Speaker 1: Welcome Dack. It Appened Here, a podcast about landlords doing
Speaker 1: bullshit and how you can stop them. Today, we're continuing
Speaker 1: our interview with two tenants in California fighting a massiveviction
Speaker 1: by landlord Ghules core spaces Enjoy. Yeah, something else I
Speaker 1: wanted to ask about that I'd heard about was like
Speaker 1: harassment from the guards and the fact that there suddenly
Speaker 1: started being security guards after this started. I'm talking. Yeah,
Speaker 1: either you want to talk about that a bit.
Speaker 2: I yeah, I would love to talk about that. So
Speaker 2: I have lived here for almost three years. We did
Speaker 2: have security. I want to say it was Saturdays between
Speaker 2: It was one security guard for all four buildings Saturdays
Speaker 2: between eleven pm and like three four am, just just
Speaker 2: one security guard that will walk around just during that time.
Speaker 2: Since core Spaces has purchased the property, we have two
Speaker 2: to four twenty four to seven security guards. I know
Speaker 2: they're they're really They've made me personally super fucking uncomfortable.
Speaker 2: I've had them ask me where I live, Like when
Speaker 2: I'm going around canvassing right trying to get flyers people's
Speaker 2: doores let them know, like, hey, this is these are
Speaker 2: the actual facts.
Speaker 3: Stuff like that. They've asked me, like where, what building.
Speaker 2: Do you live in?
Speaker 3: What's your name? Creepy things?
Speaker 2: And I'm like, I'm not going to tell you that
Speaker 2: I have no idea who you are. They walk past
Speaker 2: our apartment constantly. It's every time I go outside, they're
Speaker 2: waiting right outside the building. They're taking photos of the
Speaker 2: things across the buildings, like stuff outside of people's units.
Speaker 2: It's really uncomfortable, and it's kind of telling because it's like, well,
Speaker 2: we never need a security before. Oh, but but once
Speaker 2: you bought the building and wanted to kick everyone out, Oh,
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, you're you're you know, you're hiring
Speaker 2: these random people, which I will also add one of
Speaker 2: our neighbors talk to one of the security guards. He
Speaker 2: worked there for a day and was like, yeah, they
Speaker 2: lowered my pay to like minimum wage.
Speaker 3: I'm not going yeah, yeah, he literally don't.
Speaker 4: Maybe we should try to like help utilize the yes
Speaker 4: course baces. You guys are such Mark Lips and Chris Richards.
Speaker 4: You guys are the cheapest, stummiest him in the England planet.
Speaker 2: Right And and he was like, yeah, I'm leaving, like
Speaker 2: I'm not going to do this.
Speaker 3: This is stupid.
Speaker 2: But usually when I go out, you know, I mean
Speaker 2: for the most part, they're usually just sitting on their phone,
Speaker 2: standing in front of the entrance, locking the doors again,
Speaker 2: stuff like that.
Speaker 5: Kind Yeah, well with yeah, well the standing around part
Speaker 5: of the cops chop so far hopefully not the other
Speaker 5: part of the cop jop where they yeah.
Speaker 3: Minus any credentials.
Speaker 2: Basically not that I want cops here either, but but yeah,
Speaker 2: it's been in my own personal opinion, it's harassing behavior,
Speaker 2: you know, and it's in and I've talked to so
Speaker 2: many tenants here, especially again the more marginalized tenants. I'm
Speaker 2: not I'm not gonna like specify them, but they're very
Speaker 2: intimidated by them, and they actually do think they are cops.
Speaker 2: They don't know that. No, these aren't police officers. They
Speaker 2: aren't trying to. They don't have the power to do
Speaker 2: certain things that you may be afraid of.
Speaker 1: Are they like, are they like in like like policy uniforms.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, they have Yeah, they have security uniforms.
Speaker 2: They have tasers on them. They they they like to
Speaker 2: direct their power.
Speaker 1: Yeah, probably not similar enough to be able to get
Speaker 1: them on a person, to get police officer, but it's
Speaker 1: still really depressing that Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but and again, and the strategy is to get
Speaker 4: to it's to scare the ship out of people say.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just terror.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, it's it's uncomfortable.
Speaker 2: It's uncomfortable when you go out of your apartment and
Speaker 2: there's just some random person with a taser just like
Speaker 2: right next to you, and you're like, uh, I'm just
Speaker 2: trying to go check my mailbox, Like what the what
Speaker 2: the hell?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, well you guys are safer though, right, So
Speaker 4: that like that's happened Like if a like like if
Speaker 4: an evil landlord and their slimy scummy evil law tine
Speaker 4: were to try to like put you guys under the streets,
Speaker 4: the security guards would come and defend you against them.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: Oh wait, no, I am I mixed up. Oh they're
Speaker 4: here to serve the evil people trying to put you
Speaker 4: on the streets. Oh that's minimum minimum.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean that's the sad thing too, is that that
Speaker 4: the security guards are probably going to get renevicted by
Speaker 4: like the Homeboys of the Core Spaces executives at some point, right,
Speaker 4: Like yeah, uh, they're they're going to get renovicted. Somebody
Speaker 4: is going to look at their wherever they're living as
Speaker 4: a as a low performing asset that needs to be
Speaker 4: retenanted and ship. Yeah, so yeah, I don't. So that's fun,
Speaker 4: that's cool.
Speaker 2: I don't I don't blame I know, I understand the job.
Speaker 3: I don't blame them.
Speaker 2: I guess as individuals, well, some of them, I do,
Speaker 2: because they're clearly on power trips.
Speaker 3: They like to enforce their power.
Speaker 2: But I do understand that they are being hired outside
Speaker 2: to do a job. But it's it's really not fun.
Speaker 2: I couldn't imagine ever, Yeah, doing that myself, I wouldn't
Speaker 2: feel right.
Speaker 3: But I don't know.
Speaker 2: You know, everyone, we're all suffering, right like the you know,
Speaker 2: we're all trying to survive.
Speaker 3: So I try not to judge too much, but I
Speaker 3: can't help it. When you know they're taking photos.
Speaker 2: Inside the windows of my apartment, it's sucking creepy, like.
Speaker 6: Yeah, pretty creepy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess. Okay, is there anything else that I
Speaker 1: teach you to if.
Speaker 4: You want to talk about Let's see, we got the beginning,
Speaker 4: so we got the law passed, and then we got.
Speaker 6: The slimy.
Speaker 4: Time. Taylor Fox Howard LP Garbage Law Firm came along. Well, okay,
Speaker 4: so one one thing that's been a struggle, and I
Speaker 4: would say, like Sam and a couple others have been
Speaker 4: it's just nuts to me, like how much stamina. Well no, actually,
Speaker 4: let me say this, like, uh so I am. I'm
Speaker 4: a mental professional, which I don't like to say in
Speaker 4: organizing spaces a lot because I don't like to mix
Speaker 4: up the role too much. But like, straight up, everybody
Speaker 4: I talk to in these situations, like in the role
Speaker 4: of like tenant organizer, not not like therapists. It's just
Speaker 4: everything reeks of PTSD symptoms, Like straight up like people
Speaker 4: can't sleep, people are hyper vigilant. They're going out to
Speaker 4: their car and they're looking around to see if there's
Speaker 4: a security guard. They're in constant fear, they're confused there,
Speaker 4: you know, their their startle responses up, which is which
Speaker 4: is hyper vigulous. I mean there's literally can pick up
Speaker 4: a fucking ds M five and look at the definition
Speaker 4: of PTSD, and I would say, uh, I can't say everyone.
Speaker 4: I haven't talked to everyone in the building, but I
Speaker 4: mean this process creates fucking PTSD. Like I'm not exaggerating,
Speaker 4: I'm not making this up. And also because the mental
Speaker 4: health fields, as a side note, is such a like neoliberal, individualistic,
Speaker 4: fucking trash fire. It's hard to actually look at this
Speaker 4: correctly to say like this is this is like a
Speaker 4: mass like trauma of it. But despite the mass trauma
Speaker 4: that everybody experiences with this, the resilience in it of
Speaker 4: being like Okay, we're still going to go out and
Speaker 4: we're going to fly her and we're going to knock
Speaker 4: on doors and so like, there's been this phase, like
Speaker 4: a two part kind of phase, which has been continuing
Speaker 4: to talk to the county supervisors to try to get
Speaker 4: them to pass a stronger law because there's kind of
Speaker 4: this race now where if and when course Spaces gets permits,
Speaker 4: then they can send out like actually proper notices, although
Speaker 4: maybe there'll be problems of the notices and that can
Speaker 4: be addressed or whatever, but like it is, it is
Speaker 4: kind of just buying time, right if they if they
Speaker 4: get permits and then they try to evict everybody, then
Speaker 4: then then there's the actual sixty day uh like countdown,
Speaker 4: I guess, depending depending on a lot of different factors. Right,
Speaker 4: But so the county one of the supervisors said, you know,
Speaker 4: I want to I want to make like the most
Speaker 4: gruesome speed bump to you know, to speed bump is
Speaker 4: eviction for core spaces. And so what they did is
Speaker 4: it is a big speed bump, but it actually doesn't
Speaker 4: like solve the problem. Would solve the problem is either
Speaker 4: a no fault of diction moratorium, which would be like
Speaker 4: really broad. We're not sure how how what the chances
Speaker 4: are getting them to pass that. But another thing would
Speaker 4: be it's usually called right to return, but we're calling
Speaker 4: it right to re rent because right to return, I
Speaker 4: guess is a thing that like I don't know, I
Speaker 4: don't know, like Ziona Day or something, I don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it's a whole right right, right, So so, but right
Speaker 4: to re rent, which is like a thing that is
Speaker 4: in several other other cities and counties, which just means
Speaker 4: like if the landlord legitimately needs to make renovations because
Speaker 4: of like safety and inhabitability concerns or whatever, they have
Speaker 4: to relok relocate the tenant temporarily, and then they have
Speaker 4: to re rent to the tenant for what we were
Speaker 4: asking is the same rent. We also think that like
Speaker 4: using the using the ten percent a year framework would
Speaker 4: be fine, like relocate them and then raise it by
Speaker 4: ten percent if you didn't already once that year, right,
Speaker 4: just just treat it as a normal thing. Like so
Speaker 4: if we get them to pass that law, then they
Speaker 4: can divict anybody.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 4: So on the one hand, we're like really trying to
Speaker 4: get the supervisor studious and it's just sort of it's
Speaker 4: just unknown, like how likely we are on that in
Speaker 4: this moment. But then simultaneously we need to continue kind
Speaker 4: of like educating the tenants on like on their rights
Speaker 4: because they keep like as of today, management started illegally
Speaker 4: in a racist way, targeting Spanish speaking Latino tenants telling
Speaker 4: them that that they have to pick up their checks
Speaker 4: right now. And Sam, you can correct it from but
Speaker 4: it's like you have to pick up your checks by today,
Speaker 4: I don't know, like next week or something. It's like
Speaker 4: really soon or otherwise, like you don't get your relocation
Speaker 4: money and then you're going to get intoviction lawsuit and
Speaker 4: course spaces already as permits. Just making up all the
Speaker 4: like all these things are lies. None of them they're true.
Speaker 2: I was just gonna say I'm white, so I actually
Speaker 2: didn't get that notice. But you are correct that Latina
Speaker 2: families take get that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, because course spaces are racist and John Tyne
Speaker 4: is a racist and Lacy Taylor's a racist, and they're
Speaker 4: fucking evil pieces of shit. And I'm glad they're listening
Speaker 4: to this and they quote me as many fucking times
Speaker 4: as they want in any context. But so having to
Speaker 4: like try to counter those all that disinformation, all those
Speaker 4: lies is like this constant, like parallel process, like trying
Speaker 4: to get the county to do stuff, but trying to
Speaker 4: get people to like understand, like, no, they're lying to you, right,
Speaker 4: Like while they're in this like chronic state of kind
Speaker 4: of like PTSD, they're like where am I going to go?
Speaker 4: What am I going to do? What's happening? And it's
Speaker 4: hard for them to know who to trust because they're
Speaker 4: being pummeled with with disinformation and rise from people with
Speaker 4: a lot of power over them. I don't know if
Speaker 4: you had anything else. Sorry, I kind of went off there.
Speaker 2: No, you're you're fine, It's yeah, that's that's kind of
Speaker 2: the way I see it as well. I guess what
Speaker 2: I would add is if the county doesn't do something,
Speaker 2: this is.
Speaker 6: Going to be.
Speaker 2: Horrible for the entire county of Santa Barbara, but just
Speaker 2: California in general. I mean, you have to think of
Speaker 2: two one hundred and forty plus units, fifty whatever.
Speaker 3: We don't even know how many units.
Speaker 2: There's so many units here, it's like it's insane.
Speaker 3: This is going to be so bad. Where are these
Speaker 3: people going to go?
Speaker 2: If Santa Barbara has a from what I've heard, a
Speaker 2: one to two percent vacancy rate, these these these people have,
Speaker 2: including me as a person living here, have nowhere to go.
Speaker 2: I'm I will be entirely forced out of the county.
Speaker 2: Me and my partner, who holds a job here. He
Speaker 2: works as such a livery driver. He likes his job.
Speaker 2: It doesn't pay great, doesn't have good benefits, but he
Speaker 2: enjoys it and he's an important part of the community.
Speaker 2: And if all of these human beings are forced out
Speaker 2: of here, what is that going to do to Santa Barbara?
Speaker 2: You know who's going to who are going to be,
Speaker 2: the teachers, the healthcare professionals, the everything. I will say
Speaker 2: in addition to that, this is why we formed Core
Speaker 2: Spaces Tenants Association with the help of SBTU, so that
Speaker 2: we can not only stay together and work together as
Speaker 2: a union to fight this, but also what core spaces
Speaker 2: will likely do in the future. So we actually learned
Speaker 2: from the Santa Barbara Independent. They interviewed one of the
Speaker 2: I think it was one of the Course Basis representatives.
Speaker 3: Who said this was they have done this forty six.
Speaker 2: Times and this is the first time they ever got
Speaker 2: this level of community outreach, which I was like, excuse me,
Speaker 2: what what we know that their executives are They've previously
Speaker 2: worked for Goldman, Sachs and Blackstone, and to find out
Speaker 2: they've done this forty at least forty six other times
Speaker 2: and just gotten away with it. Now we're we're not
Speaker 2: going to keep letting that happen. And so whatever happens
Speaker 2: here at CBC in the sweeps are four buildings, however
Speaker 2: it turns out, and hopefully it turns out in our favor,
Speaker 2: We're not going to stop.
Speaker 3: Because they are further.
Speaker 2: They're just going to keep continuing this and it's we
Speaker 2: it's disgusting. We can't keep letting this shit happen. Like
Speaker 2: someone needs to stop it. It needs to be stopped.
Speaker 2: And if I hope that we can get legislation to
Speaker 2: stop it, but if not, we're going to be a
Speaker 2: fighting force and we're not yeah, we're not stopping hell yeah.
Speaker 4: Oh and then I guess like, yeah, I don't think
Speaker 4: you really said this, but like if any other tenants
Speaker 4: that are you know, course Space as tenants wanted to
Speaker 4: join Sam and her neighbors, right, Like that's that was
Speaker 4: like you're saying Sam, Like the point was to create
Speaker 4: something like they could have They could have named it
Speaker 4: as more of a local thing like there their tendant Association,
Speaker 4: but they chose Course Spaces as the company name. Right,
Speaker 4: So like, and if you're in Arizona, if you're in Tennessee,
Speaker 4: if you're in Seattle, Seattle or whatever, and you are
Speaker 4: people getting renevicted by these people or or I don't know,
Speaker 4: you're just students like renting by the bed, I won't
Speaker 4: fix stuff or whatever, like you can join the course
Speaker 4: basis then association this very well could be like a
Speaker 4: national level organization. Like right now it's local, but it's
Speaker 4: been set up to be something that could be potentially
Speaker 4: national or international. Of course Bass wants to go you know,
Speaker 4: Capital and those no boarders, so they want to go
Speaker 4: fuck people up in other countries. Then you know, we
Speaker 4: can pay more interpreters. I guess.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I guess that's the thing I wanted to
Speaker 1: close on is like, you know, tenants unions are not
Speaker 1: composed of like some kind of like like special group
Speaker 1: of people, right. They're just people, right, Like I did
Speaker 1: it back when I was doing stuff right, and like
Speaker 1: it's just it's just composed of random people. And like
Speaker 1: that random person could very easily be you. And you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're saying, like someone has to stop these people, and
Speaker 1: if it's not going to be that, it's not going
Speaker 1: to be you. The tenants fighting them like no one,
Speaker 1: no one is ever going to and they're just to
Speaker 1: keep running people over forever.
Speaker 4: And politicians just aren't going to do this. I mean
Speaker 4: acted really quickly because of the like show of force
Speaker 4: from right, so they get like a cover from the constituency.
Speaker 4: We're like, oh, we're allowed to do this, Like we
Speaker 4: can do this, and or we're terrified of what will happen,
Speaker 4: like will this be like another police station burnt down
Speaker 4: if we pissed them off or something? Right, Like you
Speaker 4: actually have to sort of like make the politicians afraid
Speaker 4: of you. I mean you want to be their friends
Speaker 4: and stuff too. I'm not very good at that I'm
Speaker 4: good at like scaring them, I guess, but like you
Speaker 4: have to like kind of scare them into acting. You
Speaker 4: have to like discipline the politicians in acting. So anybody
Speaker 4: that's like we just see more policies, it's like policies
Speaker 4: don't just happen.
Speaker 1: Like yeah, like the like the Center burd people, It's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: they acted quickly when they were forced to, but you know,
Speaker 1: they could have literally at any time in the entire
Speaker 1: history of Santa Barbara, they could have just passed this,
Speaker 1: and they didn't until until you came for.
Speaker 4: Them, right exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, And I think you're right about like
Speaker 2: the Tennis Association, the Tennis Association being just we're random tenants.
Speaker 2: I'm not some politician, I'm not some leader. I'm a student,
Speaker 2: you know. I usually just spend my nights making dinner
Speaker 2: with my cats, watching Jeopardy, Like I don't do this.
Speaker 2: But the point being is when you come together as
Speaker 2: a group, you have power in numbers. And although I
Speaker 2: have faith that we will win against core Spaces for
Speaker 2: our complex, even if we don't, we've left a huge
Speaker 2: mark and we've helped so many residents of Santa Barbara County.
Speaker 3: For maybe.
Speaker 2: Landlords that we're planning to change the stove out and
Speaker 2: not get permits, Well now they have to find a
Speaker 2: reason to get a permit.
Speaker 3: We've at least done that.
Speaker 2: But I think there's a lot more that we will
Speaker 2: do and can do, especially against core spaces and their
Speaker 2: future endeavors their properties they decide that they want to overpay.
Speaker 4: For yeah, I will throw out. Like one other resource
Speaker 4: that is like a group that's called the Autonomous Tenants
Speaker 4: Union Network, which is a network that SB two is
Speaker 4: a part of. Just if you are if you're in
Speaker 4: attendance union or you're interested in tenant organizing from anything
Speaker 4: you've heard, they are there. It's it's like a network.
Speaker 4: Like the word autonomous again is like it's people who
Speaker 4: are sort of independent of various like you know, like nonprofits,
Speaker 4: foundations and governments to just be sort of responsive just
Speaker 4: to tenants themselves. So I'm not like a representative of
Speaker 4: the group or au tuned, but it's a really strong
Speaker 4: network of really experienced organizers that are really intent on
Speaker 4: these kinds of things, right like forming like there's a
Speaker 4: crisis former tenant association, like organize your whole block, like
Speaker 4: get the politician to do a thing, go on rent
Speaker 4: strike like whatever. Right, this more sort of militant, like
Speaker 4: we desperate requires us to you know, to meet the
Speaker 4: crisis where it's at and act that way. Right. So,
Speaker 4: and there's other resources and I'm sure you can have
Speaker 4: like you know, show notes and stuff, or you can
Speaker 4: have links.
Speaker 1: But yeah, other places specifically people can go if they
Speaker 1: want to help the struggle specifically.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so for core spaces Tenet Association, the social media
Speaker 2: handle is all core spaces t A. That would be
Speaker 2: for Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and TikTok. We have a go
Speaker 2: fundme going as well, just to pay for things like
Speaker 2: you know, food for events or i don't know, printing paper,
Speaker 2: flyering stuff like that. We also have an email that
Speaker 2: anyone can reach us at at core spacesta at gmail dot.
Speaker 1: Com and we will we will put all of that
Speaker 1: in the show notes. Sounds good. Thank you to so
Speaker 1: much for coming on, and yeah, go beat these sons
Speaker 1: of bitches, letting us swear.
Speaker 2: We're definitely making their lives a lot harder than.
Speaker 3: They expected, which is kind of cool.
Speaker 4: But yeah, yes.
Speaker 1: Let's been naked up in here, and yeah, you too
Speaker 1: can go make your landlords days worse and your day's better.
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