WEBVTT - It Could Happen Here Weekly 146 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:02.920 Cool Zone Media. 0:00:03.760 --> 0:00:06.200 Hey everybody, Robert Evans here and I wanted to let 0:00:06.240 --> 0:00:09.920 you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode 0:00:10.039 --> 0:00:13.160 of the week that just happened is here in one 0:00:13.240 --> 0:00:17.000 convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to 0:00:17.040 --> 0:00:19.480 listen to in a long stretch if you want. If 0:00:19.520 --> 0:00:21.439 you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, 0:00:21.480 --> 0:00:23.200 there's going to be nothing new here for you, but 0:00:23.600 --> 0:00:25.720 you can make your own decisions. 0:00:27.600 --> 0:00:30.080 Welcome to it could happen here a podcast about things 0:00:30.080 --> 0:00:32.520 falling apart and how to put it back together again. 0:00:32.640 --> 0:00:35.280 This is an episode where both happen at the same time. 0:00:35.680 --> 0:00:39.159 I'm your host, Bia Wong, and we are returning to 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:42.360 what I've realized was I think one of the earliest 0:00:42.600 --> 0:00:45.360 things we ever covered on this show in the sort 0:00:45.400 --> 0:00:47.640 of misty depths of time, which is I guess three 0:00:47.760 --> 0:00:52.000 years ago now. We talked to some organizers and tenants 0:00:52.000 --> 0:00:55.400 from the Hillside Villa Tenant Association, and a bunch of 0:00:55.440 --> 0:00:57.680 stuffice happened since then. A lot of it is terrible, 0:00:57.760 --> 0:01:01.240 some of it is cool. Well, the stuff, the stuff 0:01:01.280 --> 0:01:03.800 you've been doing is cool. The stuff everyone else in 0:01:03.800 --> 0:01:08.160 the situation has been doing is terrible. Yeah, and with 0:01:08.280 --> 0:01:10.560 me to talk about this is Janice you who's an 0:01:10.640 --> 0:01:15.080 organizer from CCUD and on a e tenant organizer at 0:01:15.319 --> 0:01:18.680 Hillside Villa or via Jesus Christ. Why am I doing Villa? Oh, 0:01:18.760 --> 0:01:22.600 I know I know more Spanish than this. I know 0:01:22.640 --> 0:01:24.560 it of Spanish. When people think that I'm Spanish to 0:01:24.600 --> 0:01:25.959 start talking to me on the street, I can kind 0:01:25.959 --> 0:01:29.840 of communicate with them. Abject failure. Yeah, welcome both to 0:01:29.880 --> 0:01:30.280 the show. 0:01:30.600 --> 0:01:33.800 Thank you, thank you. It's both good and bad to 0:01:33.880 --> 0:01:34.320 be back. 0:01:34.920 --> 0:01:38.080 Yeah, I wish, I wish circumstances were better. 0:01:39.640 --> 0:01:43.200 Yeah, thank you for having us, and yeah for staying 0:01:43.560 --> 0:01:47.280 in contact with us and trying to stay updated with 0:01:47.400 --> 0:01:52.400 our Hillside Villa. Danna said, Unfortunately, five almost six years 0:01:52.400 --> 0:01:55.640 in and we're still trying to find a solution to 0:01:55.760 --> 0:01:59.760 this epidemic of housing in Los Angeles. 0:02:00.160 --> 0:02:03.400 Yeah, so let's start there. For people who don't remember 0:02:03.720 --> 0:02:07.560 this from many, many eons in the past, can you 0:02:07.760 --> 0:02:10.480 sort of remind people of what kind of organizing has 0:02:10.480 --> 0:02:14.160 been happening and the general situation of this building, of 0:02:14.200 --> 0:02:16.920 these landlords, and of the conditions of people who have 0:02:17.000 --> 0:02:19.960 to rent stuff in La Yeah, I. 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:22.480 Can kind of start with the bigger picture context and 0:02:22.480 --> 0:02:24.160 then an I definitely fill in. 0:02:24.480 --> 0:02:26.239 From your personal experience. 0:02:26.400 --> 0:02:30.400 But basically, hills Ibea is a building that was built 0:02:30.400 --> 0:02:34.360 in the eighties in Los Angeles, Chinatown and it was 0:02:34.480 --> 0:02:37.640 meant to be affordable housing. It had an affordable housing 0:02:37.680 --> 0:02:42.960 covenant for thirty years up until twenty eighteen, and as 0:02:43.040 --> 0:02:47.360 soon as that expired, as would be expected, the landlord, 0:02:47.440 --> 0:02:51.359 Tom Botts, immediately tried to raise rent to market rate, 0:02:51.480 --> 0:02:54.679 which for the low income, working class tenants that work 0:02:54.720 --> 0:02:59.760 at Hillside Villa, it was a two hundred percent increase, 0:03:00.800 --> 0:03:04.680 right yeah, which is a de facto eviction, Like folks 0:03:04.720 --> 0:03:09.560 who were paying eight hundred dollars in rent were now 0:03:09.600 --> 0:03:13.359 being asked to pay twenty five hundred, which is literally 0:03:13.400 --> 0:03:16.840 impossible for some tenants who are on fixed incomes. And 0:03:16.919 --> 0:03:19.600 so it was a huge issue for one of the 0:03:19.680 --> 0:03:23.480 largest buildings in La Chinatown. It has one hundred and 0:03:23.480 --> 0:03:28.960 twenty four units, multi ethnic, multi generational, and so as 0:03:29.000 --> 0:03:32.000 soon as that happened, I think one of the tenants, 0:03:32.200 --> 0:03:36.080 DONIEA Luisa, who is no longer with us, called the 0:03:36.080 --> 0:03:40.600 news channels and organizers got involved, and yeah, this was 0:03:40.640 --> 0:03:45.320 six years ago. At this point, and pretty early on 0:03:45.680 --> 0:03:48.840 in the fight, I think at the time, we were 0:03:48.920 --> 0:03:53.360 working with the District one council member at the time, 0:03:53.480 --> 0:03:59.040 Gil Cidillo, who's, you know, an establishment democrat, and he 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:02.840 had tried to negotiate a deal with Tom Bops, the landlord, 0:04:03.160 --> 0:04:06.480 for a ten year extension that ended up falling through 0:04:06.560 --> 0:04:09.960 because Bots renegged on it, and that was I think 0:04:10.080 --> 0:04:13.160 one of the first moments where tenants realized, we cannot 0:04:13.440 --> 0:04:19.599 trust these politicians to liberate us right to actually solve 0:04:19.640 --> 0:04:23.440 the root issues, and so that's when tenants started actually 0:04:23.480 --> 0:04:28.200 demanding to use eminent domain, which is the government's power 0:04:28.320 --> 0:04:33.200 to basically seize land for public use, to actually use 0:04:33.240 --> 0:04:37.360 that power for affordable housing, and to use it as 0:04:37.360 --> 0:04:40.880 a long term solution for all of these expiring covenants, 0:04:40.920 --> 0:04:44.919 which is a city wide issue. It's not just a 0:04:45.000 --> 0:04:49.599 Chinatown thing. There's actually like thousands of buildings where covenants 0:04:49.600 --> 0:04:52.240 are set to expire in the next few years. So 0:04:52.839 --> 0:04:56.560 that was how this fight was going, and we had 0:04:56.600 --> 0:05:02.120 actually successfully pressured our city council in twenty twenty one 0:05:02.560 --> 0:05:05.960 in May, which was I think the first time we 0:05:06.000 --> 0:05:08.760 came on the show, to set aside the funding to 0:05:09.080 --> 0:05:12.040 actually do that and to actually, you know, take bold 0:05:12.080 --> 0:05:15.320 action or housing and yeah, I'll pass it over to 0:05:15.360 --> 0:05:18.120 ANII to just share from your own experience. 0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:21.480 Thanks. I don't know how I could follow that, but 0:05:21.640 --> 0:05:22.560 I'll try my best. 0:05:23.200 --> 0:05:23.400 Yeah. 0:05:23.440 --> 0:05:28.799 So, like Jennis was sharing, the convenant expired in twenty eighteen, 0:05:29.320 --> 0:05:33.080 there was already an attempt to evict my family, as 0:05:33.080 --> 0:05:35.760 I shared in the previous episode. 0:05:36.320 --> 0:05:39.640 So after that is when we all started organizing. 0:05:40.320 --> 0:05:46.640 And then shortly after the pandemic happened and everything shut down. 0:05:47.279 --> 0:05:52.320 During this time, the landlord Tombot like wasn't stopping. He 0:05:52.520 --> 0:05:57.640 was going full throttle into his mission of completely evicting 0:05:58.360 --> 0:06:02.880 and displacing all all the families living here in Chinatown, 0:06:03.520 --> 0:06:06.880 the multi generational families that have been in Los Angeles, 0:06:07.440 --> 0:06:08.520 not known nowhere else. 0:06:08.640 --> 0:06:11.120 You know this this is our home. Los Angeles is 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:11.559 our home. 0:06:11.720 --> 0:06:15.440 So with this eviction, it meant that we'd have to 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:19.640 first be houseless, be out on the street, and be 0:06:19.720 --> 0:06:22.840 forced to like figure something out last minute for ourselves 0:06:23.560 --> 0:06:26.960 and moved somewhere in the outskirts of Los Angeles to 0:06:27.000 --> 0:06:29.800 a place where we're not familiar with. So these are 0:06:29.800 --> 0:06:32.960 some of the things that we were facing then during 0:06:33.000 --> 0:06:38.200 the pandemic and also facing a continued rental increases which 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:41.560 were illegal during the pandemic and is something that we've 0:06:41.640 --> 0:06:46.400 been dealing post pandemic and recently in a lot of 0:06:46.440 --> 0:06:49.279 our more current meetings. Who is like bringing that to 0:06:49.400 --> 0:06:54.560 light that these were illegal rental increases that had happened 0:06:54.960 --> 0:07:01.000 and that he actually asked the city to pay right. 0:07:01.480 --> 0:07:05.000 Yeah, So we had applied to e REP, which is 0:07:05.040 --> 0:07:09.160 basically a rental relief program to support tenants, and what 0:07:09.279 --> 0:07:14.240 Bots did was he asked the government to pay him 0:07:14.760 --> 0:07:18.120 the increased rent rates, the two hundred percent increased rates, 0:07:18.160 --> 0:07:20.240 and the government fucking gave it to him. 0:07:22.400 --> 0:07:22.960 Yeah. 0:07:23.080 --> 0:07:27.840 Yeah, And yet he is still demanding that tenants themselves 0:07:27.960 --> 0:07:32.600 pay back their rent debt fully. And what happened with 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:36.000 the recent deal that was made behind tenants back, which 0:07:36.560 --> 0:07:39.800 is what we're going to get into, is that the 0:07:39.840 --> 0:07:44.640 government basically took the extra money back and are not 0:07:45.080 --> 0:07:48.840 applying it to the tenants rent debt. So that's something 0:07:48.840 --> 0:07:52.880 that we're pretty pissed off about because basically they took 0:07:52.920 --> 0:07:55.120 money that was supposed to be for tenants and just 0:07:55.320 --> 0:07:59.120 gave it back to the city government, which also doesn't 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:02.040 even make sense because it was federal funding. So that's 0:08:02.120 --> 0:08:03.280 kind of one of the issues. 0:08:03.400 --> 0:08:06.000 Yeah, so we have a situation where the landlord has 0:08:06.040 --> 0:08:10.000 stolen this money and then the city has now stolen 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:15.000 it from him, which they have stolen federal money for themselves. 0:08:16.240 --> 0:08:19.960 Oh Jesus Christ literally literally oh God. 0:08:20.360 --> 0:08:23.920 Yeah, it's all just like state sanctioned theft. 0:08:24.160 --> 0:08:26.720 You know what else is a structural problem that is 0:08:27.480 --> 0:08:30.160 causing the massive miseration of most of the population on Earth. 0:08:30.200 --> 0:08:32.560 It is the products and services that support this podcast, 0:08:32.559 --> 0:08:34.360 and we're going to go to them briefly. 0:08:44.280 --> 0:08:45.280 We are back. 0:08:46.040 --> 0:08:47.920 So is there anything else from sort of I guess 0:08:47.960 --> 0:08:50.319 like the background era of this that we want to 0:08:50.360 --> 0:08:53.600 get to before we move into like what's been happening now. 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:57.280 Yeah. I think maybe some additional context we can share 0:08:57.520 --> 0:09:01.760 is that after that made twenty twenty one council meeting, 0:09:02.280 --> 0:09:06.760 we ended up really supporting our current council member, a 0:09:07.040 --> 0:09:11.720 Nieces in her campaign to get elected. This was November 0:09:11.760 --> 0:09:16.000 of twenty twenty one. We hosted large forums in Chinatown. 0:09:16.559 --> 0:09:20.360 We really mobilized our base in CCD to turn out 0:09:20.360 --> 0:09:24.000 to vote for her. And I think a powerful anecdote 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:28.200 is that Richard One of the longest Vietnamese tenants at 0:09:28.280 --> 0:09:31.640 hellsid Via, he's been there for over thirty years. For him, 0:09:31.720 --> 0:09:35.240 this was the first vote that he ever cast in 0:09:35.280 --> 0:09:38.680 this country. And I think that, you know, it's not 0:09:38.720 --> 0:09:41.120 a unique story. I think for a lot of our elders, 0:09:41.600 --> 0:09:45.040 it was only because of our efforts that they participated 0:09:45.040 --> 0:09:48.080 in this election. So I think a lot of the 0:09:48.120 --> 0:09:51.800 statistics show that the Asian base, the Chinatown base, was 0:09:51.840 --> 0:09:56.319 really essential to getting a Nieces elected. And in twenty 0:09:56.400 --> 0:10:00.880 twenty two, she officially got an off. She was able 0:10:00.920 --> 0:10:05.200 to beat the incumbent Gil Cidio and was the first. 0:10:05.040 --> 0:10:07.600 Quote unquote abolitionist. 0:10:08.600 --> 0:10:13.840 DSA, so Democratic Socialists of America kind of sponsored candidate 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:19.400 to win an LAC council. And since then we've only 0:10:19.960 --> 0:10:23.320 seen her maybe two or three times. Sorry, And I 0:10:24.000 --> 0:10:27.120 to address the issues at Hill said Via. Even though 0:10:27.520 --> 0:10:33.760 during her campaign phase she rhetorically supported our eminent domain struggle, 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:37.959 she made a lot of promises as politicians. 0:10:37.400 --> 0:10:39.600 Do, around housing in Chinatown. 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:42.920 And yeah, I think that kind of brings us up 0:10:42.920 --> 0:10:44.120 to where we are now. 0:10:44.520 --> 0:10:48.280 Yeah, so let's get into what is currently happening, because 0:10:48.600 --> 0:10:53.840 dear God, it's really I don't know, things somehow getting worse. 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:58.040 What's been happening in the last I guess immediate period. 0:10:58.679 --> 0:11:03.640 Yeah, so wow, so much has happened, and it's really 0:11:03.679 --> 0:11:08.319 hard to actually like keep track of all of the 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:15.880 big things, whether positive mostly negative things happening. Just so 0:11:16.000 --> 0:11:20.320 much has happened over the last three years. We've been 0:11:20.360 --> 0:11:23.640 in the fight for six years. So as we were 0:11:24.520 --> 0:11:28.400 mentioning in twenty twenty one, there was a vote that 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:31.840 happened at City Hall where there'd be an evaluation of 0:11:31.880 --> 0:11:35.440 the building in order for the city to purchase a 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:42.120 hillside villa or last resort would be expropriate through eminent domain, 0:11:42.960 --> 0:11:47.920 although that was never something that the people in power 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:53.480 at LAHD or that politicians really did behind and like 0:11:53.559 --> 0:12:01.000 always wanted to try something a little less radical, therefore 0:12:01.520 --> 0:12:08.040 going into negotiations, working with the landlord and having these 0:12:08.360 --> 0:12:16.120 conversations with the landlord, with LAHD, with us somewhat in 0:12:16.160 --> 0:12:20.120 the picture but mostly not in the picture. And that 0:12:20.200 --> 0:12:26.880 was done on purpose on behalf of LAHD and Tombots 0:12:28.080 --> 0:12:32.600 and the politicians at CD one. So because we were 0:12:32.920 --> 0:12:37.240 waiting for this evaluation to happen at Hillside Villa, I 0:12:37.320 --> 0:12:42.760 believe LAHD needed to do that evaluation. Well, the landlord 0:12:42.840 --> 0:12:47.920 Tombots didn't allow them to come into the building to 0:12:47.960 --> 0:12:52.640 do that evaluation because it was private property and they 0:12:52.720 --> 0:12:56.719 needed some kind of core order like permit or paperwork 0:12:56.840 --> 0:13:01.720 to allow the city LAHD to come into the building 0:13:02.080 --> 0:13:08.679 to evaluate. That actually halted the process of evaluating in 0:13:08.800 --> 0:13:13.400 order to purchase the building and actually had tenants waiting 0:13:13.520 --> 0:13:17.360 for this evaluation to happen for months, if not over 0:13:17.400 --> 0:13:22.280 a year. And you can imagine how tenants felt like 0:13:22.440 --> 0:13:26.960 if they were like suffocating under these circumstances of waiting 0:13:27.760 --> 0:13:34.160 for the city to act, for Tom Botts to allow 0:13:34.559 --> 0:13:38.959 and there was always this resistance with the landlord and 0:13:39.920 --> 0:13:43.200 with getting LAHD to get up off their ass and 0:13:43.280 --> 0:13:50.960 actually do something. Unfortunately, the chair of LAHD, her name 0:13:51.000 --> 0:13:53.440 is Anne Seul. I'm sure a lot of people have 0:13:53.559 --> 0:13:57.040 heard her name by now. She is not our friend. 0:13:57.360 --> 0:14:00.520 She's wicked in like in not a cool way. She's 0:14:00.559 --> 0:14:05.720 actually as like some conflict of interest in my opinion 0:14:06.080 --> 0:14:09.800 that shouldn't allow her to even be in that position 0:14:09.880 --> 0:14:14.560 that she's in and to have such power over a 0:14:14.640 --> 0:14:18.040 case like ours at Hillside Villa, where she was going 0:14:18.080 --> 0:14:22.600 into negotiations with tombots, and she's also a landlord and 0:14:22.640 --> 0:14:23.320 a white woman. 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:28.040 Oh Jesus Christ, so it's a double lammy there. 0:14:28.600 --> 0:14:33.720 And yeah, she became really buddy buddy friendly with tombots 0:14:33.760 --> 0:14:39.520 and that is when negotiations began between her and tombots 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:46.120 behind the lucha, the fight for housing, behind the organizers backs, 0:14:46.120 --> 0:14:52.520 behind communities back, and so we rallied, we protested, we 0:14:53.520 --> 0:14:57.160 did phone banks for over a year, and things were 0:14:57.240 --> 0:15:00.640 so stagnant, Like I can't even ex expressed to you 0:15:01.840 --> 0:15:05.240 how that at least that one year was. And that's 0:15:05.320 --> 0:15:07.880 part of like, since the last time we were here 0:15:07.920 --> 0:15:11.080 on this podcast was three years ago, well a year 0:15:11.320 --> 0:15:14.720 or more of that was us just waiting around for 0:15:14.760 --> 0:15:18.720 the city to actually do their job. And we can't 0:15:18.720 --> 0:15:22.360 get them to do their job, but we can protest 0:15:22.400 --> 0:15:24.480 and we can do direct action. And so we did, 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:29.800 and we pulled up to Ansel's house, not once, not twice. 0:15:30.560 --> 0:15:35.400 We rallied the housing community to go protest at her 0:15:35.440 --> 0:15:39.920 home and to make her uncomfortable because at any moment, 0:15:39.960 --> 0:15:41.840 any of us can get kicked out of our home. 0:15:42.200 --> 0:15:44.880 You know, there's no sense of security here and we're 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:49.120 never there to cause harm, you know, to anyone, no 0:15:49.240 --> 0:15:52.680 physical harm or anything. But we're there to also like 0:15:53.000 --> 0:15:56.360 kind of get her to understand how uncomfortable it is 0:15:56.680 --> 0:16:00.000 and how like safe she is in her own home. Right, 0:16:00.320 --> 0:16:05.960 so she called cops on us, She targeted organizers by name. 0:16:06.560 --> 0:16:10.640 It was really sloppy on their end. And yeah, so 0:16:11.080 --> 0:16:14.480 I think i'll stop there in Janice. If you want 0:16:14.520 --> 0:16:17.240 to kind of add anything, I'm sure you have a 0:16:17.240 --> 0:16:17.800 lot to add. 0:16:18.880 --> 0:16:21.600 No, Yeah, that was a really borough summary. 0:16:21.640 --> 0:16:24.560 I think all I want to add is that while 0:16:25.480 --> 0:16:29.840 Box was denying the city access to the building, which 0:16:30.160 --> 0:16:35.000 we you know, questioned deeply because why couldn't a tenant 0:16:35.160 --> 0:16:37.200 just give them access to the building. Why do they 0:16:37.240 --> 0:16:40.200 need special permission from the landlord. 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:41.160 It's all just. 0:16:41.120 --> 0:16:44.560 Smoke and mirrors, right, delay tactics put on by this 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:49.440 trifecta of LHD, which is the LA Housing Department, So 0:16:49.560 --> 0:16:53.960 the bureaucrats and then CD one City Council District one, 0:16:54.440 --> 0:16:59.120 the politicians and then bots. They're all completely aligned with 0:16:59.200 --> 0:17:04.560 each other in their end goal of essentially protecting capital, 0:17:04.720 --> 0:17:05.840 protecting landlords. 0:17:05.920 --> 0:17:06.120 Right. 0:17:06.640 --> 0:17:11.480 So as he was doing that, he initiated the eviction process. 0:17:11.600 --> 0:17:16.440 He started evicting tenants the you know, thirty five plus 0:17:16.720 --> 0:17:22.280 families that are deeply involved in the Tenants Association. He 0:17:22.920 --> 0:17:27.000 sent eviction papers to all of them, so and Ia, 0:17:27.080 --> 0:17:29.639 maybe you can speak to a little bit of like 0:17:29.720 --> 0:17:32.959 what that experience was like to get those papers while 0:17:33.280 --> 0:17:36.440 the eminent domain process wasn't moving forward like it was 0:17:36.440 --> 0:17:36.920 supposed to. 0:17:37.640 --> 0:17:42.680 Definitely, well, speaking on behalf of like my mom, who 0:17:42.720 --> 0:17:44.680 I live here with and. 0:17:44.520 --> 0:17:46.960 Who's lived here for over twelve. 0:17:46.680 --> 0:17:52.080 Years, and speaking on behalf of other tenants, a lot 0:17:52.119 --> 0:17:56.040 of them are elders over fifty years old, have lived 0:17:56.040 --> 0:18:00.880 here for over twenty thirty years. They definitely I felt 0:18:01.200 --> 0:18:06.639 the burden of those eviction papers and the anxiety, the 0:18:06.680 --> 0:18:10.359 heavy emotions that comes with being at fear of losing 0:18:10.400 --> 0:18:14.600 your home at any moment, the health issues that come 0:18:14.720 --> 0:18:18.080 up with that. So they definitely felt a lot of that. 0:18:18.680 --> 0:18:23.040 And as much as much as we've been fighting, as 0:18:23.080 --> 0:18:26.040 much support as we have from the community, like they 0:18:26.160 --> 0:18:31.360 still felt that insecurity of their housing. For me, as 0:18:31.400 --> 0:18:35.560 someone in their twenties and where we've been in this 0:18:35.600 --> 0:18:40.280 fight for over six years or about six years, I 0:18:40.320 --> 0:18:44.919 felt like we've gone through the eviction process and I 0:18:45.000 --> 0:18:51.360 don't fear tombots, and I don't fear his tactics or 0:18:51.400 --> 0:18:55.760 his eviction papers. So there's definitely a difference in the 0:18:55.800 --> 0:18:58.560 way that like a lot of our elders feel. But 0:18:59.000 --> 0:19:02.560 I do have a lot of trust in the organizing 0:19:02.640 --> 0:19:07.720 that we're doing the solidarity. All though things haven't necessarily 0:19:07.760 --> 0:19:13.320 been all like happy and like we're still not really 0:19:13.400 --> 0:19:16.679 getting the things that we've been demanding for, I have 0:19:16.720 --> 0:19:19.160 a lot of trust that we're going to be able 0:19:19.200 --> 0:19:20.840 to win those evictions. 0:19:21.800 --> 0:19:23.919 And we know how weak. 0:19:24.119 --> 0:19:28.920 Tom Botts is his way of thinking, and how weak 0:19:29.000 --> 0:19:33.240 their lawyers are, So we must keep pushing. There's no 0:19:33.359 --> 0:19:37.800 other way, and we will until this is over. 0:19:37.960 --> 0:19:39.080 If it is ever. 0:19:39.000 --> 0:19:42.159 Over, unfortunately we need to go to ads. Then we 0:19:42.240 --> 0:19:46.480 will come back with not ads and instead more incredibly 0:19:46.480 --> 0:19:58.639 beautiful stories of struggle. We are back. I guess I 0:19:58.680 --> 0:20:01.760 promised struggle and I didn't. I should have added and 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:04.600 also betrayal because it's kind of the. 0:20:04.520 --> 0:20:05.439 Next part of this. 0:20:07.680 --> 0:20:11.600 Absolutely, let's talk about that and the deals that are 0:20:11.600 --> 0:20:12.160 being cut. 0:20:12.760 --> 0:20:18.240 Yeah, So at the beginning of this year, we learned 0:20:18.320 --> 0:20:23.760 that a deal had been negotiated between LHD and bought 0:20:23.920 --> 0:20:29.080 completely behind tenants backs, and we had frustrating meetings with 0:20:29.880 --> 0:20:34.800 a niece's our council member where she was not willing 0:20:34.880 --> 0:20:39.320 to take a public stance, you know, against these backdoor negotiations. 0:20:39.960 --> 0:20:44.520 And so in April of this year, about four months ago, 0:20:45.080 --> 0:20:47.960 there was another motion that was heard in La City 0:20:48.040 --> 0:20:51.440 Council when the kind of details of this deal were 0:20:51.440 --> 0:20:52.879 actually revealed. 0:20:52.560 --> 0:20:55.840 And they are just obscene. 0:20:56.359 --> 0:21:00.680 Basically, Tom Bots is being paid fifteen million dollars by 0:21:01.920 --> 0:21:05.920 the LA government and having a five million dollar loan 0:21:06.000 --> 0:21:09.359 that he has owed the city for I think the 0:21:09.440 --> 0:21:14.159 thirty years since Lasimba was first bill. He's having that 0:21:14.280 --> 0:21:18.400 loan forgiven with zero percent interest, and all of that 0:21:18.560 --> 0:21:22.040 is just to extend the affordability covenant for a mere 0:21:22.240 --> 0:21:26.280 ten years, which might sound like a lot to some folks, 0:21:26.320 --> 0:21:30.480 but in reality is not a lot at all. It 0:21:30.640 --> 0:21:34.480 just means that the children who are in middle school 0:21:34.480 --> 0:21:37.280 now will be in college and have to fight this 0:21:37.400 --> 0:21:42.359 fight another time. Right, And so that happened for Bots, 0:21:42.560 --> 0:21:47.120 great for him. Whereas tenants are being asked to pay 0:21:47.160 --> 0:21:51.040 back over one point five million dollars collectively of back 0:21:51.080 --> 0:21:58.320 rent with three percent annual interest added on, and yeah, 0:21:58.400 --> 0:22:03.280 they're eviction cases were not being dropped. They were promised 0:22:03.400 --> 0:22:08.280 to get their eviction case dropped, but what happened was 0:22:08.320 --> 0:22:11.800 that this month one of our key tenant leaders, Adela, 0:22:12.240 --> 0:22:16.399 her case was moved forward in the courts by bots. 0:22:16.040 --> 0:22:18.280 And we believe it was basically like. 0:22:18.240 --> 0:22:23.280 A test case to basically pressure tenants to sign the 0:22:23.320 --> 0:22:26.520 new contracts, you know, threatening if you don't sign, this 0:22:26.560 --> 0:22:29.240 is what's going to happen to you too. And she 0:22:29.880 --> 0:22:33.440 is supposed to have a court date in September or October, 0:22:33.480 --> 0:22:37.160 So the timing is very obvious right time this so 0:22:37.200 --> 0:22:40.280 that tenants would sign these new contracts that we were 0:22:40.280 --> 0:22:44.280 told would come out last week, it ended up being 0:22:44.400 --> 0:22:46.919 that they didn't come out till. 0:22:46.960 --> 0:22:48.080 A little bit later. 0:22:48.760 --> 0:22:53.960 And when we actually received the details of the new lease, 0:22:54.560 --> 0:22:58.720 we were even further taken aback because some of the 0:22:58.800 --> 0:23:02.600 details of this lease are just really wild. You know, 0:23:02.680 --> 0:23:07.240 it's a complete regression from any kind of tenant law 0:23:07.359 --> 0:23:11.440 or tenant protection against harassment. Some of the things that 0:23:11.520 --> 0:23:17.320 this new lease includes is that there are behavioral stipulations 0:23:17.520 --> 0:23:20.360 is what they're being called. Yeah, just that term itself, 0:23:20.440 --> 0:23:25.720 right is so cursed. But the stipulation say that if 0:23:25.760 --> 0:23:31.240 a tenant merely plays amplified sound in any of the 0:23:31.280 --> 0:23:37.840 public communal spaces of the building or records slash slanders 0:23:38.000 --> 0:23:43.240 slash harasses the landlord or management. They can be immediately 0:23:43.280 --> 0:23:45.160 evicted without a jury trial. 0:23:45.359 --> 0:23:46.720 Jesus like that. 0:23:48.560 --> 0:23:49.560 Is insane. 0:23:50.359 --> 0:23:54.719 You know, these are clearly anti organizing policies because these 0:23:54.760 --> 0:23:58.479 are some of our tools are to amplify sound and 0:23:58.640 --> 0:24:01.440 to and it's our right to be able to record 0:24:01.880 --> 0:24:05.360 landlorder management when they are usually the ones harassing us. 0:24:05.560 --> 0:24:08.680 They are always the ones harassing us, right, So that's 0:24:08.760 --> 0:24:12.399 one of the key issues with the new lease. Also, 0:24:12.520 --> 0:24:16.160 the eviction cases are not even being dropped after tenants 0:24:16.240 --> 0:24:19.879 sign this new lease. They're merely being suspended. And the 0:24:19.920 --> 0:24:24.320 court actually retains jurisdiction for six years over the eviction cases, 0:24:24.359 --> 0:24:27.240 which is not something that any of the tenant lawyers 0:24:27.240 --> 0:24:30.760 we have worked with have ever seen before. And what 0:24:30.800 --> 0:24:35.080 this means is that if the tenants are late just 0:24:35.160 --> 0:24:40.280 one day on the rent plus the debt repayment that 0:24:40.400 --> 0:24:44.240 BOTS is asking for, they can also be immediately evicted 0:24:44.600 --> 0:24:48.280 without a jury trial. And then, finally, this one is 0:24:48.600 --> 0:24:51.840 one of the kickers, is that in the lease, Bots 0:24:51.880 --> 0:24:56.199 also wrote language saying that the tenants are responsible for 0:24:56.240 --> 0:25:01.320 paying his lawyer fee, which are up to are up 0:25:01.400 --> 0:25:05.200 to thirty thousand dollars, and he is also demanding that 0:25:05.240 --> 0:25:09.399 the tenants pay his lawyer fees with three percent in 0:25:09.720 --> 0:25:14.240 Jesus Christ. So he's asking tenants to pay for their 0:25:14.280 --> 0:25:15.800 own evictions. 0:25:15.960 --> 0:25:18.880 And one of the most wild parts of this whole 0:25:18.880 --> 0:25:19.800 thing is. 0:25:19.720 --> 0:25:24.080 That Adie Nieces is doubling down on calling this a 0:25:24.119 --> 0:25:28.439 good deal. She is caught on recording at a recent 0:25:28.480 --> 0:25:32.439 protest that we did at her house saying that she 0:25:32.560 --> 0:25:36.880 would recommend that one of her family members signs this deal, 0:25:37.240 --> 0:25:41.679 which essentially signs their rights away and commits them to 0:25:42.760 --> 0:25:47.199 paying an exorbitant amount of money to get evicted. 0:25:47.800 --> 0:25:49.800 So, yeah, this is what we're dealing with. 0:25:50.240 --> 0:25:52.440 Yeah, and I want to kind of focus in on 0:25:52.600 --> 0:25:57.720 that last part because that is a DSA elected like 0:25:57.760 --> 0:25:59.320 that is one of the people that she ran. That 0:25:59.440 --> 0:26:03.800 was also so very specifically was you know, someone who 0:26:03.840 --> 0:26:07.680 was elected off of your organizing and is now instantly 0:26:07.720 --> 0:26:10.640 turned around and gone, I would tell my own family 0:26:10.680 --> 0:26:15.000 to pay this guy's lawyer to evict you, which is nuts. 0:26:16.400 --> 0:26:24.600 Yeah, hardly socialists, hardly progressive, hardly even liberal at this point, right. 0:26:25.119 --> 0:26:32.520 It's just such naked, blatant protection of neoliberalism. And she 0:26:32.680 --> 0:26:35.719 not only called this a good deal, she when we 0:26:35.760 --> 0:26:41.120 brought up the behavioral restrictions, she referred to those as 0:26:41.440 --> 0:26:45.480