on people

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Speaker 1: self evicting people just sort of yeah, you know, the

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Speaker 1: you had an division does as people's leave, right, and

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Speaker 1: so they do not even even with all the certic

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Speaker 1: capacity they built up, they don't actually have the ability

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Speaker 1: to like if everyone, if literally every tenant, I mean

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Speaker 1: you know, like and peopuilt a lot of tenants have

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Speaker 1: started showing up in corporate like if it would be

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Speaker 1: genuinely difficult for them to actually evict every single person

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Speaker 1: like by force, even even with the infrastructure they've built up.

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Speaker 1: But you know I were talking about before before I

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Speaker 1: go into some more resistant example of how we got here,

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Speaker 1: which is, you know, there's there there's a lot of

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Speaker 1: stuff that happens in the seventies and eighties that are

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Speaker 1: sort of important to this um on on a sort

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Speaker 1: of macroeconomic level whose even seems all the way out right.

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Speaker 1: You know, if there's some of these eighties this is

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Speaker 1: a normous economic sort of collapses. There's all these problems,

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Speaker 1: there's mass inflation. And one of the big things that's

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Speaker 1: happening here is that, you know, profit rates and manufacturing

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Speaker 1: are collapsing. It's like, okay, well, what does that have

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Speaker 1: to do with housing? What what I has to do

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Speaker 1: with housing is that you know, we'll zooming on your

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Speaker 1: hand for a second, because you're like, the US were

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Speaker 1: just like guts Japan's manufacturing economy in the eighties through

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Speaker 1: some sort of complicated currency stuff. But Japan's solution to

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Speaker 1: this is interesting. They you know, they're like, okay, so

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Speaker 1: our manufacturing sectors in ruins. How do we maintain the economy?

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Speaker 1: What if we just give a bunch of credit, the

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Speaker 1: very cheap credit to banks and let them buy houses,

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Speaker 1: and so they do, yeah you know, and you know,

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Speaker 1: and yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, we'll they'll buy houses,

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Speaker 1: and they'll and they'll you know, they'll buy houses, and

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Speaker 1: they'll buy stocks, and the value those assets will just

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Speaker 1: keep it like keep increasing and keep increasing, keep increasing.

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Speaker 1: Nothing will ever go wrong. With this, uh about maybe

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Speaker 1: like eight years later you get the East Asian but

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Speaker 1: we're collapsing, and you know, that's that that's a big

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Speaker 1: part of what that was. But the important part about

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Speaker 1: this for US is that so in order to save Japan, right,

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Speaker 1: the US government guts its own manufacturing sector. And so

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Speaker 1: this means you're in the nineties. You know, you have

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Speaker 1: Clinton going, Okay, how are we going to save the economy?

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Speaker 1: And Clinton looks at the Japanese bottle and was like, wait, no,

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Speaker 1: hold down, we can do this too. And so you know,

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Speaker 1: the first the first collapses causes you know, Clinton, Clinton

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Speaker 1: gives the banks and credit, they buy stocks with it.

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Speaker 1: You know, they give like us a bunch of cheap credit,

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Speaker 1: and you know, we buy houses and we buy stocks

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Speaker 1: with it. And then you know, the tech bubble implodes,

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Speaker 1: and then this all leads to thousand eight, where you know,

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Speaker 1: all of the all of the sort of all the

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Speaker 1: bad mortgages, the banks that I'm passing out just implode

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Speaker 1: and and some a couple of banks go under, a

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Speaker 1: couple of like two, like three banks go under, but

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Speaker 1: the ones who survive suddenly, you know, there's all these

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Speaker 1: four closed houses and you know, they just they just

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Speaker 1: start buying them up. And part of the story is

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Speaker 1: Obama just starts just think called robo signing, where they

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Speaker 1: they just start signing like for closure notices, just random houses,

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Speaker 1: like people who were keeping up on their payments. They

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Speaker 1: just like they just take their houses. Like tens tens

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Speaker 1: of thousands of these houses just get taken and get

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Speaker 1: back to the bank, given back to the banks. And

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Speaker 1: this is you know, this is this is how the

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Speaker 1: banks are covered from thous and eight is they took

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Speaker 1: about they stole a bun people's houses at gun point,

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Speaker 1: and what what you see from there? And you know,

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Speaker 1: and this is this is this this is a long

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Speaker 1: range trend that's been happening in the economy since, you know,

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Speaker 1: since seventies and the eighties. Is that you know, Okay,

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Speaker 1: so the sort of the institutional investors people with a

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Speaker 1: bunch of money. They can't get returns from manufacturing anymore

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Speaker 1: in the way they used to. So instead they're like, okay,

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Speaker 1: what if you know, what if what if instead of

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Speaker 1: making money by making things, we just take the money

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Speaker 1: from you at gunpoint and we invest in you know,

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Speaker 1: we we we built, we built anormous police force, and

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Speaker 1: we buy everyone's houses. And now you know there's you know,

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Speaker 1: if you like we we you know this is this

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Speaker 1: is how we get this sue with that's even worse

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Speaker 1: than what was happening in the thirties, which is that,

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Speaker 1: like you know, enormous portions of the world economy are

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Speaker 1: just completely dependent on on these banks and these these

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Speaker 1: giant landlord firms owning these buildings and then you know,

431
00:22:41,119 --> 00:22:42,639
Speaker 1: putting a gun to your head and saying, hey, you're

432
00:22:42,640 --> 00:22:43,879
Speaker 1: going to give us money, and if you don't give

433
00:22:43,920 --> 00:22:46,800
Speaker 1: us money, you lose your home. There are periods where

434
00:22:46,840 --> 00:22:49,600
Speaker 1: people mount sort of effective resistances to this. One of

435
00:22:49,640 --> 00:22:52,919
Speaker 1: them is in so in Spain after thousand eight, you know,

436
00:22:52,960 --> 00:22:56,320
Speaker 1: spends one of the country's worst hit by by by

437
00:22:56,359 --> 00:23:00,240
Speaker 1: the whole sort of collapse, and you know, so normal

438
00:23:00,320 --> 00:23:05,119
Speaker 1: some of people get evicted, but they realize that, you know,

439
00:23:05,440 --> 00:23:07,240
Speaker 1: there's just a bunch of these houses that are just

440
00:23:07,280 --> 00:23:12,080
Speaker 1: sitting there empty, and so, you know, very slowly and

441
00:23:12,119 --> 00:23:15,280
Speaker 1: it's sort of accelerating after thousand and eight eleven, people

442
00:23:15,320 --> 00:23:19,080
Speaker 1: start just squatting in them, and you know, and and

443
00:23:19,119 --> 00:23:20,480
Speaker 1: a lot of these people like these people, some of

444
00:23:20,600 --> 00:23:22,480
Speaker 1: a lot of times's they're going back to the homes

445
00:23:22,520 --> 00:23:25,679
Speaker 1: that like the bank's attaining for them. And you know,

446
00:23:25,800 --> 00:23:32,280
Speaker 1: they they form these basically they formed these like enormous

447
00:23:33,200 --> 00:23:34,800
Speaker 1: I guess you can. They're just sort of the parts

448
00:23:34,800 --> 00:23:40,200
Speaker 1: squad organizations, part um like anti fiction organizations. And what

449
00:23:40,200 --> 00:23:44,440
Speaker 1: what what they're basically able to do is they can Yeah,

450
00:23:44,760 --> 00:23:51,040
Speaker 1: the biggest one is called uh ps p ah UM

451
00:23:51,119 --> 00:23:52,919
Speaker 1: And what what what they're basically able to do is

452
00:23:53,119 --> 00:23:55,840
Speaker 1: they can get enough people together that when the when

453
00:23:55,840 --> 00:23:58,200
Speaker 1: the police show up for an eviction, they can bring

454
00:23:58,240 --> 00:24:01,480
Speaker 1: like five thousand, six thousand people. And this makes it

455
00:24:01,520 --> 00:24:04,480
Speaker 1: just almost this makes it almost impossible, you know, unless

456
00:24:04,520 --> 00:24:06,840
Speaker 1: unless the police can like I can specifically isolate one

457
00:24:06,880 --> 00:24:09,520
Speaker 1: squat squad doesn't have community support, it become almost impossible

458
00:24:09,520 --> 00:24:10,879
Speaker 1: to evict people. And so they have these you know,

459
00:24:10,920 --> 00:24:14,880
Speaker 1: there's there's, there's, there's there's you know, and they they

460
00:24:14,920 --> 00:24:17,760
Speaker 1: lose some battles, they win some battles, but you know,

461
00:24:17,800 --> 00:24:21,520
Speaker 1: they're able to hold be because because they have these

462
00:24:21,560 --> 00:24:26,640
Speaker 1: these sort of enormous organizations of of you know, people

463
00:24:26,640 --> 00:24:28,199
Speaker 1: who are squatting, and then they have you know, they

464
00:24:28,200 --> 00:24:30,120
Speaker 1: have a bunch of communities support, they have support. They said,

465
00:24:30,119 --> 00:24:31,520
Speaker 1: this is something I think, you know, talking about how

466
00:24:31,560 --> 00:24:33,479
Speaker 1: the commun strategy works in the thirties, this is something

467
00:24:33,520 --> 00:24:34,879
Speaker 1: that we're gonna see with a lot of these is

468
00:24:34,920 --> 00:24:38,920
Speaker 1: that like the renters, a bunch of like renters, or

469
00:24:38,920 --> 00:24:40,440
Speaker 1: a bunch of sort of a bunch of people who

470
00:24:40,440 --> 00:24:42,120
Speaker 1: are squatting in houses, a bunch people who are draining

471
00:24:42,160 --> 00:24:46,159
Speaker 1: to division defense because they're being evicted. You know, there's

472
00:24:46,240 --> 00:24:48,639
Speaker 1: there's kind of a limit to what they can do

473
00:24:48,680 --> 00:24:51,080
Speaker 1: on their own to some extent. And the way that

474
00:24:51,119 --> 00:24:53,199
Speaker 1: they you know, the way that they start winning is

475
00:24:53,200 --> 00:24:55,600
Speaker 1: when they're able to sort of well a a when

476
00:24:55,640 --> 00:24:58,119
Speaker 1: they stop fighting you know len Lard's individually and be

477
00:24:58,480 --> 00:25:00,040
Speaker 1: you know, and you start getting these large reverstations. The

478
00:25:00,080 --> 00:25:02,840
Speaker 1: second read and the second thing that changes when they're

479
00:25:02,840 --> 00:25:05,800
Speaker 1: able to bring in the rest of the community. And

480
00:25:05,840 --> 00:25:08,760
Speaker 1: so you know, one one of the another sort of

481
00:25:08,800 --> 00:25:12,440
Speaker 1: example of this is seen, you know it really from

482
00:25:12,480 --> 00:25:16,000
Speaker 1: from you know, seventeen across or North America. You start

483
00:25:16,040 --> 00:25:19,160
Speaker 1: to see a sort of resurgence of tenant of tenant organizing,

484
00:25:20,280 --> 00:25:22,080
Speaker 1: and you know, one of one of the most sort

485
00:25:22,080 --> 00:25:26,600
Speaker 1: of famous examples is Parkdale, which is a it's it's

486
00:25:26,720 --> 00:25:31,280
Speaker 1: it's it's a place in Toronto and in Parkdale, a

487
00:25:31,320 --> 00:25:34,159
Speaker 1: whole bunch of you know, several several hundred tenants and

488
00:25:34,400 --> 00:25:37,840
Speaker 1: across a bunch of buildings, organizing for a long time.

489
00:25:38,680 --> 00:25:41,520
Speaker 1: And eventually, you know, the the you know, they keep

490
00:25:41,520 --> 00:25:44,119
Speaker 1: getting rent increases, they keep getting rent increases, and you know,

491
00:25:44,160 --> 00:25:46,200
Speaker 1: a bunch of these people are going in danger losing

492
00:25:46,200 --> 00:25:48,600
Speaker 1: their homes because they can't aford them anymore. And so

493
00:25:49,000 --> 00:25:50,720
Speaker 1: they start doing rents tricks and they start going for

494
00:25:50,760 --> 00:25:53,840
Speaker 1: building the building to building, and you know, they're they're

495
00:25:53,880 --> 00:25:55,760
Speaker 1: not fighting the cops as much as sort of the

496
00:25:55,760 --> 00:26:00,199
Speaker 1: communists were. A lot of what they do is so

497
00:26:00,280 --> 00:26:03,080
Speaker 1: a lot of people, you know, these park Deals working class,

498
00:26:03,240 --> 00:26:07,520
Speaker 1: community rights. It's also a largely immigrant community, and you know,

499
00:26:07,560 --> 00:26:09,879
Speaker 1: it's it's sort of rapidly being gentrified. But you know

500
00:26:09,880 --> 00:26:12,600
Speaker 1: a lot of people who are in these you know,

501
00:26:12,640 --> 00:26:15,280
Speaker 1: a lot of the tenants are are people who you know,

502
00:26:15,359 --> 00:26:17,760
Speaker 1: had had been in like labor actions, right, have been

503
00:26:17,880 --> 00:26:19,320
Speaker 1: have been in strikes, have been in sort of other

504
00:26:19,440 --> 00:26:23,120
Speaker 1: kinds of labor organizing, and so they're able to pull

505
00:26:23,160 --> 00:26:28,680
Speaker 1: together and they're able also to importantly, they bring in

506
00:26:29,359 --> 00:26:32,080
Speaker 1: like a bunch of the teachers at the local elementary

507
00:26:32,080 --> 00:26:33,920
Speaker 1: school because you know, a bunch of the buildings that

508
00:26:33,960 --> 00:26:36,000
Speaker 1: they're striking in their own but these landlords are right

509
00:26:36,040 --> 00:26:40,560
Speaker 1: around an elementary school, and you know, the teachers who

510
00:26:40,600 --> 00:26:42,200
Speaker 1: you know teaching these schools are you know, they're they're

511
00:26:42,240 --> 00:26:45,080
Speaker 1: also seeing the effects of these kids losing your family,

512
00:26:45,160 --> 00:26:47,000
Speaker 1: like you know that the kids losing their houses. Kids

513
00:26:47,040 --> 00:26:49,760
Speaker 1: just appearings and lost their houses, dealing with these fancial struggles,

514
00:26:49,760 --> 00:26:52,639
Speaker 1: and so they, you know, the teachers start backing them,

515
00:26:52,640 --> 00:26:54,359
Speaker 1: and you start getting this bunch of community support and

516
00:26:54,359 --> 00:26:58,440
Speaker 1: they're able to basically to force the landlords to negotiate

517
00:26:58,480 --> 00:27:03,240
Speaker 1: and they get a settlement. It's like the way they

518
00:27:03,280 --> 00:27:06,119
Speaker 1: describe there's a really good documentary about this called Welcome

519
00:27:06,160 --> 00:27:09,359
Speaker 1: to park called This is Parkdale, And you know, the

520
00:27:09,359 --> 00:27:10,920
Speaker 1: way the way they describe it is that the deal

521
00:27:10,960 --> 00:27:13,280
Speaker 1: they got from from all the all this organizing all

522
00:27:13,280 --> 00:27:15,119
Speaker 1: these men strikes was so good that the government that

523
00:27:15,280 --> 00:27:17,760
Speaker 1: like the company, put a gag order on them so

524
00:27:17,760 --> 00:27:21,679
Speaker 1: they can't talk about the numbers. Right before the pandemic started,

525
00:27:21,680 --> 00:27:23,840
Speaker 1: I think some people probably have heard of this. There

526
00:27:23,880 --> 00:27:26,080
Speaker 1: was a group called Moments for Housing that was in

527
00:27:26,119 --> 00:27:29,000
Speaker 1: Oakland that you know was was had had taken back

528
00:27:29,480 --> 00:27:32,119
Speaker 1: houses that have been taken you know, by by the

529
00:27:32,119 --> 00:27:35,359
Speaker 1: banks that were just sitting there empty. And you know,

530
00:27:35,440 --> 00:27:39,119
Speaker 1: at the very beginning of like the police show up

531
00:27:39,119 --> 00:27:41,440
Speaker 1: with tanks, they show up with you like full ripe

532
00:27:41,440 --> 00:27:44,280
Speaker 1: police stuff. It's like, yeah, like there, you know, and

533
00:27:45,000 --> 00:27:47,840
Speaker 1: the moms are sort of like Griffin from the house

534
00:27:48,280 --> 00:27:50,720
Speaker 1: and this starts. You know, this this is this is

535
00:27:50,760 --> 00:27:52,680
Speaker 1: a continuation of this whole sort of battle they've been

536
00:27:52,680 --> 00:27:55,280
Speaker 1: having with the Lendlers and with the city over it.

537
00:27:55,320 --> 00:27:59,040
Speaker 1: And eventually, you know, they're not able to physically retake

538
00:27:59,280 --> 00:28:02,359
Speaker 1: the building, but they're able to put so much pressure

539
00:28:02,359 --> 00:28:05,760
Speaker 1: on the city that the the Lendler companies basically forced

540
00:28:05,760 --> 00:28:08,840
Speaker 1: to sell the house to a community land trust, which

541
00:28:08,840 --> 00:28:10,200
Speaker 1: is one of the other solutions people who sort of

542
00:28:10,240 --> 00:28:12,160
Speaker 1: come come up and try to deal with that this

543
00:28:12,160 --> 00:28:14,600
Speaker 1: this crisis were broadly, which is that you know, instead

544
00:28:14,600 --> 00:28:16,639
Speaker 1: of instead of having buildings that are like owned by

545
00:28:16,680 --> 00:28:19,479
Speaker 1: landlords and so you know that the reason there they

546
00:28:19,520 --> 00:28:20,840
Speaker 1: have this property is to make money for you and

547
00:28:20,840 --> 00:28:23,000
Speaker 1: they kick you out of you they can't make enough money.

548
00:28:23,560 --> 00:28:25,679
Speaker 1: You have you know, you have these buildings owned by

549
00:28:25,680 --> 00:28:28,560
Speaker 1: the community instead, and you know, and this this, this

550
00:28:28,600 --> 00:28:31,440
Speaker 1: has been I mean there's limits to it, like you

551
00:28:31,560 --> 00:28:33,360
Speaker 1: you need to have enough money to actually be able

552
00:28:33,400 --> 00:28:37,040
Speaker 1: to like buy these buildings. But you know that that

553
00:28:37,160 --> 00:28:39,400
Speaker 1: this this that's that's one of the other things that's been,

554
00:28:39,560 --> 00:28:41,880
Speaker 1: you know, being done to sort of fight this crisis

555
00:28:41,880 --> 00:28:44,080
Speaker 1: is by having the communities themselves just directly take control

556
00:28:44,080 --> 00:28:47,520
Speaker 1: of the buildings. Thanks Chris, We're gonna take a quick

557
00:28:47,560 --> 00:28:49,280
Speaker 1: break and then we'll be back to hear from Garrison

558
00:28:50,200 --> 00:28:54,680
Speaker 1: and Sophie become the president of Transitions. I've always been

559
00:28:54,760 --> 00:28:56,960
Speaker 1: the president. What do you? What do you? What do you?

560
00:28:57,120 --> 00:28:59,440
Speaker 1: What do you? What do you? What are you? Why

561
00:28:59,480 --> 00:29:13,520
Speaker 1: are you? Why you Well, here's adds m. All Right,

562
00:29:13,640 --> 00:29:18,040
Speaker 1: we're back and we're gonna hear from Garrison last. So

563
00:29:18,360 --> 00:29:21,560
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be bringing up one of the more recent

564
00:29:21,800 --> 00:29:24,840
Speaker 1: kind of cases of eviction defense that kind of that

565
00:29:24,960 --> 00:29:29,360
Speaker 1: captured um a bit like a bit of national media attention.

566
00:29:29,600 --> 00:29:34,160
Speaker 1: This was back uh in December with the Red House

567
00:29:34,280 --> 00:29:37,280
Speaker 1: in Portland kind of kind of riding off the trails

568
00:29:37,440 --> 00:29:41,680
Speaker 1: of the of the BLM protests. This kind of had

569
00:29:41,720 --> 00:29:47,240
Speaker 1: the inertia to keep this situation. I'm active with people,

570
00:29:47,280 --> 00:29:49,360
Speaker 1: you know, willing to kind of do the thing where

571
00:29:49,360 --> 00:29:52,080
Speaker 1: you actually go out and fight the cops. Um, although

572
00:29:52,120 --> 00:29:57,120
Speaker 1: that did not happen tons with this situation, UM A brief, brief,

573
00:29:57,160 --> 00:30:00,880
Speaker 1: brief overview of what happened. So there was this family

574
00:30:01,160 --> 00:30:04,600
Speaker 1: who's been in this specific whose own specific home, like

575
00:30:04,640 --> 00:30:07,840
Speaker 1: over fifty years, um, and in the two thousands, they

576
00:30:07,880 --> 00:30:12,480
Speaker 1: went into a series of financial hardships. UM. They they

577
00:30:12,520 --> 00:30:16,080
Speaker 1: took out some kind of predatory loans, um, and just

578
00:30:16,120 --> 00:30:19,000
Speaker 1: they kind of just kept getting they kept they kept

579
00:30:19,240 --> 00:30:23,560
Speaker 1: running into problems with their home. UM. There they tried

580
00:30:23,600 --> 00:30:27,000
Speaker 1: to have one of their sons do like litigation, but

581
00:30:27,040 --> 00:30:29,440
Speaker 1: he was like a sovereign citizen type person and it

582
00:30:29,480 --> 00:30:32,440
Speaker 1: made things kind of worse and it wasn't really ideal.

583
00:30:32,760 --> 00:30:36,760
Speaker 1: But but you know, but that all of so all

584
00:30:36,800 --> 00:30:38,239
Speaker 1: of that is like is like a part of this,

585
00:30:38,320 --> 00:30:41,120
Speaker 1: but the important part for everyone who decided to actually

586
00:30:41,120 --> 00:30:43,560
Speaker 1: show up was like we're in like like this was

587
00:30:43,600 --> 00:30:46,080
Speaker 1: like during like November and December when the plague was

588
00:30:46,120 --> 00:30:51,320
Speaker 1: like the worst it was ever at and just except

589
00:30:51,440 --> 00:30:54,080
Speaker 1: we like there was like there was there was there

590
00:30:54,080 --> 00:30:56,880
Speaker 1: was no vaccinated people in November, right, it was like

591
00:30:56,880 --> 00:31:00,200
Speaker 1: like like the the death rates were like super were

592
00:31:00,240 --> 00:31:04,760
Speaker 1: super high. So and that's when the cops decided to

593
00:31:04,760 --> 00:31:08,240
Speaker 1: evict this family. Um. The the other the other side

594
00:31:08,240 --> 00:31:12,440
Speaker 1: of this is that the company that technically like bought

595
00:31:12,680 --> 00:31:15,320
Speaker 1: the house from the banks, it's also a pretty shady

596
00:31:15,360 --> 00:31:21,160
Speaker 1: developer company. Yeah, so there was there was a lot

597
00:31:21,160 --> 00:31:23,440
Speaker 1: of like weird it was are you going to go

598
00:31:23,480 --> 00:31:26,440
Speaker 1: into you can? You can go into that. Yeah. So

599
00:31:26,480 --> 00:31:29,480
Speaker 1: basically just for an example how shadies they had they were,

600
00:31:29,640 --> 00:31:33,760
Speaker 1: it was some when the national attention started, they immediately

601
00:31:33,840 --> 00:31:37,280
Speaker 1: backed out of wanting to take the house in such

602
00:31:37,280 --> 00:31:39,680
Speaker 1: a way that because of kind of some of the

603
00:31:39,680 --> 00:31:41,760
Speaker 1: connections with people involved, everyone's like, oh it was an

604
00:31:41,840 --> 00:31:45,160
Speaker 1: organized crime thing like it was. It was a criminal enterprise.

605
00:31:45,440 --> 00:31:47,520
Speaker 1: They got attention, We're like, well this is not worth it.

606
00:31:47,560 --> 00:31:49,480
Speaker 1: We don't we don't want anybody looking in on our

607
00:31:49,520 --> 00:31:53,600
Speaker 1: ship it. We're just giving up right away. It was

608
00:31:53,640 --> 00:31:58,200
Speaker 1: a very very very sketchy company slash person had had

609
00:31:58,360 --> 00:32:01,680
Speaker 1: bought the house from from the bank, which the bank

610
00:32:01,760 --> 00:32:04,320
Speaker 1: you took it from this family. But so anyway, in

611
00:32:04,400 --> 00:32:09,000
Speaker 1: like from September to December, the cops kept trying to

612
00:32:09,080 --> 00:32:11,240
Speaker 1: kick people, to kick the people out of this home.

613
00:32:11,640 --> 00:32:13,840
Speaker 1: Sometimes they did, and then sometimes the people were just

614
00:32:13,880 --> 00:32:17,280
Speaker 1: like went back um. And this kind of all culminated

615
00:32:17,320 --> 00:32:20,680
Speaker 1: around like December five, I think, is the date that

616
00:32:20,680 --> 00:32:23,440
Speaker 1: that cops like really tried to to like you know,

617
00:32:23,520 --> 00:32:27,000
Speaker 1: go in there with like rifles, riot gear and like

618
00:32:27,000 --> 00:32:30,640
Speaker 1: like drag people out. Um. And even though it was

619
00:32:30,680 --> 00:32:32,440
Speaker 1: super early in the morning, a lot of like the

620
00:32:32,480 --> 00:32:35,360
Speaker 1: people who have been protesting for like BLM in Portland

621
00:32:35,440 --> 00:32:40,320
Speaker 1: all showed up really quickly and they chased the cops away. Um.

622
00:32:40,400 --> 00:32:44,560
Speaker 1: And then everyone got super tense because they just chased

623
00:32:44,560 --> 00:32:47,600
Speaker 1: away like I don't know, like twenty I think it was.

624
00:32:47,640 --> 00:32:52,160
Speaker 1: It was mostly sheriff's I believe, um. And yeah, so

625
00:32:52,640 --> 00:32:55,200
Speaker 1: then they did what everyone in Portland does is just

626
00:32:55,240 --> 00:33:00,160
Speaker 1: build barricades. For some context, on those Portlanders had been

627
00:33:00,160 --> 00:33:03,960
Speaker 1: building barricades for months, generally to no effect. Like it

628
00:33:04,000 --> 00:33:06,320
Speaker 1: would be like there would be a moving protest, somebody

629
00:33:06,320 --> 00:33:08,120
Speaker 1: would throw a barricade in the street and the police

630
00:33:08,120 --> 00:33:11,080
Speaker 1: would immediately shove it aside. But this time it worked.

631
00:33:11,320 --> 00:33:13,800
Speaker 1: This time it absolutely worked. They built This time it

632
00:33:13,840 --> 00:33:18,760
Speaker 1: worked like gangbusters. They've they've built very thick barricades over

633
00:33:18,840 --> 00:33:22,520
Speaker 1: like like five different sides of this house. Because like

634
00:33:22,960 --> 00:33:24,600
Speaker 1: this this house is like in the middle of a

635
00:33:24,640 --> 00:33:27,320
Speaker 1: city block. It's it was it's a super interesting property

636
00:33:27,640 --> 00:33:30,720
Speaker 1: that just like sits in the middle of a street. Um.

637
00:33:30,960 --> 00:33:34,720
Speaker 1: So they built barricades all around this whole this whole

638
00:33:34,720 --> 00:33:36,960
Speaker 1: section of this neighborhood. They had like they had like

639
00:33:37,040 --> 00:33:40,520
Speaker 1: cow trops. They had like sw trips are spiky balls

640
00:33:40,600 --> 00:33:43,920
Speaker 1: basically that are meant to funk up generally tires, but

641
00:33:43,960 --> 00:33:46,360
Speaker 1: you don't want to step on them either. They also

642
00:33:46,480 --> 00:33:49,800
Speaker 1: had um uh I think they're called like they called

643
00:33:51,040 --> 00:33:55,440
Speaker 1: they're called check headshogs. Um. They're basically kind of like

644
00:33:55,480 --> 00:33:57,960
Speaker 1: cal trops a giant and they're meant to like mess

645
00:33:58,000 --> 00:34:00,280
Speaker 1: at the undercarriage of a vehicle, make it hard for

646
00:34:00,400 --> 00:34:03,240
Speaker 1: vehicles to plow through. So we we had we had these.

647
00:34:03,600 --> 00:34:05,040
Speaker 1: There was there was all this you know, all this

648
00:34:05,160 --> 00:34:08,640
Speaker 1: kind of impromptu weapons. Um. There was like behind all

649
00:34:08,640 --> 00:34:11,320
Speaker 1: the barricades people like lined up like bottles and eggs

650
00:34:11,719 --> 00:34:14,160
Speaker 1: to like help to throw out people if they tried

651
00:34:14,200 --> 00:34:19,160
Speaker 1: to rock. There's various various projectiles like just like laid

652
00:34:19,200 --> 00:34:21,399
Speaker 1: out behind all these barricades. But the barricades were thick,

653
00:34:21,440 --> 00:34:23,760
Speaker 1: you know, they like they actually had like multiple layers

654
00:34:24,160 --> 00:34:26,160
Speaker 1: UM and they had like binding to keep them together.

655
00:34:26,560 --> 00:34:29,000
Speaker 1: It would have been like it would have been difficult

656
00:34:29,120 --> 00:34:33,960
Speaker 1: to get a couple hundred people and heavy equipment, especially

657
00:34:34,000 --> 00:34:35,920
Speaker 1: if the bear if I mean if they weren't manned.

658
00:34:35,920 --> 00:34:37,880
Speaker 1: Obviously you could just walk through, but if the barricades

659
00:34:37,880 --> 00:34:41,000
Speaker 1: had been manned, it would have been um an intense

660
00:34:41,640 --> 00:34:44,719
Speaker 1: uh effort in order to force your way through them.

661
00:34:44,880 --> 00:34:47,920
Speaker 1: So yeah, within like within a few hours, these barricades

662
00:34:47,920 --> 00:34:50,319
Speaker 1: started to come up, and they kept growing over the

663
00:34:50,320 --> 00:34:53,080
Speaker 1: course of a week. UM and there was always like

664
00:34:53,560 --> 00:34:55,640
Speaker 1: they were between like fifty to a hundred people like

665
00:34:55,800 --> 00:34:59,000
Speaker 1: camping out in this spot, sometimes even more people. UM.

666
00:34:59,120 --> 00:35:01,640
Speaker 1: There was like multiple kitchens got set up, people try

667
00:35:01,719 --> 00:35:03,440
Speaker 1: to like there was like they tried to do like

668
00:35:03,560 --> 00:35:08,080
Speaker 1: COVID safe protocols in certain areas. UM. And yeah, it

669
00:35:08,160 --> 00:35:14,400
Speaker 1: became this kuyke relatively relatively like um complicated like network

670
00:35:14,440 --> 00:35:17,880
Speaker 1: of like people like rotating shifts, manning different spots to

671
00:35:17,920 --> 00:35:21,400
Speaker 1: always make sure people are watching all the different entrances UM.

672
00:35:21,480 --> 00:35:25,800
Speaker 1: And basically this this lasted for like like over a week.

673
00:35:25,840 --> 00:35:29,360
Speaker 1: The mayor was very was very pissed. UM. He was

674
00:35:29,400 --> 00:35:34,040
Speaker 1: not thrilled that this situation was happening because one it

675
00:35:34,120 --> 00:35:36,560
Speaker 1: made the sheriffs look bad and two it made it

676
00:35:36,640 --> 00:35:41,520
Speaker 1: made the protesters actually look effective. Um. And now that

677
00:35:41,640 --> 00:35:43,680
Speaker 1: that now, like all of these things we've talked about

678
00:35:43,680 --> 00:35:46,640
Speaker 1: this before, there's there's always runs into problems with sorts

679
00:35:46,640 --> 00:35:49,200
Speaker 1: of things. This is they're never perfect. There was instances

680
00:35:49,239 --> 00:35:54,040
Speaker 1: of people who appointed themselves security doing like you know,

681
00:35:54,080 --> 00:35:58,239
Speaker 1: like like attacking people for like doing graffiti on like

682
00:35:58,560 --> 00:36:02,840
Speaker 1: random walls, um of like like like like pavement in

683
00:36:02,920 --> 00:36:05,520
Speaker 1: other like apartment buildings or whatever. Like. There there was

684
00:36:05,600 --> 00:36:10,120
Speaker 1: there was there was there was like problems specifically around security. Um.

685
00:36:10,160 --> 00:36:13,319
Speaker 1: But that that that that that happens in a lot

686
00:36:13,400 --> 00:36:14,719
Speaker 1: a lot of these things, and that that's kind of

687
00:36:14,719 --> 00:36:18,239
Speaker 1: worth discussing on a whole in a whole another episode. Um.

688
00:36:18,360 --> 00:36:20,840
Speaker 1: And And there were attempts from fascists, like like like

689
00:36:20,880 --> 00:36:23,480
Speaker 1: street fascists not cops, to like to like attack the

690
00:36:23,520 --> 00:36:25,640
Speaker 1: barricades and they didn't really succeed because there were just

691
00:36:25,680 --> 00:36:28,960
Speaker 1: so many people there. Um. So that was kind of

692
00:36:29,040 --> 00:36:31,840
Speaker 1: that that was kind of what happened. Now, people didn't

693
00:36:31,840 --> 00:36:33,600
Speaker 1: know what the end game was for this type of thing,

694
00:36:33,680 --> 00:36:35,960
Speaker 1: right because like we're just like they're just doing this

695
00:36:36,000 --> 00:36:38,360
Speaker 1: thing where like, we don't know how long it's gonna last.

696
00:36:38,800 --> 00:36:41,720
Speaker 1: But as as this was happening, other people were setting

697
00:36:41,800 --> 00:36:45,400
Speaker 1: up like a go fund means to raise money for

698
00:36:45,600 --> 00:36:49,239
Speaker 1: um the family, And eventually the kind of idea that

699
00:36:49,360 --> 00:36:51,239
Speaker 1: was decided on by the family and a few other

700
00:36:51,440 --> 00:36:54,040
Speaker 1: like people involved was like, what if we can just

701
00:36:54,120 --> 00:36:57,480
Speaker 1: get enough money to actually buy the house back um.

702
00:36:57,520 --> 00:37:00,120
Speaker 1: And after like a week and a half they raised

703
00:37:00,400 --> 00:37:04,520
Speaker 1: three hundred and fifteen thousand dollars was the number. And

704
00:37:04,760 --> 00:37:07,400
Speaker 1: because the developer was so shady, he was he like

705
00:37:07,760 --> 00:37:09,880
Speaker 1: like a Robert said, he like backed down immediately. He's like,

706
00:37:09,920 --> 00:37:12,080
Speaker 1: you know, we can, we can find some other solution

707
00:37:12,120 --> 00:37:15,240
Speaker 1: to this. Just stop talking about it. We stopped talking

708
00:37:15,239 --> 00:37:19,359
Speaker 1: about me and my business. So I have to say,

709
00:37:19,480 --> 00:37:22,440
Speaker 1: like we said, probably an organized crime thing. I prefer

710
00:37:22,520 --> 00:37:24,759
Speaker 1: this guy and whatever he's doing a thousand times to

711
00:37:24,840 --> 00:37:28,879
Speaker 1: a bank absolutely, So, so that that was kind of

712
00:37:28,960 --> 00:37:33,680
Speaker 1: the result is that the family made a deal with

713
00:37:33,719 --> 00:37:36,840
Speaker 1: both the city and this developer that they would try

714
00:37:36,880 --> 00:37:41,279
Speaker 1: to basically use some of the fundraised money to buy

715
00:37:41,320 --> 00:37:43,319
Speaker 1: back at this spot. But that this would have been

716
00:37:43,320 --> 00:37:47,120
Speaker 1: totally impossible if it weren't for the militant display of

717
00:37:47,160 --> 00:37:53,360
Speaker 1: defense that activists UM deployed in this in this street

718
00:37:53,400 --> 00:37:55,799
Speaker 1: in Portland, because I mean there's like a lot of

719
00:37:55,960 --> 00:37:59,160
Speaker 1: a lot of you know, like the Portlandia liberal Portlanders

720
00:37:59,160 --> 00:38:01,680
Speaker 1: who weren't also tappy with this. It's like like a

721
00:38:01,680 --> 00:38:05,440
Speaker 1: lot of people wanted this situation ended. UM. So as

722
00:38:05,480 --> 00:38:09,120
Speaker 1: soon as this thing became, you know, a possibility, the

723
00:38:09,160 --> 00:38:11,040
Speaker 1: mayor was like quick was quick to jump on this

724
00:38:11,160 --> 00:38:13,640
Speaker 1: as as a way to like stop this from happening,

725
00:38:14,400 --> 00:38:17,120
Speaker 1: because they did not want this to continue, and because

726
00:38:17,120 --> 00:38:19,640
Speaker 1: it would have been pretty difficult for the cops to

727
00:38:19,680 --> 00:38:22,000
Speaker 1: push through like it we would have turned into quite

728
00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:25,200
Speaker 1: the ship show. And there's I think too really important

729
00:38:25,200 --> 00:38:27,800
Speaker 1: takeaways in terms of why it was able to succeed.

730
00:38:27,920 --> 00:38:31,000
Speaker 1: And I think most of the ultimate success of it

731
00:38:31,080 --> 00:38:35,399
Speaker 1: was was resultant on the first twenty four hours really

732
00:38:35,440 --> 00:38:38,960
Speaker 1: even maybe the first twelve because once the sheriffs tried

733
00:38:38,960 --> 00:38:42,440
Speaker 1: their first push and got pushed out, if they had

734
00:38:42,480 --> 00:38:44,880
Speaker 1: done what generally happened in protests, which is, you know

735
00:38:44,960 --> 00:38:46,880
Speaker 1: you have sometimes you would have a push where the

736
00:38:46,880 --> 00:38:49,800
Speaker 1: cops would like back off, they would bring in more forces,

737
00:38:49,880 --> 00:38:52,239
Speaker 1: and if they had in an hour or two, they

738
00:38:52,239 --> 00:38:54,680
Speaker 1: probably could have cleared people out and done the eviction,

739
00:38:55,120 --> 00:38:57,480
Speaker 1: but they were so surprised, and the fact that it

740
00:38:57,520 --> 00:38:59,600
Speaker 1: had happened in broad daylight was a big factor. It

741
00:38:59,680 --> 00:39:01,319
Speaker 1: was kind of early in the morning when this kicked

742
00:39:01,320 --> 00:39:05,439
Speaker 1: off that they didn't come back, and so immediately people

743
00:39:05,440 --> 00:39:08,080
Speaker 1: started to bringing more folks in. Within six hours or so,

744
00:39:08,160 --> 00:39:10,879
Speaker 1: they were pretty potent barricades. By the time night fell,

745
00:39:11,360 --> 00:39:14,040
Speaker 1: they were significant already, and they just by the time

746
00:39:14,080 --> 00:39:16,280
Speaker 1: I got there that night, they were it was already

747
00:39:16,320 --> 00:39:19,759
Speaker 1: too much, too easily handle. Um. And because of what

748
00:39:19,880 --> 00:39:22,640
Speaker 1: happened in that first twelve hours, by the time the

749
00:39:22,680 --> 00:39:25,759
Speaker 1: city kind of had adapted to what was happening, it

750
00:39:25,840 --> 00:39:29,799
Speaker 1: was already a huge story. The level of defensive infrastructure

751
00:39:29,840 --> 00:39:32,279
Speaker 1: was massive. Like it did. It was because of how

752
00:39:32,360 --> 00:39:35,480
Speaker 1: quickly people came together and got barricades down that they

753
00:39:35,480 --> 00:39:37,960
Speaker 1: were able to get the police off balance. We talked

754
00:39:37,960 --> 00:39:40,480
Speaker 1: a lot about the ode loop, right about how you

755
00:39:40,600 --> 00:39:43,400
Speaker 1: kind of disrupt an opponent, and it is it is

756
00:39:43,440 --> 00:39:47,000
Speaker 1: about stopping them from making a decision, right, um. And

757
00:39:47,080 --> 00:39:51,840
Speaker 1: so step one was kind of once they forced the

758
00:39:51,880 --> 00:39:54,799
Speaker 1: police out, there was something of a blackout about like

759
00:39:55,040 --> 00:39:56,920
Speaker 1: what was like people would talk about what was going on,

760
00:39:56,960 --> 00:39:58,800
Speaker 1: but there wasn't a lot of footage from inside or

761
00:39:58,880 --> 00:40:01,880
Speaker 1: video from inside, so would stopped the cops from observing

762
00:40:02,239 --> 00:40:04,080
Speaker 1: as well as they might otherwise have. And of course

763
00:40:04,080 --> 00:40:06,319
Speaker 1: they couldn't physically observed because they were blocked out of

764
00:40:06,320 --> 00:40:09,320
Speaker 1: the area. Um, they weren't able to kind of because

765
00:40:09,320 --> 00:40:11,480
Speaker 1: of how quickly the media around it drummed up, they

766
00:40:11,520 --> 00:40:13,640
Speaker 1: weren't able to sort of orient a response, find a

767
00:40:13,680 --> 00:40:17,160
Speaker 1: way to villainize the protesters easily. There were attempts made

768
00:40:17,160 --> 00:40:20,520
Speaker 1: after that to attack them personally, like the family and

769
00:40:20,560 --> 00:40:23,000
Speaker 1: the house personally, but they didn't get on that quickly.

770
00:40:23,520 --> 00:40:26,840
Speaker 1: Um And overall, because of how quickly things developed and

771
00:40:26,840 --> 00:40:30,440
Speaker 1: how quickly it got much larger than they were prepared

772
00:40:30,480 --> 00:40:32,480
Speaker 1: to deal with, they were not able to decide and

773
00:40:32,600 --> 00:40:36,799
Speaker 1: act in a timely fashion, and that left kind of

774
00:40:36,800 --> 00:40:39,440
Speaker 1: the momentum on the side of the protesters, and ultimately

775
00:40:39,440 --> 00:40:41,400
Speaker 1: they were successful as a result of that. And I

776
00:40:41,440 --> 00:40:44,279
Speaker 1: think if you're trying to study what about Red House

777
00:40:44,320 --> 00:40:46,600
Speaker 1: is replicable, you know, there's a lot of barricade tactics

778
00:40:46,640 --> 00:40:48,719
Speaker 1: and stuff, but a big part of it is just

779
00:40:48,960 --> 00:40:53,279
Speaker 1: the speed with which people took action and how that

780
00:40:54,040 --> 00:40:57,200
Speaker 1: push the city and the police off balance and allowed

781
00:40:57,200 --> 00:41:01,760
Speaker 1: a victory. Yeah, so you know, the city made the city,

782
00:41:01,840 --> 00:41:03,480
Speaker 1: the developer and the family made a deal that if

783
00:41:03,520 --> 00:41:05,839
Speaker 1: they saially, if the barricades came down, the cops won't

784
00:41:05,840 --> 00:41:09,640
Speaker 1: mess with them. Um As this process of signing over

785
00:41:09,680 --> 00:41:13,600
Speaker 1: the house and doing like financial stuff would go on

786
00:41:13,680 --> 00:41:15,440
Speaker 1: and and and and that is that is still no

787
00:41:15,520 --> 00:41:18,239
Speaker 1: gooing process. That that's that's still something that's still it's

788
00:41:18,280 --> 00:41:21,880
Speaker 1: still being dealt with. But the cops haven't messed with

789
00:41:21,920 --> 00:41:26,239
Speaker 1: the property since December five, Um, so that is that

790
00:41:26,400 --> 00:41:29,600
Speaker 1: is you know, and this this isn't a perfectly reputable

791
00:41:30,000 --> 00:41:33,839
Speaker 1: This isn't a perfectly um like, you can't you can't

792
00:41:33,880 --> 00:41:36,759
Speaker 1: replicate this specific strategy always, like you know, it's not

793
00:41:36,800 --> 00:41:41,040
Speaker 1: always possible to raise two dollars to buy to buy

794
00:41:41,080 --> 00:41:44,280
Speaker 1: back a property. Um, you know, because especially if especially

795
00:41:44,320 --> 00:41:47,440
Speaker 1: if you're renting. Um you know, there's there's all these

796
00:41:47,520 --> 00:41:52,880
Speaker 1: things that can't be replicated exactly. But the general idea

797
00:41:53,080 --> 00:41:59,279
Speaker 1: of very quick sudden mobilization that catches powers at be

798
00:41:59,480 --> 00:42:02,640
Speaker 1: off is something that it can be useful in a

799
00:42:02,680 --> 00:42:05,279
Speaker 1: lot of different scenarios. Right. It's so the kind of

800
00:42:05,320 --> 00:42:10,640
Speaker 1: the reason because basically the barricades and the testmnizlation created

801
00:42:10,680 --> 00:42:14,320
Speaker 1: more options. So if you want to create more options,

802
00:42:14,360 --> 00:42:16,279
Speaker 1: this is something that that can do that, right, This

803
00:42:16,320 --> 00:42:18,760
Speaker 1: is something that can put more things on the table.

804
00:42:18,840 --> 00:42:21,640
Speaker 1: It may not be the same result, but there's going

805
00:42:21,719 --> 00:42:24,799
Speaker 1: to be other things that that could happen. And I

806
00:42:24,800 --> 00:42:28,359
Speaker 1: think the other thing that's important here, you know, you know,

807
00:42:28,400 --> 00:42:31,040
Speaker 1: the red haws is sort of interesting because the cops,

808
00:42:31,200 --> 00:42:32,880
Speaker 1: to some extent, we're expecting just since they just were

809
00:42:32,960 --> 00:42:35,040
Speaker 1: expecting this much. But you know, again, like as we're

810
00:42:35,040 --> 00:42:41,200
Speaker 1: saying earlier, landlords like are basically relying to to a

811
00:42:41,280 --> 00:42:43,560
Speaker 1: very large sound of people invating themselves right there. They're

812
00:42:43,600 --> 00:42:47,279
Speaker 1: not expecting resistance. And this is why, you know, like

813
00:42:47,320 --> 00:42:51,080
Speaker 1: this is why it tends to be. You know, if

814
00:42:51,120 --> 00:42:52,799
Speaker 1: if you if you do one of these things, you

815
00:42:52,840 --> 00:42:56,000
Speaker 1: get this like like one enormous police response, right, Like

816
00:42:56,040 --> 00:42:57,319
Speaker 1: you know, they show they show up, they you know,

817
00:42:57,600 --> 00:42:59,000
Speaker 1: trow up a tanks, right, And the reason they do

818
00:42:59,080 --> 00:43:01,520
Speaker 1: that is because you know that what what they can

819
00:43:01,520 --> 00:43:03,520
Speaker 1: do is they can make an example out of people, right,

820
00:43:03,640 --> 00:43:07,400
Speaker 1: but they can't actually stop everyone. Right, Like they're they're

821
00:43:07,400 --> 00:43:09,240
Speaker 1: they're they're not, they're not they're not they're not equipped

822
00:43:09,239 --> 00:43:11,879
Speaker 1: for you know, dealing with three million people just saying no.

823
00:43:13,040 --> 00:43:15,200
Speaker 1: And so you know, if if you organize fast enough

824
00:43:15,239 --> 00:43:17,799
Speaker 1: and if you catch them by surprise, and you know,

825
00:43:17,880 --> 00:43:20,719
Speaker 1: if if you bring the stuff that they're doing like

826
00:43:21,000 --> 00:43:22,800
Speaker 1: to light, like you know, you show up to their houses,

827
00:43:22,840 --> 00:43:24,200
Speaker 1: you show up to like you show up to the banks,

828
00:43:24,200 --> 00:43:27,160
Speaker 1: you show up to their offices right like they're not

829
00:43:27,440 --> 00:43:30,040
Speaker 1: you know, and you keep going right there they're they're

830
00:43:30,040 --> 00:43:32,040
Speaker 1: not they're not expecting this, they're not prepared for it.

831
00:43:32,120 --> 00:43:34,440
Speaker 1: And you know, and you know there's also a park there.

832
00:43:34,520 --> 00:43:37,160
Speaker 1: Like they'll lose, right like they they will a lot

833
00:43:37,160 --> 00:43:39,520
Speaker 1: of times. Like they will negotiate, they will settle. They

834
00:43:39,520 --> 00:43:43,520
Speaker 1: will not effect you like in order basically to you know,

835
00:43:44,040 --> 00:43:45,960
Speaker 1: deal with all the attention, the fact that they can't

836
00:43:46,880 --> 00:43:50,520
Speaker 1: drive you out. Yeah, all right, and I think that's

837
00:43:50,560 --> 00:43:54,239
Speaker 1: going to uh call it a day for us here

838
00:43:54,320 --> 00:43:57,759
Speaker 1: at it could happen here, um the podcast that is

839
00:43:57,800 --> 00:44:04,800
Speaker 1: this one. So go out and I don't know, eat

840
00:44:06,080 --> 00:44:10,360
Speaker 1: an entire seven thirty seven piece by piece or do

841
00:44:10,480 --> 00:44:15,200
Speaker 1: something else. Goodbye. You can follow us happen here on Twitter,

842
00:44:15,200 --> 00:44:29,000
Speaker 1: on Instagram, and allegedly allegedly allegedly Sophie by Everybody. It

843
00:44:29,000 --> 00:44:31,280
Speaker 1: Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.

844
00:44:31,520 --> 00:44:34,200
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website

845
00:44:34,200 --> 00:44:36,319
Speaker 1: cool zone media dot com or check us out on

846
00:44:36,360 --> 00:44:38,920
Speaker 1: the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

847
00:44:38,960 --> 00:44:41,759
Speaker 1: listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could

848
00:44:41,760 --> 00:44:44,759
Speaker 1: Happen Here, updated monthly at cool zone Media dot com,

849
00:44:44,800 --> 00:44:47,839
Speaker 1: slash sources, and just as a heads up, we'll be

850
00:44:47,880 --> 00:44:50,319
Speaker 1: back next week on Tuesday instead of Monday, as we'll

851
00:44:50,360 --> 00:44:54,240
Speaker 1: be taking the day off for Labor Day by not laboring,

852
00:44:54,600 --> 00:44:57,840
Speaker 1: so catch up on an old episode or cleanse yourself

853
00:44:57,840 --> 00:44:58,520
Speaker 1: of our voices.