WEBVTT - Resisting Mass Eviction in Santa Barbara Part 1 0:00:05.120 --> 0:00:09.360 It's it's like can happen here? It's the podcast sometimes 0:00:09.400 --> 0:00:10.760 hosted by me and Mia Wong. 0:00:10.960 --> 0:00:11.280 It is. 0:00:12.920 --> 0:00:15.920 I guess this is a combination things falling apart putting 0:00:15.960 --> 0:00:16.720 things back together. 0:00:16.760 --> 0:00:17.280 Episode. 0:00:17.600 --> 0:00:21.200 We are doing some more coverage of the US's the 0:00:21.320 --> 0:00:25.720 sort of epidemic of mass evictions. But yeah, so with 0:00:26.120 --> 0:00:29.040 me to talk about this is Max Is, one of 0:00:29.080 --> 0:00:31.760 the organizers and co founders of Santa Barbara Tendant's Union, 0:00:31.880 --> 0:00:34.800 and Sam Sapiazi, who's another tenant and a member of 0:00:34.840 --> 0:00:35.600 the union. 0:00:35.880 --> 0:00:37.120 You two, Yeah, welcome to the show. 0:00:37.800 --> 0:00:39.680 Hi, I thank you. 0:00:40.520 --> 0:00:43.120 Yeah, So, I guess we should start with talking about 0:00:43.159 --> 0:00:46.200 the specific mass eviction that is happening, which has been 0:00:46.360 --> 0:00:53.240 caused by a terrifying and unfortunate product of my hometown Chicago, 0:00:53.360 --> 0:00:58.840 a very large company called core Spaces, who have incredibly 0:00:58.880 --> 0:01:03.200 suspicious branded for the fact that they're a giant landlord company. 0:01:04.400 --> 0:01:04.600 Yeah. 0:01:04.640 --> 0:01:06.920 I think guys bought your building and is attempting to 0:01:06.920 --> 0:01:07.559 evict everyone. 0:01:07.640 --> 0:01:12.920 Is this Yeah, Yeah, So Core Spaces out of Chicago 0:01:13.080 --> 0:01:18.440 and I believe Austin, Texas have purchased r for building 0:01:18.480 --> 0:01:23.319 apartment complex approximately two hundred and forty three units. 0:01:23.360 --> 0:01:24.880 I believe over a thousand people. 0:01:25.560 --> 0:01:28.080 Yeah, and they just immediately. Yeah, So I guess this 0:01:28.120 --> 0:01:29.360 is one of the other things we should we should 0:01:29.360 --> 0:01:32.160 talk about first. Is this this thing that landlords do 0:01:33.480 --> 0:01:36.160 where they either buy buy a property, or they have 0:01:36.200 --> 0:01:38.560 a property, then they're like, oh, hey, we're doing renovations 0:01:38.560 --> 0:01:40.680 on it, so we're evicting everyone, and then you don't 0:01:40.720 --> 0:01:43.560 let anyone ever come back because you're you know, your 0:01:43.680 --> 0:01:45.280 quote unquote renovation. You're just a way to do a 0:01:45.319 --> 0:01:48.080 price hike, which seems to be what's happening here. 0:01:48.760 --> 0:01:48.960 Yeah. 0:01:49.000 --> 0:01:52.600 And renoviction it's a nice it's a nice term for that, right, renoviction. 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:55.200 It's you're renovating to evict, just to if listeners are 0:01:55.320 --> 0:01:56.080 aware of that term. 0:01:56.920 --> 0:02:00.960 Yeah, And I think if I'm understanding their plan, right, 0:02:01.040 --> 0:02:03.600 they're trying to basically turn this into luxury student housing. 0:02:04.280 --> 0:02:10.400 Yeah, that's what we presume. That's kind of their business model, 0:02:10.600 --> 0:02:15.080 is to buy up housing in college towns and do 0:02:15.760 --> 0:02:19.239 some renovations and then hike up the rent drastically. 0:02:19.680 --> 0:02:21.160 Yeah. I mean, that's definitely a thing that happened. 0:02:21.160 --> 0:02:23.959 There's a lot of colleges in Chicago, which I don't 0:02:24.000 --> 0:02:27.000 know presumably really people know that on a sort of 0:02:27.040 --> 0:02:29.840 abstract level, but this is the thing that happens basically 0:02:29.919 --> 0:02:31.119 everywhere there are colleges. 0:02:32.440 --> 0:02:34.440 Yeah, we've actually talked to other. 0:02:35.000 --> 0:02:38.440 Like grad student organizers about this stuff too, because it 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:42.519 winds up sort of affecting everyone at all sides. Yeah, 0:02:42.600 --> 0:02:46.280 so I guess, Okay, so facing this eviction, I guess 0:02:46.280 --> 0:02:49.560 I wanted to talk about how y'all started organizing against it. 0:02:50.440 --> 0:02:58.080 We got our original notices on March sixteenth. We had previously, 0:02:59.120 --> 0:03:02.720 I want to say it was like December or January, 0:03:02.840 --> 0:03:05.760 we had gotten noticed that some people will be coming 0:03:05.800 --> 0:03:08.799 through our apartments investors to look at it, and I 0:03:08.960 --> 0:03:11.680 like took pictures of my bathroom and my kitchen. It 0:03:11.720 --> 0:03:16.600 was superward, and so we kind of, I think a 0:03:16.639 --> 0:03:20.280 lot of us knew at that point like, okay, something's 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:24.359 going on, right obviously. And then March, I want to 0:03:24.400 --> 0:03:27.760 say it was March fifteenth or sixteenth, we got a 0:03:27.880 --> 0:03:33.120 notice that the building was sold from Essex to Core Spaces. 0:03:33.560 --> 0:03:36.400 And then it was the day after that we got 0:03:36.400 --> 0:03:41.200 a notice that said, oh, hey, you're all getting evicted 0:03:41.360 --> 0:03:45.880 because we got to do renovations. I kind of expected 0:03:45.920 --> 0:03:53.000 it to be honest, because I've seen what Blackstone has done. Yeah, 0:03:53.120 --> 0:03:56.800 and I had just heard about it from a lot 0:03:56.840 --> 0:04:01.600 of properties or also tenants like in LA friends that 0:04:01.680 --> 0:04:02.360 I had. 0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:05.200 Other college students that had had this happen to them. 0:04:06.840 --> 0:04:12.240 But after that, basically, I mean, I don't want to 0:04:12.360 --> 0:04:17.239 speak for everyone but my own personal Like what I did. 0:04:17.720 --> 0:04:21.480 I just kind of went on Reddit and was like, Hey, 0:04:21.800 --> 0:04:24.719 this really awful thing is happening. 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:25.800 You know. 0:04:26.560 --> 0:04:28.320 I went on the u CSB reddit page, this really 0:04:28.360 --> 0:04:29.400 awful thing is happening. 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:32.760 There's like a lot of families that live here. There's 0:04:32.839 --> 0:04:36.400 so many Section eight disabled people, elderly. 0:04:38.000 --> 0:04:41.680 And students, but our complex is a little different and 0:04:41.680 --> 0:04:46.640 that it does have of more of the marginalized groups. 0:04:47.200 --> 0:04:49.719 And I went on Reddit and was like, dude, this 0:04:49.520 --> 0:04:53.000 is this is awful, Like just yeah. So I made 0:04:53.000 --> 0:04:57.560 a post saying this sucks, and from there I was 0:04:57.600 --> 0:05:01.159 referenced to contact Santa Barbara Sunion, which I was like 0:05:01.320 --> 0:05:03.920 kind of hesitant at first because I was like, oh, 0:05:04.720 --> 0:05:05.680 what are they going to do? 0:05:05.960 --> 0:05:09.200 Like I don't know, I thought it. 0:05:09.360 --> 0:05:11.240 You know, it's like one of those resources you get 0:05:11.279 --> 0:05:13.200 where you're just like, are they actually going to do 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:15.520 anything or is this just for me to like waste 0:05:15.520 --> 0:05:17.960 my time with. But I reached out and I got, 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:22.320 you know, a response back within hours and they're like, yes, 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:25.560 here's a flyer for you. We are we have your back, 0:05:25.680 --> 0:05:28.960 We're going to do this, we will support you. And 0:05:29.000 --> 0:05:31.719 so from there, I want to say, it was within 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:34.920 a day or two, we went flying door to door. 0:05:35.440 --> 0:05:38.120 And remember it's it's two hundred and like I said, 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:42.919 I think it's roughly two hundred and sixteen. Yeah, it's 0:05:43.040 --> 0:05:47.120 it's it's a lot of it's a lot of units 0:05:47.160 --> 0:05:52.520 to knock doors on. I know one of our county representatives, 0:05:52.600 --> 0:05:56.880 Laura Capps, called it the largest eviction in California history, 0:05:57.000 --> 0:06:00.000 and I've heard others say at the largest. 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:02.239 Eviction in the United States history. 0:06:02.320 --> 0:06:07.159 I don't I don't know if that's uh what they're 0:06:07.200 --> 0:06:10.719 basing that off of. But it's a gigantic affection. There 0:06:10.720 --> 0:06:15.120 are many people here. But yeah, so from there, I 0:06:15.200 --> 0:06:18.159 just went like door to door knocking. I knew none 0:06:18.240 --> 0:06:20.240 of my neighbors. I am a hermit. 0:06:20.520 --> 0:06:22.839 I stay in my apartment. 0:06:24.360 --> 0:06:27.840 I keep my curtains closed. I'm like, but the only 0:06:27.920 --> 0:06:32.640 contact other like my neighbors make are with my cats. 0:06:32.680 --> 0:06:34.480 Just chilling in the windows and stuff. 0:06:34.760 --> 0:06:37.480 But I mean, yeah, to be fair neighbor with cat 0:06:37.520 --> 0:06:39.360 in the windows not the worst rep you can have. 0:06:41.320 --> 0:06:52.000 I mean, yeah, true. But even even then, I yeah, 0:06:52.000 --> 0:06:54.160 I didn't even want my cats in the windows. I was. 0:06:54.240 --> 0:06:56.400 I was very very antisocial. I still am. 0:06:57.040 --> 0:07:00.120 But I have opened my mind quite a bit and 0:07:00.440 --> 0:07:03.560 come out of my shell a little bit. But that's irrelevant. 0:07:04.880 --> 0:07:07.360 From there. Like I said, we went flying. We went 0:07:07.400 --> 0:07:11.360 door to door. We found other people that were like, oh, yeah, 0:07:11.400 --> 0:07:14.400 this is super messed up, like we need to fight this. 0:07:16.080 --> 0:07:21.240 And we by just going door to door telling people, hey, 0:07:21.880 --> 0:07:27.360 we can fight this eviction. These eviction notices aren't super 0:07:27.520 --> 0:07:32.080 valid anyway, we were able to get a gigantic group 0:07:32.120 --> 0:07:38.040 of our neighbors together. Yeah yeah, and it kind of 0:07:38.880 --> 0:07:42.080 moved from there. I don't know how much further I 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:45.080 should explain. There's such a long timeline of the things 0:07:45.080 --> 0:07:45.880 that have happened in. 0:07:45.800 --> 0:07:47.320 The past two months, so I don't know where you 0:07:47.360 --> 0:07:47.920 want me to go. 0:07:47.880 --> 0:07:50.360 From there, But you know, that's at least the beginning 0:07:50.400 --> 0:07:53.400 of it was just you know, us flying, going door 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:57.120 to door, getting everyone together, getting everyone in a group 0:07:57.200 --> 0:08:04.840 chat and then SBTU truly supporting us and telling us, hey, 0:08:04.960 --> 0:08:07.880 here's the next steps that you need to do. This 0:08:07.920 --> 0:08:11.560 is how you become you know, a union, a tennis 0:08:11.560 --> 0:08:21.880 association for your for yourselves right with their full on support. 0:08:27.920 --> 0:08:29.720 Okay, so there is one thing I wanted to sort 0:08:29.720 --> 0:08:31.800 of talk about a little bit before you move. 0:08:31.640 --> 0:08:34.360 On, which is, Yeah, can you explain what Section eight 0:08:34.480 --> 0:08:35.800 is for listeners who don't know. 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:40.880 I can explain it based off my knowledge. I'm not 0:08:41.120 --> 0:08:45.640 currently on Section eight, but I know that resident many 0:08:45.720 --> 0:08:49.760 residents here are on Section eight, which I probably couldn't 0:08:49.760 --> 0:08:52.320 give the best description of it personally, but I know 0:08:52.480 --> 0:08:57.160 a lot of times it's people that are very little 0:08:57.160 --> 0:09:01.600 income or disabled individuals, people that can't work for various reasons, 0:09:02.559 --> 0:09:05.600 get low income housing, meaning they pay maybe I know 0:09:05.640 --> 0:09:09.680 some of our residents, for example, pay like they get 0:09:09.800 --> 0:09:13.240 Section eight vouchers that will pay about twenty five twenty 0:09:13.280 --> 0:09:16.400 six hundred dollars for their rent and their utilities, and 0:09:16.440 --> 0:09:18.880 then maybe they pay one hundred or two hundred because 0:09:18.880 --> 0:09:22.000 they're unable to get that income otherwise. 0:09:22.200 --> 0:09:24.160 But Max might be able to describe it a little 0:09:24.160 --> 0:09:24.840 bit better than me. 0:09:25.280 --> 0:09:26.360 Well, that sounds about right. 0:09:26.400 --> 0:09:28.360 I grew up on Section eight with like a single 0:09:28.400 --> 0:09:32.040 mom and stuff and she yeah, I mean it's just 0:09:32.080 --> 0:09:36.079 subsidized housing. It's basically it's what public housing or in 0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:37.880 some countries social housing would be. 0:09:38.000 --> 0:09:40.720 But in like the eighties, like the Reagan. 0:09:40.440 --> 0:09:43.599 Era like gutted all public housing, and so the concession 0:09:43.760 --> 0:09:46.920 was it's a voucher based system for the poor, like 0:09:46.960 --> 0:09:51.920 for the over low income people. So yeah, it's just 0:09:51.960 --> 0:09:54.079 the government will pay a portion of it. Some said 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:54.800 it pretty big. 0:09:55.000 --> 0:09:56.920 I think yeah, And. 0:09:57.160 --> 0:09:58.720 I guess, you know, like I guess that this is 0:09:58.720 --> 0:10:00.600 a sort of Yeah, an interesting thing about your building 0:10:00.679 --> 0:10:02.920 is that there's a very there's a very wide range 0:10:03.160 --> 0:10:07.240 of like sort of different backgrounds of people who are involved. 0:10:07.320 --> 0:10:08.800 I was wondering, you know, we can talk a little 0:10:08.800 --> 0:10:10.240 bit about like what that's been like. 0:10:13.000 --> 0:10:13.640 Yeah, so. 0:10:15.600 --> 0:10:18.320 I guess I could say we have four buildings, So 0:10:18.400 --> 0:10:21.920 we have so it's CBC and the SWEEPS, so it 0:10:21.960 --> 0:10:28.440 stands for Colonial Balboa Cortes Sweeps. The SWEEPS has a 0:10:28.440 --> 0:10:32.160 lot of students because it rents by the bed, but 0:10:32.559 --> 0:10:37.840 CBC has a of families and as we mentioned, you know, 0:10:37.960 --> 0:10:44.040 Section eight and lower income. I want to say I 0:10:44.440 --> 0:10:47.079 had heard from another representative like a county representative. 0:10:47.120 --> 0:10:48.800 This is I think it might have been more caps. 0:10:48.840 --> 0:10:51.040 Don't quote me on this, but that this is like 0:10:51.120 --> 0:10:57.040 the lowest one of the lowest income housing apartments in. 0:10:56.920 --> 0:11:00.840 Ila Vista, And so. 0:11:02.320 --> 0:11:07.280 There's a ton of like large families. When when this happened, 0:11:08.200 --> 0:11:12.960 you just people were just crying everywhere, like they didn't 0:11:13.040 --> 0:11:13.600 know what to do. 0:11:14.400 --> 0:11:17.120 This building is it's not unlike a lot of buildings 0:11:17.160 --> 0:11:20.920 where you have a pretty diverse kind of I guess 0:11:21.000 --> 0:11:24.920 just class composition. And I'm just like, so, so you know, 0:11:24.960 --> 0:11:28.840 if you think there's disabled people that have caseworkers. 0:11:28.360 --> 0:11:30.800 You have monolingual Spanish speaking immigrants. 0:11:30.960 --> 0:11:34.240 You have students, and you have some students who are 0:11:34.240 --> 0:11:37.480 sort of like city college students that are working full 0:11:37.480 --> 0:11:39.480 time or part time and their full time students, so 0:11:39.520 --> 0:11:43.360 they're sort of worker students. There's like full time UCSB 0:11:43.480 --> 0:11:46.000 students whose like parents may be totally loaded or whatever. 0:11:47.120 --> 0:11:50.200 You have you know, often an immigrant and low income 0:11:50.240 --> 0:11:53.839 family families. You have like way more people packed into 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:56.040 like a one or two bedroom than you would want, 0:11:56.080 --> 0:11:57.520 but it's the only way for you to make rent 0:11:57.600 --> 0:11:58.720 because rent keeps. 0:11:58.480 --> 0:11:59.240 Going up every year. 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:02.800 So uh so there's a lot of that, and so 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:07.120 I guess I'll just speak to I mean, I've only 0:12:07.320 --> 0:12:08.880 you know, I've run into it a bit, like I'm 0:12:08.920 --> 0:12:11.120 in the group chats and I've been I've been to 0:12:11.160 --> 0:12:12.880 the building like a few times, but I'm not like 0:12:12.960 --> 0:12:14.959 there every day and I'm not like flying every day 0:12:14.960 --> 0:12:16.360 and stuff like Sam is living there. 0:12:17.160 --> 0:12:18.920 But like one common kind of like difficult. 0:12:19.040 --> 0:12:20.679 It's like it's it's a beautiful thing, and it's a 0:12:20.720 --> 0:12:24.200 difficulty in that like there's so we need interpreters. And 0:12:24.240 --> 0:12:26.440 like in sbtwo we have where we're a sort of 0:12:26.440 --> 0:12:29.000 self funded autonomous tenets union, which means we don't get 0:12:29.040 --> 0:12:32.840 grants from like wealthy foundations or government, government entities. 0:12:32.559 --> 0:12:35.319 Whatever, so we can kind of more dependently make decisions. 0:12:35.360 --> 0:12:37.360 So but we have like a fair amount of dues 0:12:37.400 --> 0:12:39.400 money now just from the mass membership that we have 0:12:39.720 --> 0:12:41.800 kind of built, and so we can afford to pay 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:44.280 interpreters to come out basically whenever we need. 0:12:45.280 --> 0:12:46.920 So there's been interpreters. 0:12:46.440 --> 0:12:49.280 There at almost every one of the Saturday meetings, and 0:12:49.360 --> 0:12:51.439 without that it would it would actually just be impossible, 0:12:51.480 --> 0:12:54.360 I mean not like so that's like when there's a 0:12:54.400 --> 0:12:57.839 language barrier, right, that makes it hard to organize or 0:12:57.880 --> 0:13:00.000 it wouldn't be impossible. There's there's a handful of like 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:03.520 bilingual people, but they're usually super busy. It's if if 0:13:03.840 --> 0:13:05.520 one of them doesn't show up, or if the child 0:13:05.600 --> 0:13:07.560 of a parent, like a teenager of a parent isn't 0:13:07.559 --> 0:13:08.680 there or whatever, right, like, how do. 0:13:08.679 --> 0:13:10.959 You actually get the info across? 0:13:11.000 --> 0:13:14.360 So I'll just speak to lastly on that that it 0:13:14.440 --> 0:13:17.400 is like it's a really kind of frustrating, sad situation 0:13:17.920 --> 0:13:20.200 and we could probably elaborate on this in that like. 0:13:21.720 --> 0:13:23.880 The whether it's the lawyers right now. 0:13:23.720 --> 0:13:26.520 Who have been hired by by course Bass, which they're 0:13:26.520 --> 0:13:29.160 a snaky, slimy piece of shit, evil firm. They're called 0:13:29.800 --> 0:13:34.640 Tyne Taylor, Fox Howard l P. Just if you see 0:13:34.679 --> 0:13:36.480 any of them on the street, just give them dry looks, 0:13:36.480 --> 0:13:39.920 don't do anything violence use that against me at some 0:13:40.000 --> 0:13:46.200 point in the inevitable thing that's probably gonna happen. But 0:13:46.200 --> 0:13:48.800 but whether it's them with the landlords directly, there's there's 0:13:48.840 --> 0:13:51.199 always a you know, this is happens in labor organizing. 0:13:51.240 --> 0:13:52.920 It's a divide and conquer strategy. 0:13:53.480 --> 0:13:57.560 So they want to spread misinformation amongst the Latinos or 0:13:57.600 --> 0:14:00.120 amongst you know, amongst the families, amongst the disabled, like 0:14:00.120 --> 0:14:02.240 whoever they can sort of get an ear to, they're 0:14:02.240 --> 0:14:04.720 going to give them certain kinds of information to make 0:14:04.760 --> 0:14:07.720 them really afraid. They're going to tell them lies, and 0:14:07.720 --> 0:14:09.800 and they're going to get people to try to self evict. 0:14:10.160 --> 0:14:12.400 So I'm i am jumping a little bit ahead, but 0:14:12.480 --> 0:14:16.680 like that that definitely has been like a challenge in that, 0:14:17.080 --> 0:14:19.479 you know, if there was like a totally like linguistically 0:14:19.520 --> 0:14:23.480 culturally monolithic group of a thousand people, that would probably 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:26.960 be a little bit easier to keep things like totally unified. 0:14:27.000 --> 0:14:30.920 But those those demographic different differences do present some challenges 0:14:30.960 --> 0:14:31.360 for sure. 0:14:31.720 --> 0:14:33.400 Yeah, that makes it, That makes sense. 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:36.240 I mean we've talked to a couple of other kinds 0:14:36.240 --> 0:14:38.920 of associations that have had to actually well, i mean 0:14:38.920 --> 0:14:43.560 this one's actually as like you know, and back when 0:14:43.560 --> 0:14:45.200 I was doing tennis to organizing too, like I've I've 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:48.600 I've I've seen I've seen worse in terms of like 0:14:48.600 --> 0:14:50.880 like in terms in terms of like the number of languages. 0:14:51.440 --> 0:14:54.160 But it's still like never like an enormously easy thing 0:14:54.240 --> 0:14:57.360 to sort of have to bridge, like just having to 0:14:57.360 --> 0:15:01.000 bridge linguistic divides too. Especially when you're getting information like 0:15:01.080 --> 0:15:05.840 misinformation different languages is a whole thing. I could I 0:15:05.840 --> 0:15:08.480 could talk for like seven hours about the effects this 0:15:08.520 --> 0:15:10.840 has had on like Asian American communities, like Chinese American 0:15:10.840 --> 0:15:14.840 communities particular. Yeah, but instead of doing that, we're gonna 0:15:14.880 --> 0:15:15.920 we have to take an ad break. 0:15:16.680 --> 0:15:22.120 We'll be back after whatever. Incomprehensible ads are playing. 0:15:23.600 --> 0:15:26.960 Okay, cool, great ads. Bye by the stuff on the ads, 0:15:38.360 --> 0:15:39.120 and we're back. 0:15:39.160 --> 0:15:42.040 I hope the ads were short. 0:15:42.440 --> 0:15:46.760 I don't know, there are some great ads. 0:15:49.440 --> 0:15:51.280 I'm gonna buy that thing whatever. 0:15:52.080 --> 0:15:55.480 The Raking coins again or like one of the casinos. 0:15:58.440 --> 0:16:02.480 Okay, so yeah, so I guess. 0:16:04.040 --> 0:16:07.080 Yeah, you know, well just okay, Having having having done 0:16:07.080 --> 0:16:09.920 a thematic jump, I will now go back to chronological jumps, 0:16:09.920 --> 0:16:12.680 which is okay. So you have you're starting this organizing 0:16:12.680 --> 0:16:15.920 what what starts to happen after you're starting to get 0:16:15.920 --> 0:16:18.440 people together and you have the tenants, the center, our 0:16:18.480 --> 0:16:20.360 patency need involved. 0:16:21.080 --> 0:16:21.320 Yeah. 0:16:21.360 --> 0:16:24.800 So it started from flying getting everyone just like a 0:16:24.880 --> 0:16:28.880 basic letting them know that they don't have to move, 0:16:29.120 --> 0:16:33.360 that this eviction is this eviction is bullshit right. 0:16:35.280 --> 0:16:37.920 Oh, by the way, we didn't we were never giving 0:16:38.000 --> 0:16:41.640 legal advice that people shouldn't move. It was if you 0:16:41.680 --> 0:16:45.479 don't want to, you don't have to because there's certain illegitimacies, 0:16:45.560 --> 0:16:48.120 just because I know that the slimy piece of human 0:16:48.160 --> 0:16:50.680 fucking garbage fire trash lawyers are going to be listening 0:16:50.720 --> 0:16:52.960 to this and trying to use us again, use it 0:16:53.000 --> 0:16:54.360 against us away, Sorry, go. 0:16:54.320 --> 0:16:56.520 Ahead, Yeah, no, thank you for the correction. 0:16:56.720 --> 0:17:00.960 That is entirely Yeah, they don't have to if they 0:17:00.960 --> 0:17:06.560 don't do basically. But yeah, So after we did the 0:17:06.600 --> 0:17:09.679 flying we Santa our attendants unions set us up with 0:17:09.760 --> 0:17:12.639 some group chats and we just worked together. 0:17:12.680 --> 0:17:13.160 From there. 0:17:13.760 --> 0:17:18.680 We just started talking to one another, and I think 0:17:18.720 --> 0:17:24.240 it was it was a new situation for most of us. 0:17:24.640 --> 0:17:26.479 A lot of I mentioned this before, but a lot 0:17:26.560 --> 0:17:29.720 of us didn't talk to each other before. We didn't 0:17:29.760 --> 0:17:32.840 go out of our apartments, which I think is kind 0:17:32.840 --> 0:17:35.120 of normal nowadays. It's not like you know the sixties, 0:17:35.160 --> 0:17:37.119 where like, oh, everyone has a house and knows the 0:17:37.160 --> 0:17:39.560 neighbors and stuff. No, people kind of keep to themselves, 0:17:39.640 --> 0:17:46.080 especially in really large apartment complexes. So yeah, we we 0:17:46.160 --> 0:17:48.600 just started going in the group chat and then someone 0:17:48.720 --> 0:17:50.879 was like, hey, I can do this. Another person was hey, 0:17:51.000 --> 0:17:52.880 I can do this, And then eventually we set up 0:17:53.800 --> 0:17:57.720 a group meeting where we could all come together and 0:17:59.359 --> 0:18:06.520 basically share our our feelings, our emotions, our pain about this, 0:18:07.200 --> 0:18:12.399 but also find a way to fight against it. So 0:18:13.160 --> 0:18:17.080 what we learned was, which we fully learned from the 0:18:17.080 --> 0:18:19.480 center of our Attendants Union, was oh, if we go 0:18:19.560 --> 0:18:22.760 in front of the county board, we can convince them, 0:18:23.280 --> 0:18:25.600 we can share our stories, we can share our pain, 0:18:25.640 --> 0:18:27.960 and we can tell them, hey, we need the law 0:18:28.000 --> 0:18:30.919 to change, we can pass something, we can. 0:18:30.840 --> 0:18:34.160 Use our voices to stop this from not. 0:18:34.080 --> 0:18:39.240 Only happening to us but future residents. So so from 0:18:39.280 --> 0:18:44.639 there it was really in the early stages. We I 0:18:44.680 --> 0:18:47.840 don't know if this is jumping ahead. Honestly, my brain 0:18:47.960 --> 0:18:52.160 is a little foggrant. There's so much that's happened so quickly, 0:18:54.080 --> 0:19:00.240 But I do know the next biggest step was us 0:19:00.440 --> 0:19:06.119 coming in front of the of the Santa Barbara County 0:19:06.240 --> 0:19:11.880 Supervisors Board of Supervisors and telling our stories and sharing that. 0:19:12.760 --> 0:19:15.760 I think Max could probably also share a little bit. 0:19:16.320 --> 0:19:18.120 Yeah, I have so Like the dates in my head 0:19:18.119 --> 0:19:21.040 are like, you know, the March fifteenth they bought the building. 0:19:21.119 --> 0:19:24.400 March sixteenth, they issued the notices, and then April sixth, 0:19:24.400 --> 0:19:26.920 which is like three weeks from that, they passed the 0:19:26.960 --> 0:19:30.520 new law. So that means I mean that's like three yeah, 0:19:30.560 --> 0:19:34.520 a three week period from the notices to like having 0:19:34.640 --> 0:19:36.359 I think at least a couple of meetings with like 0:19:36.480 --> 0:19:39.160 dozens of people I don't know, thirty to fifty plus 0:19:39.200 --> 0:19:42.959 people there, and then like forming you know, deciding to 0:19:42.960 --> 0:19:46.480 form the association and voting to call I don't remember 0:19:46.520 --> 0:19:48.960 exactly if the vote to call it course basis the 0:19:49.160 --> 0:19:52.200 association was before that the county meeting or after. 0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:56.399 But and then they're also because there's there's also. 0:19:56.119 --> 0:19:59.760 Two like pretty crazy facts here too, where like about 0:20:00.359 --> 0:20:03.280 so six weeks before, of course BACES announced a new ownership, 0:20:04.680 --> 0:20:07.920 all of us in SBTU had sort of we heard 0:20:07.920 --> 0:20:10.080 so many stories on the Santa Barbara City level, and 0:20:10.080 --> 0:20:12.200 Santa Barbara City is not the county, right, the county 0:20:12.280 --> 0:20:15.640 is like this larger geographical entity, and Santa Barbara City 0:20:15.680 --> 0:20:16.800 is within the county. 0:20:17.240 --> 0:20:21.280 On the city level, we've been hearing so many. 0:20:21.080 --> 0:20:24.600 Really terrible stories about people being renevicted, and we just 0:20:24.640 --> 0:20:27.840 decided to kind of like throw people at like yo, 0:20:28.000 --> 0:20:31.560 go to go to public comment tell the city about 0:20:31.560 --> 0:20:33.199 what they're doing, tell them they need to pass a 0:20:33.240 --> 0:20:36.080 ban on renovictions. We had like a big rally in 0:20:36.080 --> 0:20:38.240 front of city council, and we were just going week 0:20:38.240 --> 0:20:41.240 after week, and after about six weeks of this, like 0:20:41.280 --> 0:20:43.520 four to six weeks, I forget the exact timeline we 0:20:43.600 --> 0:20:46.280 got the city to pass. It wasn't a ban on renovictions, 0:20:46.280 --> 0:20:48.600 but it was an amendment to their what's called their 0:20:48.680 --> 0:20:51.199 Just Cause Ordinance, which makes it a lot harder for 0:20:51.359 --> 0:20:54.119 landlords to renevict and that now that they have to 0:20:54.119 --> 0:20:57.879 get permits first, they have to have to put the 0:20:57.880 --> 0:21:00.439 permits in the renoviction notices when they're to do it, 0:21:00.480 --> 0:21:03.879 they need to there's some language that says that it 0:21:03.920 --> 0:21:05.879 needs to be done in good faith, which which is 0:21:05.920 --> 0:21:09.480 like really subtle but potentially really important because if your 0:21:09.480 --> 0:21:11.520 reason is that you just want to trigger what's called 0:21:11.600 --> 0:21:14.280 vacancy de control, which is like kicking people out so 0:21:14.280 --> 0:21:16.680 you can jack the rent over the ten percent limit 0:21:16.760 --> 0:21:20.040 in California, like like right now, a landlord can raise 0:21:20.040 --> 0:21:24.000 the rent about ten percent every year if just just 0:21:24.040 --> 0:21:27.200 because they want to. But if you can get people 0:21:27.240 --> 0:21:28.720 out of the unit, you can raise it to whatever 0:21:28.760 --> 0:21:31.360 you want so on the city level, it was just 0:21:31.400 --> 0:21:32.640 it was a really big deal. 0:21:32.680 --> 0:21:34.359 We had just won it, and we were like pretty 0:21:34.359 --> 0:21:35.080 exhausted from it. 0:21:35.119 --> 0:21:36.480 We're like, shit, that was a lot of work and 0:21:36.480 --> 0:21:39.560 we won really quickly, and everybody around us that's been 0:21:39.560 --> 0:21:40.879 doing stuff for a while was like, we don't know 0:21:40.880 --> 0:21:41.439 how you guys. 0:21:41.320 --> 0:21:43.200 Did that shit so fast. That was really amazing. 0:21:43.840 --> 0:21:46.760 And then like I think it was like the week, 0:21:46.920 --> 0:21:49.240 like within a couple of days of us like celebrating 0:21:49.240 --> 0:21:53.600 that win. Course spaces the core spaces thing, Yeah this 0:21:53.680 --> 0:21:56.359 is but this is county jurisdiction. So we were like, okay, 0:21:56.600 --> 0:21:58.200 I guess we got to go from city to county. 0:21:58.200 --> 0:21:59.240 We got to get to the county to do the 0:21:59.240 --> 0:22:02.760 same fucking thing. So we were already really fucking exhausted, 0:22:02.800 --> 0:22:04.680