Speaker 1: Welcome to it could happen here a podcast where you
Speaker 1: all keep telling me that we keep doing depressing episodes
Speaker 1: and we never do any episodes that aren't dumerism. So
Speaker 1: today this is a podcast about how you can find
Speaker 1: the people who are making your life really bad and
Speaker 1: make bad things happen to them instead. And with me
Speaker 1: to talk about how this has been done and also
Speaker 1: can be done, is Janet you who is a tenant
Speaker 1: organizer with the Chinatown Community for Equitable Development in l
Speaker 1: A and A. Here's another tenant organizer and leader at
Speaker 1: Northside Villa um A. Janis, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: joining us. Thank you. Yeah, and that's health Side VideA
Speaker 1: Healthside via. Sorry, So this is what happens when I
Speaker 1: have m R I brand. I guess okay, So the
Speaker 1: first thing I want to sort of walk through is
Speaker 1: basically can can can you describe the win you all
Speaker 1: had a couple of weeks ago? Yeah, I can go
Speaker 1: ahead and start and then and I if you want
Speaker 1: to fill in at all. Um So, a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks ago we were able to successfully push our city
Speaker 1: council to approve alone to acquire hills Iddea from slum
Speaker 1: lord tom Bots, and so just to make it clear,
Speaker 1: this isn't the end of the fight. We have not
Speaker 1: fully appropriated tom Bots at the moment, but this is
Speaker 1: a huge victory and commitment from the city to take
Speaker 1: the building from him. So it was really really exciting
Speaker 1: for all of us, you know. I guess one thing
Speaker 1: I want to clarify from the outset is that a
Speaker 1: lot of the reporting about it seemed like a lot
Speaker 1: of the reporting about it was saying that the city
Speaker 1: had had voted to use them in the domain and
Speaker 1: they have not done that, which is my understanding. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So to clarify that part two the motion that was
Speaker 1: past it does include that eminent domain will be used
Speaker 1: if the landlord does not willingly sell, which he most
Speaker 1: likely will not of course, Yeah, exactly, so he's not
Speaker 1: gonna will if you sell his building. It does include
Speaker 1: that it will be used in as part of the pathway, um,
Speaker 1: but it does not specifically past the eminental main piece,
Speaker 1: so that will be something that we will probably have
Speaker 1: to organize around. Um. Yeah, and if I'm understanding correctly,
Speaker 1: then understand that that requires a second vote, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: But I guess okay, for first off, also congratulations, this
Speaker 1: rules us really exciting. UM. Yeah, And I guess the
Speaker 1: second thing I wanted to ask about was how how
Speaker 1: this organizing process started and how are you able to
Speaker 1: do this because this is a this is a rare
Speaker 1: massive w yeah mm hmm. Yeah, so this has been
Speaker 1: a three year struggle, UM, and I can give a
Speaker 1: little bit of context around how how it got started
Speaker 1: and then maybe Ana you can take it from there. UM.
Speaker 1: So basically, Hillside Via is part of a massive amount
Speaker 1: of buildings that were built in the eighties, UM using
Speaker 1: different kinds of federal and state subsidies. UM. And basically, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was UM subsidies that were used to fund private
Speaker 1: developers to keep buildings affordable for a temporary period of time,
Speaker 1: so using affordable housing covenants and so Hillsides covenant expired
Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen after thirty years of being kept affordable
Speaker 1: for the tenants. And as soon as that happened, UM,
Speaker 1: the landlord of course tried to increase the rent to
Speaker 1: market rate, so folks were receiving up to two rent
Speaker 1: increases mm hmm. Yeah. So you know, to actually like
Speaker 1: talk about what those numbers are people who are paying
Speaker 1: eight hundred dollars for rent were now being asked to
Speaker 1: pay liked, so that's a de facto eviction, right, and um,
Speaker 1: as soon as that happened, there's actually this like origin
Speaker 1: story that I really love is that one of our
Speaker 1: tenant leaders, Leslie, who's uh bilingual like Spanish and English speaker,
Speaker 1: she came up to a tenant who is a monolingual
Speaker 1: Cantonese speaker, held up one of the rent increases, ripped
Speaker 1: it to shreds, and the Benson, our Cantonese tenant leader,
Speaker 1: just said okay. And that's like one of the origin
Speaker 1: stories that really just shows like how um, yeah, like
Speaker 1: oppositional our tenants were from the beginning. Um. And then
Speaker 1: what happened was that another tenant leader, Luisa, who actually
Speaker 1: has since passed away due to COVID, she actually called
Speaker 1: all the news stations in l A just blew this
Speaker 1: the funk up and um yeah, and then that's how
Speaker 1: organizers kind of got involved and maybe a I you
Speaker 1: can share your personal experience of going through all of this,
Speaker 1: yeah for sure. UM. So about right, a little before
Speaker 1: the association was started at Hillside Villa, Um, we had
Speaker 1: been living here for about seven years and at that time. UM.
Speaker 1: So I was working with my mom at the time,
Speaker 1: and we went out um in the morning for work.
Speaker 1: We came back around the afternoon, UM to find that
Speaker 1: we couldn't get into our apartment. Our keys were actually um,
Speaker 1: they weren't going into the locks. So we went to
Speaker 1: the manager's office and asked them, like why our key
Speaker 1: wasn't working. So they sent management up to our our
Speaker 1: floor and UM, they told us that we had been
Speaker 1: evicted and that we couldn't like go back and yeah,
Speaker 1: that we couldn't go back into our apartment. UM. So
Speaker 1: it's just just within that one MM that one morning,
Speaker 1: you know, our whole pretty much our whole life was
Speaker 1: like flipped upside down. UM. They told us that they
Speaker 1: actually worked unfortunately with them, and I think this is
Speaker 1: a very common UM thing is that UM landlords UM
Speaker 1: work directly with the Sheriff's department. So the sheriff department
Speaker 1: came and switched out our lock. UM. So we were
Speaker 1: pretty much uprooted. UM that day. UM, we had to
Speaker 1: figure out like what to do. UM. We were all
Speaker 1: separated like that day, we all, you know, my sister
Speaker 1: went to her friend's house, my mom had to go
Speaker 1: rent a hotel to stay with her husband, and then
Speaker 1: I went to my partner's house. So that lasted about
Speaker 1: two to three days. And in those two to three
Speaker 1: days we were personally. I started looking up tenant law
Speaker 1: as tenant rights, and we found thanks to to a
Speaker 1: friend UM, she recommended the Eviction Defense Network, who provides
Speaker 1: UM free lawyers for UM tenants facing UM eviction in
Speaker 1: l A. So they heard us up with a lawyer
Speaker 1: and UM they found that UM the eviction had actually
Speaker 1: been an illegal eviction. And then we all we also
Speaker 1: had like the paperwork to show that that it was
Speaker 1: an illegal eviction. So UM we threatened to suit UM
Speaker 1: the landlord and because of that, he dropped the case
Speaker 1: and led us back in to our apartment after like
Speaker 1: three or four days or something like that from what
Speaker 1: I can remember, UM, but in those days it was
Speaker 1: it was UM really enraging obviously, like who wouldn't be
Speaker 1: like super piste off at this, like it would boil
Speaker 1: your blood, you know, and and it did UM. And
Speaker 1: that's one of the things that like UM kind of
Speaker 1: made me UM very much so more involved in like
Speaker 1: tenant rights and and UM organizing UM and then also
Speaker 1: like just to throw this in a little more detail. Um,
Speaker 1: when we were locked out, um, they actually locked our
Speaker 1: animals in in CD apartment so we couldn't even get
Speaker 1: our dogs right away. Oh my god, did they like
Speaker 1: were they okay? Like did you were able to like
Speaker 1: was anyone feeding them? Like? They weren't there all the
Speaker 1: three days I think we were. We had to like
Speaker 1: really like push for them to open up the apartment
Speaker 1: so that we can get them like the day of um.
Speaker 1: But then like we couldn't just like grab all our things, um,
Speaker 1: including like medication that was like for my mom's husband
Speaker 1: who has a diabete ease and whatnot. So I think
Speaker 1: that was like the first time we acted as a
Speaker 1: family to like not let um someone pretty much bully
Speaker 1: and harass us into a forced eviction that was completely
Speaker 1: illegal um. And that's within that time. It was also
Speaker 1: happening to all the tenants around us. I mean there
Speaker 1: was the word was going all over the apartment. I
Speaker 1: mean you you could see management was doing a cash
Speaker 1: for keys um, which is also an illegal tactic for
Speaker 1: um landlords to do. And um they were trying Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: so cash for keys um. It's probably going to be
Speaker 1: like a rough definition of what it is, but it's
Speaker 1: when UM, when a landlord offers a certain amount of
Speaker 1: money in order for you to give up your apartment UM.
Speaker 1: And this could be a couple of thousand UM, ten thousand,
Speaker 1: twenty thousand, sometimes way less than that UM. So that
Speaker 1: was a tactic that he was trying to use to
Speaker 1: evict people from our apartment so that he could remodel
Speaker 1: and then UM move it up to like market rate
Speaker 1: and get pretty much all of our community out of
Speaker 1: this apartment, which was an affordable apartment. UM. It worked
Speaker 1: for a lot of some tenants did end up doing that.
Speaker 1: A lot of people didn't want to fight back UM,
Speaker 1: but the ones that did UM started the association UM.
Speaker 1: And there's also a lot of like language barriers with
Speaker 1: the tenants UM, some that only spoke Spanish and didn't
Speaker 1: understand what was happening. They were trying to get people
Speaker 1: to sign contracts UM for for the increase of the
Speaker 1: rent UM. Yeah. So that was my experience here to
Speaker 1: begin with UM and and why we decided to fight
Speaker 1: back and not allow this to to happen to our family,
Speaker 1: but also like our community here who were also experiencing
Speaker 1: the same thing. You know, it wasn't just an ice.
Speaker 1: I say this all the time. It felt like an
Speaker 1: isolated situation at the time, but it on the broader perspective,
Speaker 1: it was not an isolated thing, and that's what brought
Speaker 1: our community together. That's a really powerful, be incredibly enraging,
Speaker 1: And yeah, there's a lot of really interesting things they're like,
Speaker 1: I mean, one, obviously, the cops doing like the sheriff's
Speaker 1: like helping them do the illegal eviction is just incredibly
Speaker 1: on the nose and the wather thing I think is
Speaker 1: really interesting about the way that like I mean, okay,
Speaker 1: the way the law only exists for rich people if
Speaker 1: you can like throw it into their faces and make
Speaker 1: it embarrassing enough that like the state has to enforce it.
Speaker 1: So I read a lot of media coverage of this,
Speaker 1: and not a single person who who covered the story
Speaker 1: that that that I saw from these articles mentioned that
Speaker 1: the that cash per keys is illegal a lot because
Speaker 1: a lot of the articles mentioned it, but they don't
Speaker 1: they don't they don't mention that, like you legally can't
Speaker 1: do this, And so yeah, I think that's a that
Speaker 1: that that's I don't know, I guess it goes to
Speaker 1: show that like even among the press, like whose job
Speaker 1: it is to do this, there's there's such like little
Speaker 1: there's such a little knowledge of what what what practices
Speaker 1: aren't and are and aren't allowed and that. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think as you're talking about like that, that that that's
Speaker 1: one of the they're they're relying like in order to
Speaker 1: do this with landlords are like, yeah, that they're they're
Speaker 1: relying on people not knowing their rights to relying on
Speaker 1: being able to trick people. They're relying on just straight
Speaker 1: up handing people stuff they can't read and forcing them
Speaker 1: to sign it, which, m I don't know that my
Speaker 1: brain is weird, but like the thing that reminds me
Speaker 1: of is like that the Spanish conquistadors showing up and
Speaker 1: then really like ask asking people to convert to Christianity
Speaker 1: in Spanish language they didn't speak, and then shooting them
Speaker 1: when they didn't do it. It's like, yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: fitting analogy, honestly. Yeah, it's a new form of colonization yea,
Speaker 1: and one that we're you know, resisting, Yeah, yea. That that
Speaker 1: that was one of the other things I wanted to
Speaker 1: talk about in terms of resisting this kind of stuff
Speaker 1: is Yeah, what what was it like dealing with the
Speaker 1: kind of language barriers that you get here when you
Speaker 1: have I don't know, Like I mean, you've mentioned like
Speaker 1: at least three languages that people are speaking. There's probably
Speaker 1: more because that's just that's how working class communities work.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. Yeah. I feel like that's been such a
Speaker 1: central part of our fight, is language justice and the
Speaker 1: tenant meetings that we've had every single week for the
Speaker 1: past three years. Um, so that's like about a hundred
Speaker 1: and fifteen meetings. Every single one of them has included
Speaker 1: some form of translation. Um. So yeah, we've had a
Speaker 1: lot of support from folks from Union davcos organizers there
Speaker 1: have gear where we can do like simultaneous translation. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So if you go to one of our meetings, it's
Speaker 1: folks who, um, if they're monolingual Spanish or English speakers,
Speaker 1: they're having a headset on where we then have someone
Speaker 1: who's offering simultaneous translation um. And then since we have
Speaker 1: fewer Cantonese or Mandarin speakers, will also have organizers on
Speaker 1: the side doing um, consecutive translation for them. So our
Speaker 1: meetings are run and like usually three if not more
Speaker 1: languages M and I guess, I guess it leads into
Speaker 1: you another question that I had, which was, so, how
Speaker 1: how did I think from unders staying this One of
Speaker 1: the parts of the story is like, is people who
Speaker 1: people who have been doing established tenant organizing like getting
Speaker 1: getting involved with the struggle, and I wanted to, I guess,
Speaker 1: talk about how that happens and yeah, yeah, yeah, So
Speaker 1: I think because that original tenant, Louisa like really blew
Speaker 1: this story up, UM, different orgs heard about it, and
Speaker 1: eventually UM a lot too, So the l A Tenants
Speaker 1: Union and then c c D UM, the organ that
Speaker 1: I'm in, we heard about it and got involved long term.
Speaker 1: And even with that, like I'm a relatively new organizer,
Speaker 1: I only started volunteering with c c D a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago, so it's really been like one of
Speaker 1: my first UM site fights we like to call them.
Speaker 1: But there are other folks who have had more a
Speaker 1: bit more experience with different buildings in l A as well.
Speaker 1: But I think what's important to emphasize is that this
Speaker 1: fight has really been tenant lead UM, and even though
Speaker 1: we have like these kind of yeah, outside organizers, it's
Speaker 1: always been the tenants demands and the tenants interests first. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it seems I mean, you know, from from your descriptions,
Speaker 1: like people showing up a translation equipment. Yeah, it seems
Speaker 1: like a really good way to do this kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: which is you show up and you give help to people,
Speaker 1: but it's it's you know, it's it's them doing the organizing,
Speaker 1: which I don't know. It reminds me a lot of
Speaker 1: like my experiences between union organizing stuff, which is like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, it's it's some Yeah, like you have people
Speaker 1: who have experience with stuff and they come in and
Speaker 1: their job is to help the people who are actually
Speaker 1: trying to organize the place. Mm hmm, yeah, exactly exactly,
Speaker 1: the people who are like actually directly impacted. UM. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I feel like our role has really just been facilitating,
Speaker 1: offering like the technical support UM more of that stuff.
Speaker 1: But I think you can really talk about how so
Speaker 1: much of this fight has really been building the tenant's
Speaker 1: power and becoming more and more like militant UM and
Speaker 1: radical and just the tenants like yeah, just definitely feeling
Speaker 1: their own fire. Yeah. So we are like super duper
Speaker 1: grateful for the UM organizers that have come out for
Speaker 1: the last three years or however long UM they've decided
Speaker 1: to or have joined the association to help. UM and
Speaker 1: a lot of the tenants always always like gives things
Speaker 1: and they're super appreciative or the organizers, but sometimes they
Speaker 1: don't give themselves the credit either. They think it's only
Speaker 1: like they think the organizers, which is like super important
Speaker 1: and we're super grateful, but they don't realize that they're
Speaker 1: a huge part of of the fight. UM. For example, UM,
Speaker 1: actually my mom UH has been a part of the
Speaker 1: association for longer than I have. UM. I've only been
Speaker 1: organizing for about UM well not only UM a year
Speaker 1: and a half, but she's actually been in the organization
Speaker 1: for three years. UM because not only because she needed
Speaker 1: the support and the organizers really helped to UM to
Speaker 1: guide her to like learn to use her voice for
Speaker 1: UM for the outcome that we all want to see. UM.
Speaker 1: And a lot of the tenants are UM are women,
Speaker 1: their elders, you know, their generation elders, so UM, they're
Speaker 1: very strong people. They UM a lot of like the
Speaker 1: elder like UM. Like I guess Latina, I don't know
Speaker 1: how I feel about that term, but UM. You know,
Speaker 1: women UM are our natural leaders and with the help
Speaker 1: of the organizers. Um, they really just helped to to
Speaker 1: help them too, you know, use their voice and to
Speaker 1: empower them to to do what they can naturally do,
Speaker 1: which is speak up and ask for what they want. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: my mom is you know, learned over the last three
Speaker 1: years how to talk in front of politicians, how to
Speaker 1: um communicate the process and the struggle that we've all
Speaker 1: been enduring, but to also demand what we rightfully deserve,
Speaker 1: which is housing, safe housing, and for politicians to do
Speaker 1: their job, which is to represent as they should be
Speaker 1: the community that they are working for and not and
Speaker 1: you know, not to beg them to do things, but
Speaker 1: to demand that um, they take action in the way
Speaker 1: that we have taken action. Um, much more then than
Speaker 1: any politician has in the last three years. Um, it
Speaker 1: was up to the tenants and it still is and
Speaker 1: thanks to them we have gotten as far as we have.
Speaker 1: That That was those Yeah, really well said. I want
Speaker 1: to I guess shift a little bit into talking about
Speaker 1: like what specifically y'all were doing, because I guess I
Speaker 1: guess both that is like what how how how how
Speaker 1: did you actually do this? And then how can other
Speaker 1: people sort like how can other people replicate it. Mm hmm, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know that we necessarily have like a model
Speaker 1: UM that other people can apply, because I think reflecting
Speaker 1: about this whole fight, it was such a like just
Speaker 1: dynamic campaign where at first when it started, UM folks
Speaker 1: war kind of using more you know, like legal tactics,
Speaker 1: just like looking for errors in UM the rent increases
Speaker 1: that bots would hand out and this would you know,
Speaker 1: lead to UM being able to stall the rent hikes
Speaker 1: for months at a time. UM. But then that obviously
Speaker 1: wasn't enough, so then people started escalating and UM eventually
Speaker 1: like putting pressure to get this on the radar of
Speaker 1: our districts, like city council person guil cdeo, And eventually,
Speaker 1: through that, UM they were able to get CDEO to
Speaker 1: make a deal with the landlord to extend the covenant
Speaker 1: UM and have his loaned speed his debtbat forgiven. UM.
Speaker 1: But the landlord just like reneged on that deal, right
Speaker 1: So yeah yeah, So then UM, I think it's through
Speaker 1: those experiences that the tenants really learned like Okay, it's
Speaker 1: like the this politician is not going to save us. UM.
Speaker 1: So then I think our fight became like more and
Speaker 1: more militant, so just directly going to the landlords Malibu
Speaker 1: Villa and shouting like fuck you, and you know, just
Speaker 1: like yeah, just like those direct confrontations. And then even
Speaker 1: Sidio himself, U has not been you know, this friendly
Speaker 1: relationship where we're thanking him for putting our putting our
Speaker 1: story into city council. It's been extremely confrontational and oppositional
Speaker 1: the entire time. And I think thinking about what got
Speaker 1: us this recent when it was um as it has
Speaker 1: been this whole fight direct action, because we ended up
Speaker 1: the first day that city Council opened up to the
Speaker 1: public again, a group of us went in kind of
Speaker 1: like slid our way through security and went to his
Speaker 1: office and surprisingly he opened the door, um, and it
Speaker 1: was him and not a staffer, and of course he
Speaker 1: saw it was us. He us. He immediately tried to
Speaker 1: close the door, and one of our amazing tenant leaders, Rosario,
Speaker 1: who's yeah, this elder Latino woman, she stuck her foot
Speaker 1: in the door and refused to let him close it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And because of that we were able to just like
Speaker 1: directly confront him like, where the funk have you been.
Speaker 1: It's been three years, um and you haven't seen this
Speaker 1: through like you said you were going to, and we
Speaker 1: got all that you know, recorded video evidence of him
Speaker 1: UM just yeah, fumbling around, and he sent the cops
Speaker 1: on us, of course. UM. And yeah, I think that
Speaker 1: was such a great action because all of the we
Speaker 1: call them, like the Mohas, so the Latino women who
Speaker 1: have been leading the fight, they were just so defiant
Speaker 1: towards the cops. UM, not scared at all, and just
Speaker 1: you know, standing their gown and that they're just defending
Speaker 1: you know, they're human right to housing. UM. And a
Speaker 1: week after that confrontational action, we got this UM this
Speaker 1: city council motion passed. So you know, I think it
Speaker 1: from our experience trying to go through the nice way
Speaker 1: and like you know, doing traditional lobbying, trying to schedule
Speaker 1: meetings and like texting, calling all of that, things didn't
Speaker 1: happen for years, and then once we did more and
Speaker 1: more militant actions, things happened really quickly. Yeah. Another thing
Speaker 1: I'd like to add on to that, UM that I
Speaker 1: actually heard was something that not a lot of UM,
Speaker 1: other associations UM that are fighting for their housing UM
Speaker 1: do often was UM to bring the community together. UM.
Speaker 1: And like I mean, really coming together. I mean, we're
Speaker 1: meeting every week for the last three years, and even
Speaker 1: during the pandemic, UM we weren't in person. We actually
Speaker 1: were on zoom for a really long time. UM. And
Speaker 1: that's one of the biggest things was UM the consistency
Speaker 1: that we all pushed through even during the pandemic. UM
Speaker 1: from the beginning was meeting every single week, and some
Speaker 1: other UM organizers also meet more than once a week.
Speaker 1: You know, we're meeting multiple times a week too, kind
Speaker 1: of talk over like the fine detail of of you know,
Speaker 1: the next steps UM. But definitely consistency has been one
Speaker 1: of the biggest things in the last three years that
Speaker 1: has gotten us where we are today. Yeah, that that
Speaker 1: makes a lot of sense. It's I know, I keep
Speaker 1: going back to this because this is the sort of
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess I did some tendant organizing, but UM,
Speaker 1: this is the thing that I know now. Was like, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it reminds me a lot of just like the way
Speaker 1: the way that Union get pagins that like work run
Speaker 1: of just you have to keep you have you have
Speaker 1: to keep getting people together to do the thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: most definitely. Yeah, I don't know have you all seen
Speaker 1: like like how how did that change, like your relationship
Speaker 1: with just like the other people in the building. I'll
Speaker 1: give you an example from like my mom. I think
Speaker 1: for her it's been changed a little more drastically than
Speaker 1: it has for me because a lot of the tenants
Speaker 1: here a little older. UM. So before the association was started,
Speaker 1: she she's kind of like a person that keeps to
Speaker 1: herself a lot, you know. UM. But since that, UM,
Speaker 1: since the association, she's actually made like so many friends
Speaker 1: here now, like and she's actually made like a best
Speaker 1: friend here, um, one of our neighbors. And they like, yes,
Speaker 1: and they've become like really good friends. UM. They even go,
Speaker 1: you know, have breakfast together, um like almost multiple times
Speaker 1: a week. UM. The other day I saw them, Like
Speaker 1: I saw my mom's best friend Adelita or Adela, um
Speaker 1: giving her some sugar, and I was like, I should
Speaker 1: have gotten a picture of that, Like that's you know,
Speaker 1: that's so cute, like posted it on like Instagram so
Speaker 1: that you know, like everyone knows like what it looks
Speaker 1: like when community comes together. It's it's the small things
Speaker 1: like that. UM. But I think it has um made
Speaker 1: some you know who made us gain like trust with
Speaker 1: um the neighbors that have been consistent UM and see
Speaker 1: the same UM kind of vision that we have to
Speaker 1: keep this building affordable. UM. And yeah, not everyone, not
Speaker 1: all the tenants here have been supportive of our fight.
Speaker 1: Some you know, participated for a few months and then
Speaker 1: immediately gave up. UM. But one of the things that
Speaker 1: UM that my family has done is to keep fighting UM,
Speaker 1: even for the ones that don't want to show up
Speaker 1: or don't want to do the work, which is hard work. UM.
Speaker 1: That we're not just doing it for ourselves, but we're
Speaker 1: doing it for for everyone, whether they're supportive or not.
Speaker 1: You know, this is going to benefit them, and it's
Speaker 1: going to benefit the whole community and hopefully the city,
Speaker 1: the whole city in the future. I don't know, It's
Speaker 1: something I've definitely seen with organizing, is that like, yeah,
Speaker 1: just living in this world can be really isolating and
Speaker 1: I don't know, like I've lived in a lot of
Speaker 1: places where it's just like, yeah, like I have no
Speaker 1: idea who any like literally who anyone who lives around
Speaker 1: me is like like there's still they'll they'll be like
Speaker 1: the one person you see at three in the boarding
Speaker 1: coming back to their apartment and it's like, oh, I
Speaker 1: vaguely remember this person, but like, yeah, like I think,
Speaker 1: I don't know, just this this being something that just
Speaker 1: on a broad level, not just about like I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, is it like this is something that's a
Speaker 1: solution to both like an immediate fight and then also
Speaker 1: is sort of like broader just I don't know, like
Speaker 1: Nightmarror's isolation that everyone's not everyone is a huge part
Speaker 1: of a lot of our lives. Now, I don't know.
Speaker 1: That just struck me. I guess, yeah, yeah, I feel
Speaker 1: like this just makes me think of UM. To celebrate
Speaker 1: the recent win, we had this party at Hillside UM
Speaker 1: just last week, and you know, it was like Pollock style.
Speaker 1: Everyone brought their own food. UM. Someone had a connection
Speaker 1: with like a mariachi van, so we bind mariachi playing. UM.
Speaker 1: One of the tenants owns a food truck and just
Speaker 1: wanted to cook for the community, so she was whipping
Speaker 1: up these like amazing tacos and bacon up hot dogs.
Speaker 1: And then someone had brought this piniata of the landlord
Speaker 1: and people were just like talking destroying it. Like one
Speaker 1: of the tennants was just like fistfighting it and having
Speaker 1: it open. The kids were just like grabbing as much
Speaker 1: candy as they could from this broken Tom Botts Panada,
Speaker 1: and and like, I feel like that was just like
Speaker 1: exemplifies the sense of community that there is now Hillside.
Speaker 1: And I think, as Anna was talking about, those personal
Speaker 1: connections have been so key to keeping this fight going
Speaker 1: for three years because it's hard, it's so hard to
Speaker 1: keep showing up, and it's those personal connections that keep
Speaker 1: you coming. Yeah, most definitely, it's almost like a support
Speaker 1: system that um, like my mom and like some of
Speaker 1: the neighbors have created, like Adlita or one of our
Speaker 1: second generation tenants, Leslie, you know, She's they can confide
Speaker 1: with one another, they can vent with one another, and
Speaker 1: um yeah yeah, Um, They've definitely like created strong bonds,
Speaker 1: and I think that's one of the reasons why they
Speaker 1: keep showing up. You know, it's it's women supporting women,
Speaker 1: and um, you know, they're the protectors of the family,
Speaker 1: they're the nurturers. And that's what my mom taught me.
Speaker 1: So that's why definitely one of the reasons why I
Speaker 1: continue to fight, um for Hillside to keep the housing,
Speaker 1: not only for my mom because I'm like her protector
Speaker 1: and she's mine but we're also like here to protect
Speaker 1: the community from from harassment or from literal bowling. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I guess looking forward, Um, I think at the
Speaker 1: beginning interview you said, yeah, it looks like there's going
Speaker 1: to be another fight over sort of forcing the forcing
Speaker 1: the city to actually use eminent domain. Um yeah, do
Speaker 1: you have well okay, I don't know if you can
Speaker 1: talk about your plants for that. Yeah. I guess two things.
Speaker 1: One if if if people want to support what y'all
Speaker 1: are doing and you know, put pressure on the city,
Speaker 1: what are the best ways for them to do that?
Speaker 1: Mm hmmm, Um, yeah, I think just following our our
Speaker 1: socials and staying updated about the fight and any like
Speaker 1: action items that we put out is a great way
Speaker 1: to support and just amplifying the struggle. Um yeah. In
Speaker 1: terms of our specific strategy for holding the city accountable, Um,
Speaker 1: we actually haven't haven't gotten super into the weeds of
Speaker 1: it yet because we are just taking a break for
Speaker 1: a while to you know, to celebrate sounding this win
Speaker 1: and yeah kind of have folks get perspective. I think
Speaker 1: are our view is that because the city has now
Speaker 1: approved the funds to make this happen, that um yeah,
Speaker 1: that there shouldn't be any barriers to them seeing it
Speaker 1: completely through. UM. Yeah, I think we can. We can
Speaker 1: maybe UM apprehends some like ideological barriers because actually using
Speaker 1: eminent domain to expropriate a landlord is not something that's
Speaker 1: been done before. UM. But yeah, we'll see what happens. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, look, if if if they can displace tennants
Speaker 1: with eminent domain, they can, they can they can use
Speaker 1: it to keep tenants in their homes, like exactly. I
Speaker 1: guess the other question I have with that is what
Speaker 1: is okay? So like, say, like I don't know, a
Speaker 1: miracle occurs and like your landlord is visited by like
Speaker 1: three ghosts at night who like show him increasingly horrible features,
Speaker 1: and he decides to sell it to the city. What
Speaker 1: is that? Like? What is the city owning the building
Speaker 1: look like? Mm hmmm. Yeah. I can start with that,
Speaker 1: and then and I can chime in. But I think
Speaker 1: the vision of the tenants has always been collective stewardship
Speaker 1: and tenant ownership of the building. UM. So the fight
Speaker 1: definitely does not stop at the city UM taking the building,
Speaker 1: but there will also be a push for actual tenant
Speaker 1: stewardship of the building too. Yeah, and I think the
Speaker 1: exact structures of that um aren't aren't so clear yet.
Speaker 1: There's still a lot of like discussions and work to
Speaker 1: be done around that. UM. But yeah, and the conversations
Speaker 1: that we've had with folks from the Housing Authority, which
Speaker 1: is going to be the agency that's actually purchasing the building. UM,
Speaker 1: they have expressed openness too to us actually um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: having another nonprofit takeover and eventually building towards like a
Speaker 1: co op kind of structure, that would be really cool. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I know, I know, I've heard a lot of talk
Speaker 1: among well I know that I think some people have
Speaker 1: done it in Detroit about things the community land trusts
Speaker 1: as a UM. Yeah, I have tenants actually like control
Speaker 1: their buildings. Yeah. Yeah, that's definitely been part of the discussion. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's awesome because yeah, this is a much better
Speaker 1: solution than the state is now your landlord exactly. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's yeah, that's that's the what we hope for
Speaker 1: in the future. UM. Like Jannas said, we still have
Speaker 1: a lot to work through, and this isn't um done obviously.
Speaker 1: We wouldn't, like you said, want the state to be
Speaker 1: landlords here they wouldn't be the best landlord. But yeah,
Speaker 1: um yeah, we we are, like Janna said, taking a
Speaker 1: pause and we will reconvene UM two plan out feature
Speaker 1: steps to take. But this was a really really great win. Um.
Speaker 1: It was such a relief off of so many people.
Speaker 1: Um back and something we've been fighting for over three
Speaker 1: three and a half years now, UM, so it's good
Speaker 1: to finally get somewhat of positive news. And it's been
Speaker 1: such an emotional journey for the last three years. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean that doesn't even justify how how much of
Speaker 1: an emotional roller coaster it has been for a lot
Speaker 1: of these tenants or for a lot of our families here. Um,
Speaker 1: when we got the news, um, everyone broke out in
Speaker 1: tears and joy and and and everyone was so surprised.
Speaker 1: I mean I couldn't help myself but to like cry
Speaker 1: and smile and ugly cry some more for like the
Speaker 1: whole day. Just yeah. Um yeah, we're hoping for um,
Speaker 1: for the process to be um somewhat smoother, um now
Speaker 1: that that we've done a a large portion of the fight. UM.
Speaker 1: But yeah, we st we're still at the tail end things. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So where where where can people find find deals? Organizations
Speaker 1: and groups and stuff to go follow them or help
Speaker 1: them in places. Um. For CCD, which does post a
Speaker 1: lot of Hillside UM content, I think all of our
Speaker 1: socials are just at c C D, l A. And
Speaker 1: then for Hillside I think, um there's different handles for
Speaker 1: all the different different platforms unfortunately, but if folks just
Speaker 1: look up hill SIDEVA or Hillside Tenants, they should be
Speaker 1: able to find it. And if you just send me
Speaker 1: the social media handles, you can put them in the description. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure. Yeah. Well, thank thank you both so much
Speaker 1: for so much for talking to us. This was this
Speaker 1: was awesome. I'm so happy for great Thank you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks for thanks for listening. Yeah, this has been huge. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I guess for everyone out there, you too can
Speaker 1: take can start taking back your cities. And yeah, with
Speaker 1: with with with with any luck and with a lot
Speaker 1: of struggle. This is this is gonna this is gonna
Speaker 1: be the first of Betty and Yeah, fuck landlords, we
Speaker 1: can beat them. Hell yeah fo yeah we got this
Speaker 1: communities first. Landlord Ing is not a job. We're here
Speaker 1: to take it back. Oh yeah, it could happen here
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