September 4, 2024 • 47 mins
Mia talks with Janis Yu from CCED and Anahy, a tenant organizer at Hillside Villa, about their organizing against their landlord and the deal LA politicians, bureaucrats, and DSA council reps negotiated behind their backs to sell them out.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Al Zon Media.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast about things
falling apart and how to put it back together again.
This is an episode where both happen at the same time.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
I'm your host, Bia Wong, and we.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Are returning to what I've realized was I think one
of the earliest things we ever covered on this show
in the sort of misty depths of time, which is
I guess three years ago now. We talked to some
organizers and tenants from the Hillside Villa Tenant Association and
a bunch of stuffice happened since then. A lot of
it is terrible, Some of it is cool. Well, okay,
(00:38):
the stuff the stuff you've been doing is cool. The
stuff everyone else in the situation has been doing is terrible. Yeah,
And with me to talk about this is Janie You,
who is an organizer from CCUD and on a EE
a tenant organizer at Hillside Villa or via Jesus Christ.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Why am I doing Villa? Oh? I know I know
more Spanish than this. I I know it of Spanish.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
When people think that I'm Spanish to start talking to
me on the street, I can kind of communicate with
them abject failure.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Yeah, welcome both to the show.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
Thank you, thank you. It's both good and bad to
be back.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Yeah, I wish, I wish circumstances were better.
Speaker 5 (01:17):
Yeah, thank you for having us, and yeah for staying
in contact with us and trying to stay updated with
our fight. Hillside Villa Danna said, Unfortunately five almost six
years in and we're still trying to find a solution
to this epidemic of housing in Los Angeles.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Yeah, so let's start there. For people who don't remember
this from many, many eons in the past, can you
sort of remind people of what kind of organizing has
been happening and the general situation of this building, of
these landlords, and of the conditions of people who have
to rent stuff in La Yeah.
Speaker 6 (01:57):
I can kind of start with the bigger picture contact
and then on a definitely fill in from your personal experience.
But basically, hills Idea is a building that was built
in the eighties in Los Angeles Chinatown and it was
meant to be affordable housing. It had an affordable housing
covenant for thirty years up until twenty eighteen, and as
(02:20):
soon as that expired, as would be expected, the landlord,
Tom Botts, immediately tried to raise rent to market rate,
which for the low income, working class tenants that work
at Hillside Villa, it was a two hundred percent increase,
right yeah, which is a de facto eviction, Like folks
(02:42):
who were paying eight hundred dollars in rent were now
being asked to pay twenty five hundred, which is literally
impossible for some tenants who are on fixed incomes. And
so it was a huge issue for one of the
largest buildings in La China Town has one hundred and
twenty four units, multi ethnic, multi generational, and so as
(03:06):
soon as that happened, I think one of the tenants,
Doniel Luisa, who is no longer with us, called the
news channels and organizers got involved, and yeah, this was
six years ago at this point, and pretty early on
in the fight.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
I think at the time, we were working with.
Speaker 6 (03:27):
The district one council member at the time, Gil Cidillo,
who's you know, an establishment democrat, and he had tried
to negotiate a deal with Tom Bots, the landlord, for
a ten year extension that ended up falling through because
Bots renegged on it. And that was I think one
(03:48):
of the first moments where tenants realized we cannot trust
these politicians to liberate us right to actually solve the
root issues. And so that's when tenants started actually demanding
to use eminent domain, which is the government's power to
basically seize land for public use, to actually use that
(04:11):
power for affordable housing, and to use it as a
long term solution for all of these expiring covenants, which
is a city wide issue. It's not just a Chinatown thing.
There's actually like thousands of buildings where covenants are set
to expire in the next few years. So that was
(04:32):
how this fight was going, and we had actually successfully
pressured our city council in twenty twenty one in May,
which was I think the first time we came on
the show to set aside the funding to actually do
that and to actually, you know, take bold action for housing.
And yeah, I'll pass it over to ANII to just
(04:53):
share from your own experience.
Speaker 7 (04:56):
Thanks. I don't know how I could follow that, but
I'll try with Yeah.
Speaker 5 (05:01):
So, like Jennis was sharing, the covenant expired in twenty eighteen,
there was already an attempt to evict my family, as
I shared in the previous episode. So after that is
when we all started organizing, and then shortly after the
pandemic happened and everything shut down. During this time, the
(05:26):
landlord Tombot like wasn't stopping. He was going full throttle
into his mission of completely evicting and displacing all the
families living here in Chinatown, the multi generational families that
have been in Los Angeles not known nowhere else.
Speaker 7 (05:46):
You know, this is this is our home. Los Angeles
is our home.
Speaker 5 (05:49):
So with this eviction, it meant that we'd have to
first be houseless, be out on the street and be
forced to like figure something out last minute for our
ourselves and moved somewhere in the outskirts of Los Angeles
to a place where we're not familiar with. So these
are some of the things that we were facing then
(06:10):
during the pandemic, and also facing a continued rental increases
which were illegal during the pandemic and is something that
we've been dealing post pandemic and recently in a lot
of our more current meetings. Who is like bringing that
to light that these were illegal rental increases that had
(06:31):
happened and that he actually asked the city to pay back.
Speaker 6 (06:38):
Right, Yeah, So we had applied to e wrap which
is basically a rental relief program to support tenants.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
And what Bots did was he asked.
Speaker 6 (06:50):
The government to pay him the increased rent rates, the
two hundred percent increased rates, and the government fucking gave
it to him.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (07:00):
Yeah, and yet he is still demanding that tenants themselves
pay back their rent debt fully. And what happened with
the recent deal that was made behind tenants back, which
is what we're going to get into, is that the
government basically took the extra money back and are not
(07:22):
applying it to the tenants rent debt. So that's something
that we're pretty pissed off about because basically they took
money that was supposed to be for tenants and just
gave it back to the city government, which also doesn't
even make sense because it was federal funding.
Speaker 4 (07:38):
So that's kind of one of the issues.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Yeah, so we have a situation where the landlord has
stolen this money and then the city has now stolen
it from him, which they have stolen federal money for themselves.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
Jesus Christ literally literally, oh god.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
Yeah, it's all just like state sanctioned theft.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
You know what else is a structural problem that is
causing the massive miseration of most of the population on Earth.
It is the fraudusts and services that support this podcast,
and we're going to go to them briefly. We are back.
(08:23):
So is there anything else from sort of I guess
like the background era of this that we want to
get to before we move into what's been happening now.
Speaker 6 (08:31):
Yeah. I think maybe some additional context we can share
is that after that May twenty twenty one council meeting,
we ended up really supporting our current council member, a
Nieces in her campaign to get elected. This was November
of twenty twenty one. We hosted large forums in Chinatown.
(08:54):
We really mobilized our base in CCD to turn out
to vote for her. And I think a powerful anecdote
is that Richard one of the longest Vietnamese tenants at
Hillside Via, He's been there for over thirty years. For him,
this was the first vote that he ever cast in
this country. And I think that, you know, it's not
(09:16):
a unique story. I think for a lot of our
elders it was only because of our efforts that they
participated in this election. So I think a lot of
the statistics show that the Asian base.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
The Chinatown base was really essential to.
Speaker 6 (09:30):
Getting a Nieces elected, and in twenty twenty two she
officially got in office.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
She was able to beat the incumbent Gil Cidio and.
Speaker 6 (09:41):
Was the first quote unquote abolitionist DSA, so Democratic Socialists
of America kind of sponsored candidate to win an LAC council.
And since then we've only seen her maybe two or
three times. Right, and I to address the issues at Helsaibia.
(10:04):
Even though during her campaign phase she rhetorically supported our
eminent domain struggle.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
She made a lot of promises as politicians.
Speaker 6 (10:15):
Do, around housing in Chinatown, and yeah, I think that
kind of brings us up to where we are now.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Yeah, so let's get into what is currently happening, because
dear God, it's really I don't know, things somehow getting worse.
What's been happening in the last I guess immediate period.
Speaker 5 (10:36):
Yeah, so wow, so much has happened, and it's really
hard to actually like keep track of. Yeah, all the
big things, whether positive mostly negative things happening.
Speaker 7 (10:53):
Just so much has happened over.
Speaker 5 (10:54):
The last three years. We've been in the fight for
six years. So as we were mentioning in twenty twenty one,
there was a vote that happened at City Hall where
there'd be an evaluation of the building in order for
the city to purchase a hillside villa or last resort
(11:16):
would be expropriate through eminent domain, although that was never
something that the people in power at LAHD or that
politicians really did behind and like always wanted to try
something a little less radical. Therefore going into negotiations working
(11:42):
with the landlord and having these conversations with the landlord
with LAHD, with us somewhat in the picture, but mostly
not in the picture.
Speaker 7 (11:57):
And that was done on.
Speaker 5 (11:58):
Purpose behalf of LAHD and Tombots and the politicians at
CD one. So because we were waiting for this evaluation
to happen at Hillside VA, I believe LAHD.
Speaker 7 (12:17):
Needed to do that evaluation.
Speaker 5 (12:19):
Well, the landlord Tombots didn't allow them to come into
the building to do that evaluation because it was private
property and they needed some kind of core order like
permit or paperwork to allow the city LAHD to come
into the building to evaluate. That actually halted the process
(12:44):
of evaluating in order to purchase the building and actually
had tenants waiting for this evaluation to happen for months,
if not over a year, and you can imagine how
tenants felt like if they were like suffocating under these
circumstances of waiting for the city to act, for tom
(13:09):
Bots to allow and there was always this resistance with
the landlord and with getting LAHD to get up off
their ass and actually do something. Unfortunately, the chair of LAHD,
her name is Anne Seul. I'm sure a lot of
(13:30):
people have heard her name by now. She is not
our friend. She's wicked in like in not a cool way.
She's actually as like some conflict of interest in my
opinion that shouldn't allow her to even be in that
position that she's in and to have such power over
(13:52):
a case like ours at Hillside Villa, where she was
going into negotiations with tom Bots. And she's also a
landlord and a white woman.
Speaker 7 (14:01):
Oh Jesus Christ, so it's a double lammy there.
Speaker 5 (14:06):
And yeah, she became really buddy buddy friendly with tom Bots,
and that is when negotiations began between her and Tombots.
Behind the lucha, the fight for housing, behind the organizers backs,
behind communities back, and so we rallied, we protested, We
(14:31):
did phone banks for over a year and things were
so stagnant, Like I can't even express to you how
how that at least that one year was. And that's
part of like, since the last time we were here
on this podcast was three years ago, well a year
or more, of that was us just waiting around for
(14:52):
the city to actually do their job. And we can't
get them to do their job. Yeah, but we can
protest and we can do direct action. And so we did,
and we pulled up to Ansel's house, not once, not twice.
We rallied the housing community to go protests at her
(15:13):
home and to make her uncomfortable because at any moment,
any of us can get kicked out of our home.
You know, there's no sense of security here. And we're
never there to cause harm, you know, to anyone, no
physical harm or anything. But we're there to also like
kind of get her to understand how uncomfortable it is
(15:34):
and how like safe she is in her own home. Right,
So she called cops on us, She targeted organizers by name.
Speaker 7 (15:44):
It was really.
Speaker 5 (15:44):
Sloppy on their ends. And yeah, so I think I'll
stop there in Janice, if you want to kind of
add anything, I'm sure you have a lot.
Speaker 4 (15:55):
To Oh yeah, that was a really borough summary.
Speaker 6 (15:59):
I think all I want to add is that while
Box was denying the city access to the building, which
we you know, questioned deeply because why couldn't a tenant
just give them access to the building. Why do they
need special permission from the landlord.
Speaker 4 (16:18):
It's all just.
Speaker 6 (16:18):
Smoke and mirrors, right, delay tactics put on by this
trifecta of LHD, which is the LA Housing Department, so
the bureaucrats and then CD one City Council District one,
the politicians and then bots. They're all completely aligned with
each other in their end goal of essentially protecting capital,
(16:42):
protecting landlords.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Right.
Speaker 6 (16:44):
So as he was doing that, he initiated the eviction process.
He started evicting tenants the you know, thirty five plus
families that are deeply involved in the Tenants Association.
Speaker 4 (17:00):
We sent eviction papers to all of them.
Speaker 6 (17:03):
So and I maybe you can speak to a little
bit of what that experience was like to get those
papers while the eminent domain process wasn't moving forward like
it was supposed to.
Speaker 5 (17:15):
Definitely, well, speaking on behalf of like my mom, who
I live here with and who's lived here for over
twelve years, and speaking on behalf of other tenants, a
lot of them are elders over fifty years old, have
lived here for over twenty thirty years. They definitely felt
(17:38):
the burden of those eviction papers and the anxiety, the
heavy emotions that comes with being at fear of like
losing your home at any moment, the health issues that
come up with that. So they definitely felt a lot
of that, and as much as much as we've been fighting,
(18:00):
as much support as we have from the community, like
they still felt that insecurity of their housing. For me,
as someone in their twenties and where we've been in
this fight for over six years or about six years,
I felt like we've gone through the eviction process and
(18:22):
I don't fear tombots and I don't fear his tactics
or his eviction papers. So there's definitely a difference in
the way that like a lot of our elders feel.
But I do have a lot of trust in the
organizing that we're doing the solidarity, all though things haven't
(18:44):
necessarily been all like happy and like we're still not
really getting the things that we've been demanding for I
have a lot of trust that we're going to be
able to win those evictions, and and we know how
weak Tombots is his way of thinking, and how weak
(19:06):
their lawyers are. So we must keep pushing. There's no
other way, and we will until this is over.
Speaker 7 (19:15):
If it is ever.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Over, Unfortunately we need to go to ads. Then we
will come back with not ads and instead more incredibly
beautiful stories of struggle. We are back.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
I guess I promised struggle and I didn't. I should
have added and also betrayal because it's kind of the.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
Next part of this.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Absolutely, let's talk about that and the deals that are
being cut.
Speaker 6 (19:50):
Yeah, So at the beginning of this year, we learned
that a deal had been negotiated between LHD and bought
completely behind tenants backs, and we had frustrating meetings with
a Nieces our council member, where she was not willing
(20:12):
to take a public stance, you know, against these backdoor negotiations.
And so in April of this year, about four months ago,
there was another motion that was heard in La City
Council when the kind of details of this deal were
actually revealed.
Speaker 4 (20:30):
And they are just obscene.
Speaker 6 (20:34):
Basically, Tom Bots is being paid fifteen million dollars by
the LA government and having a five million dollar loan
that he has owed the city for I think the
thirty years Simple's idea was first bill. He's having that
loan forgiven with zero percent interest, and all of that
(20:56):
is just to extend the affordability covenant for a mere
ten years, which might sound like a lot to some folks,
but in reality is not a lot at all. It
just means that the children who are in middle school
now will be in college and have to fight this
fight another time. Right, And so that happened for Bots,
(21:20):
great for him. Whereas tenants are being asked to pay
back over one point five million dollars collectively of back
rent with three percent annual interest added on. And yeah,
their eviction cases were not being dropped. They were promised
(21:41):
to get their eviction case dropped. But what happened was
that this month one of our key tenant leaders, Adela,
her case was moved forward in the courts by Bots,
and we believe it was basically like a test case
to basically pressure tenants to sign the new contracts, you know,
(22:02):
threatening if you don't sign, this is what's going to
happen to you too. And she is supposed to have
a court date in September or October, So the timing
is very obvious. Right time this so that tenants would
sign these new contracts that we were told would come
out last week.
Speaker 4 (22:21):
It ended up being that they didn't come out till
a little bit later.
Speaker 6 (22:26):
And when we actually received the details of the new lease,
we were even further taken aback because some of the
details of this lease are just really wild. You know,
it's a complete regression from any kind of tenant law
or tenant protection against harassment. Some of the things that
(22:49):
this new lease includes is that there are behavioral stipulations,
is what they're being called. Yeah, just that term itself, right,
is so cur But the stipulation say that if a
tenant merely plays amplified sound in any of the public
(23:09):
communal spaces of the building or records slash slanders, slash
harasses the landlord or management, they can be immediately evicted without.
Speaker 4 (23:22):
A jury trial.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Jesus like that.
Speaker 4 (23:26):
Is insane.
Speaker 6 (23:28):
You know, these are clearly anti organizing policies because these
are some of our tools are to amplify sound and
to and it's our right to be able to record
landlorder management when they are usually the ones harassing us.
They are always the ones harassing us, right, So that's
one of the key issues with the new lease. Also,
(23:50):
the eviction cases are not even being dropped after tenants
sign this new lease. They're merely being suspended, and the
court actually retains jurisdiction for six years over the eviction cases,
which is not something that any of the tenant lawyers
we have worked with have ever seen before. And what
this means is that if the tenants are late just
(24:12):
one day on the rent plus the debt repayment that
Bots is asking for, they can also be immediately evicted
without a jury trial. And then, finally, this one is
one of the kickers is that in the least Bots
also wrote language saying that the tenants are responsible for
(24:33):
paying his lawyer fees which are up to oh are
up to thirty thousand dollars, and he is also demanding
that the tenants pay his lawyer fees with three percent
in Jesus Christ, so he's asking tenants to pay for
their own evictions. And one of the most wild parts
(24:56):
of this whole thing is that a U Nieces is
doubling down on.
Speaker 4 (25:00):
Calling this a good deal.
Speaker 6 (25:03):
She is caught on recording at a recent protest that
we did at her house, saying that she would recommend
that one of her family members signs this deal, which
essentially signs their rights away and commits them to paying
an exordinant amount of money to get evicted.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
So, yeah, this is what we're dealing with.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Yeah, and I want to kind of focus in on
that last part because that is a DSA elected like
that is one of the people that she ran. That
was also very specifically was you know, someone who was
elected off of your organizing and is now instantly turned
around and gone, I would tell my own family to
(25:48):
pay this guy's lawyer to evict you, which is nuts.
Speaker 6 (25:54):
Yeah, hardly socialists, hardly progressive, hardly even liberal at this point, right,
It's just such naked, blatant protection of neoliberalism. And she
not only called this a good deal, she when we
brought up the behavioral restrictions, she referred to those as
(26:19):
simply good neighbor policies that we all have to abide by.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
Yeah, which is ridiculous, Like what.
Speaker 6 (26:30):
So just completely normalizing the landlord, you know, maximizing his power,
gaining more power than any landlord has ever had. In
the city and completely restricting the tenants right to organize
and to fight against harassment.
Speaker 4 (26:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Yeah, And I think this raises a really important question
about what are we actually doing as a movement for
the people who aren't involved in this, like who are
involved directly the tenants organizing, Like, if the thing that
you're doing is putting people like this in power who
get elected off of movement and immediately turn on them
inside with landlords, what is what is your political project
(27:09):
supposed to be doing?
Speaker 3 (27:10):
Right?
Speaker 2 (27:11):
And if this is something that you're okay with, you
need to sit down and reevaluate what you actually believe.
And it's something that you're not okay with, you need
to sit down also and ask yourself how did it
come to this and why is this something that you
think is acceptable?
Speaker 6 (27:26):
Mm hmmm, yeah, A thousand percent. So far, even though
we protested Anie Says last weekend, we haven't really heard
from DSA folks in terms of actually publicly supporting us
and publicly holding a Nie Says accountable. So that's something
that we would like to see ideally.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Yeah, it's like like again, like I know there are
DSA people at LA listening to the show, Like please
come collect your trash like this is this is this
is your problem, and you also have to be part
of that of the solution to dealing with it, because
right now what you have is a situation where a
bunch of tennants and a bunch of tenant organizers are
(28:08):
fighting your people at the same time as they're also
fighting the landlords and the rest of the city governments
and the city bureaucracy. And this is the situation that
I think is just absolutely unacceptable and that can be
intervened in by people who are supposed to be doing
this and haven't been.
Speaker 5 (28:30):
Yeah, speaking on that, I have a lot of feelings
around that, and as someone that has experienced a lot
of displacement in Eco Park and not happening in Chinatown,
it's something that's followed me my whole life and dealing
directly with the problem of gentrification and the people coming
(28:53):
into our neighborhoods or mostly like liberal folks, I know
a lot of them benefit from the displacement and gentrification,
and it's really easy for them to look away or
just kind of like show their shoulders and just go
have brunch at a new Eco Park or Highland Park cafe.
Speaker 7 (29:14):
So definitely thank you for.
Speaker 5 (29:17):
Calling that out, and yeah, we really need to like
think radically and reimagine what it would look like to
find a different solution where we're not relying on these
politicians or yeah, the city to find those solutions, because
it's evident that six years into our fight at Hillside Villa,
(29:41):
it's been cyclical where we're asking our council members to
represent us, and again and again they give us false
promises and disappoint us, and there's complete hypocrisy and backstep
on behalf of the politicians. And you know, all of
(30:06):
these are tactics with the LAHD making us wait for
so long, with tombots working with them, I think that's
a tactic, is making the people the community wait for
so long that they get tired, They get tired of fighting,
they get tired of waiting. And unfortunately that has been
(30:29):
a tactic that I've seen, like has gotten to a
lot of our elder folks or people that are just
fed up having to deal with the bureaucracy of it all.
That a lot of them, kind of not everyone. For
example me, I'm still believe eminent domain could have been
like a more radical solution in a way for us
(30:51):
to take that power back from the city and the
way that they use these laws to benefit them, and
that we could use like eminent domain to help us
for once, but eminent domain was completely given up on
on with like certain tenants that we're tired of fighting
and wanted to reach an agreement and wanted to reach
(31:14):
a deal. So then we have this fifteen year deal
that is then turned into ten years because those five
years that we had been fighting is included into that
fifteen years. Not only that, but yeah, he gets fifteen
million dollars plus his debt to the city forgiven or extended.
Speaker 7 (31:39):
I forget which one it is, but this was a millionaire.
Speaker 5 (31:44):
Yeah, he has a bunch of houses in Malibu. He
doesn't need any more money. And it's just really disappointing
that at a time like this where we know that
thing aren't working anymore and that things needs to change,
(32:04):
that again, the city and the politicians are continuing to
side with the landlords and continue the cyclical oppression of
lack of housing and lack of accessibility to housing that
affected me as a child, and that is going to
(32:24):
affect the children that are around me now and the
teenagers and the single parents. So that's why we need
these better solutions. And yeah, like Jenna said, for the
two or three years that Eunees has been around in office,
(32:44):
we've only seen her two or three times. She doesn't
know what's going on half the time. And she is
actively supporting shops here in Chinatown that are gentrifying the community.
Not only herself, but her office is actively trying to
divide our organization and our tenant association.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (33:06):
I think even during her initial meetings with us, she
would kind of use this line of I don't want
to hear from organizers, especially one of our most committed
organizers is a white male lawyer.
Speaker 4 (33:22):
He's there with us every single week.
Speaker 6 (33:24):
She would specifically scapego him, and you know, say, oh,
I don't want to hear from a white lawyer.
Speaker 4 (33:29):
I'm here to hear from the tenants. And that dynamic.
Speaker 6 (33:33):
Actually like really got entrenched in our organizing, where some
tenants then began to weaponize that and sow division, and
she continues to use that as a talking point. Like
we saw during the most recent protest at her house,
(33:55):
she continued to use both of these tactics weaponizing identity politics,
which was really ironic because as she was saying that,
you know, from one side of her mouth, on the
other side, she's receiving advice from this white hipster musician
that she appointed to her office who's literally telling her
every two minutes, like, what is actually on this contract
(34:17):
because she clearly has not read So it was just
really ironic to see that play out in real time.
She continued to say that she only wants to hear
from tenants, even though tenants are saying the same exact
things that the organizers are, but she's infantilizing them right
by saying like, oh, you wouldn't believe these things if
(34:38):
these organizers weren't putting them into your brains. No, these
tenants very much have the ability to make their own
decisions and their own critical thinking, and we're offering them
information that they are then you know, taking in themselves.
And then ultimately, with the most recent protest, she just
(34:59):
completely gas split us for demanding more than she's giving.
Speaker 4 (35:03):
The whole vibe was.
Speaker 6 (35:04):
Basically like, why aren't you guys grateful for the ten
year extension? Why aren't you grateful to me for finding
two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to help you repay
your debt.
Speaker 4 (35:15):
Maybe we're not grateful.
Speaker 6 (35:16):
Because when that two hundred and fifty thousand dollars runs out,
tenants we're on fixed incomes are immediately vulnerable to eviction,
and they're vulnerable to eviction even before that if they
even just blast their music too loud in the patio
based on this lease. So yeah, we are very very
(35:37):
pissed off at.
Speaker 4 (35:38):
CDU one right now. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
I think you know, people, people listen to the show
a lot, like you should all recognize these tactics because
these are all incredibly standard union busting tactics, like the
whole like dragging out the first contract negotiation, trying to
do divide and conquer between the union and you know,
doing the Oh these are outside organizers, like the union's
outside organizers. This is all just straight up union busting
(36:01):
one oh one stuff exactly.
Speaker 6 (36:05):
Yeah, I'm so glad you brought that word up, because
that's what we've been calling it the past year, exactly
Like you said, third partying the union, dragging out contract
negotiations and the I think the sad thing is that
tenant organizing has a lot less protections than labor organizing
or a lot less you know, formalized law, so we
(36:27):
don't have things like the NLRB that can maybe give
us a little bit more teeth in fighting against unfair
labor practices. So that could probably be a whole other conversation,
a comparison between tenant and labor organizing, but so many
parallels as well.
Speaker 5 (36:44):
And then like also, she made so many promises and
sweet talked so many of us, and there's just like
respectability politics that a lot of even tenants became divided
within our movement because they put so much trust into
(37:07):
her office and into the in their hands, whereas other
tenants were still very critical and very hard on u nieces.
Anytime she was around, we really questioned them, and a
lot of the tenants didn't like that, and they, you know,
(37:28):
demanded that we not question them and that we behave
in an educated manner.
Speaker 7 (37:35):
But look look at what we have now.
Speaker 5 (37:37):
We have a contract that is completely has sold all
of us out, and what for, you know, for these
promises and fooling the people into believing her, into trusting
those promises or that she would actually have our best interest.
(37:59):
So here we are are, and these are some of
the things that we've also been dealing with in the association.
Speaker 6 (38:06):
Yeah, and just to quickly add on to the point
you were just making an i E. I think we've
really learned these past few years about the insidiousness of
these so called progressive electeds, right, who come from some
kind of left leaning background. Aanieces comes from Law Defenso,
(38:28):
which is a nonprofit that has organized for you know,
certain kinds of reforms within prison spaces, and so she
would constantly refer to herself as an organizer and weaponize that, right,
like as an organizer, like I know what I'm doing
and you guys can trust me. Whereas with Sidillo, the
(38:51):
previous council member, the contradictions were just obvious, like we
knew this guy was bullshit, and you know, we would
just be openly fighting him all the time. But in
a lot of ways, us getting her elected I think
made our organizing harder because of the way that she would,
you know, call us her fam which should have been
(39:12):
a red flag from the beginning.
Speaker 4 (39:14):
Right, that's also another word.
Speaker 3 (39:15):
Yeah, yeah, family, Well.
Speaker 4 (39:17):
Your co worker, here's your family.
Speaker 6 (39:21):
But yeah, I think that's definitely been a huge lesson
in the past few years.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
Yeah, and that's I think something is not very well
understood about the way that sort of campaigns are destroyed
is that like someone who is nominally on the same
side of you is significantly more dangerous of an opponent
than someone who isn't right. And I mean, like you
can look at immediately after World War Two in Italy
in nineteen nineteen nineteen twenty, there's this thing called the
(39:49):
Bennio Rosso.
Speaker 3 (39:50):
This is the two Red years.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
The two Red Years culminate in what becomes known as
the occupation of the factories. This is these mass sort
of workers' movements sort of cumulate from all of the
effects of the war and all of the sort of
repression that's been happening for centuries in Italy. And what
happens is, instead of calling a conventional general strike in
which you know, workers leave the factories and allow bosses
to hold on to them, workers instead just seize control
(40:14):
and occupy the factories they work. And this is why
it's you know, it's called the occupation of the factories.
And in this period, right, these workers have the capitalists
on the ropes, right. Without control of the factories, the
bosses can't restart production with scabs, and more importantly, it
puts the workers in the position to simply drive the
bosses out entirely and restart production under the control of
the workers who work in these places and who literally
(40:37):
built the entire economic system that these capitalists have been
profiting from. And this was the best chance any country
in Europe was ever going to get to defeat the
capitalists once and for all. Right, this was this was
the best they were ever going to have it. But
the worker's oldest allies, these are the socialist and social
democratic politicians in the Socialist Party opposed the occupants. And
(41:01):
these these Socialist Party politicians, these are their friends, These
are their comrades, These are these are the people who
lead their unions. I mean, these are people who you
know a lot of these people have spent thirty years
organizing with these people just to carve the workers movement
out of sort of the stone of history. These are
the people, you know, who, in a lot of cases
like they had gone to war with So when the
(41:22):
social Democrats told them to immobilize and told them to
go home, and told them to, you know, just give
the fact the factories back to the capitalists and give
up all of their leverage. The workers listened, and once
they've been totally demobilized, there was no way for them
to resist the fascists. Mussolini Marshall on Rome the next year,
and in the wake of the socialists betrayal, the fascists
(41:42):
would rule Italy for twenty five years. You have to
be incredibly weary of these people who who take power
from you know, like the most personal example to be
is we have this with Brandon Johnson, who is like
a you know, the big here. He was the mayor
of Chicago, where I I guess technically now I don't
live there, but I live there for ages. Who was
(42:03):
you know, quote our quote unquote movement mayor and then
immediately started just fucking putting migrants that had been like
bust up in just like these fucking horrible conditions in camps.
People were dying, people are getting fucking terrible diseases, like
buildings with mold in them, like stuff that was condemned
and like all of this stuff happened, and you know,
(42:24):
and it really kind of in a very similar way
because this was, you know, this was supposed to be
one of us.
Speaker 3 (42:30):
The resistance to it has been really innutered.
Speaker 2 (42:33):
And that's a dynamic that you know, we haven't had
as much in the US because there hasn't been a
left in this country until really the last maybe decade,
and that's stretching it. And now, you know, we need
to actually get back to understanding how this kind of
stuff works, because more and more the people who are
(42:53):
going to be arresting you are people who you know,
you used people used to be organizing with people, people
who you used to know, people who, even when you
put a mic in front of their face, will claim
to be on your side.
Speaker 4 (43:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (43:04):
No, those are some really great comparisons to draw to.
And yeah, I think we've definitely learned to be more
vigilant collectively.
Speaker 7 (43:15):
It is here.
Speaker 3 (43:16):
Yeah, is there anything else that you two want to
say before you wrap up?
Speaker 5 (43:19):
Yeah, I think it's really important to hold people accountable always.
As much as they don't want to be held accountable,
they still they probably won't, but they still have a
responsibility to the community. And yeah, I think we need
to do stick to direct action and less working alongside
(43:42):
of politicians because at the end of the day, the
same thing will happen again and again will be sold
out and it'll be a big waste of time. So
I think the collective power of community in doing direct
action always will be the solution. And that's something that
(44:03):
I've learned more recently the way that things have kind
of unfolded with Hillside Villa. And lastly, I know there
are some key demands for CD one we can share too.
Speaker 6 (44:18):
So yeah, I think, picking up on what you were saying,
an I, direct action has always been our bread and
butter to actually get meaningful results, and we're already seeing
it after this recent protest at Aune's house.
Speaker 4 (44:32):
Where CD one, the city council district is now.
Speaker 6 (44:36):
Completely changing their two and saying, oh, this this lease
was just a draft, like you don't have to feel
pressured to sign it. You can put together account proposal,
And that is completely not what they were saying at all.
Speaker 4 (44:50):
For the protest.
Speaker 6 (44:51):
They were really really pressuring us to sign the lease,
and even at the protest right a Unie is recommending
that a family member would sign it. So we're already
seeing the results, and in our counterproposal, we plan to
really highlight a few demands first and foremost that the
rent debt is turned into consumer non evictible debt, no
(45:14):
behaviors stipulations, those are bullshit.
Speaker 4 (45:18):
The eviction cases actually.
Speaker 6 (45:19):
Get dismissed and not suspended in court for six years.
And finally, no fifteen million for Bots until a fair
deal is reached. And that's a key point of leverage
because CD one is acting as the escrow of the
fifteen million, meaning that they're supposed to. Yeah see if
(45:41):
both parties, so US and Bots quote unquote like fulfill
what we're supposed to do with a deal before giving
Bots the fifteen million.
Speaker 4 (45:50):
And so they have so much power over this situation.
They keep throwing their hands up and saying they don't
have power, but they can withhold the fifteen million from
him until he actually responds to some of these demands.
So that's what we really want to highlight in this moment.
Speaker 6 (46:06):
And for folks who you know, want to kind of
stay updated on the struggle, our handle on both Twitter
and Instagram, I believe is Hellside Underscore yep, So feel
free to check us out there and stay updated.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
Yeah, well we'll put the link to the description too.
And on that note, thank you to both so much
for coming on and yeah, fuck them, Fuck the DSA electeds,
Fuck the landlords, but the housing department. Hope, hope you
crush the ball.
Speaker 4 (46:42):
Absolutely fuck them all.
Speaker 7 (46:44):
Thank you so much for having us.
Speaker 5 (46:45):
And yeah, definitely the city a lot needs to be
dismantled and reimagined and reconstructed, starting with housing and so
much more.
Speaker 7 (46:55):
But thank you again.
Speaker 2 (46:56):
Yeah, and I encourage everyone listening to the show give
them hell. Whoever them is in this scenario, give them hell.
Speaker 1 (47:09):
It could Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 3 (47:12):
For more podcasts from.
Speaker 1 (47:13):
Cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zonemedia dot com
or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources
for It Could Happen Here, updated monthly at coolzonemedia dot
com slash sources. Thanks for listening.
Al Zon Media.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast about things
falling apart and how to put it back together again.
This is an episode where both happen at the same time.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
I'm your host, Bia Wong, and we.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Are returning to what I've realized was I think one
of the earliest things we ever covered on this show
in the sort of misty depths of time, which is
I guess three years ago now. We talked to some
organizers and tenants from the Hillside Villa Tenant Association and
a bunch of stuffice happened since then. A lot of
it is terrible, Some of it is cool. Well, okay,
(00:38):
the stuff the stuff you've been doing is cool. The
stuff everyone else in the situation has been doing is terrible. Yeah,
And with me to talk about this is Janie You,
who is an organizer from CCUD and on a EE
a tenant organizer at Hillside Villa or via Jesus Christ.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Why am I doing Villa? Oh? I know I know
more Spanish than this. I I know it of Spanish.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
When people think that I'm Spanish to start talking to
me on the street, I can kind of communicate with
them abject failure.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Yeah, welcome both to the show.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
Thank you, thank you. It's both good and bad to
be back.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Yeah, I wish, I wish circumstances were better.
Speaker 5 (01:17):
Yeah, thank you for having us, and yeah for staying
in contact with us and trying to stay updated with
our fight. Hillside Villa Danna said, Unfortunately five almost six
years in and we're still trying to find a solution
to this epidemic of housing in Los Angeles.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Yeah, so let's start there. For people who don't remember
this from many, many eons in the past, can you
sort of remind people of what kind of organizing has
been happening and the general situation of this building, of
these landlords, and of the conditions of people who have
to rent stuff in La Yeah.
Speaker 6 (01:57):
I can kind of start with the bigger picture contact
and then on a definitely fill in from your personal experience.
But basically, hills Idea is a building that was built
in the eighties in Los Angeles Chinatown and it was
meant to be affordable housing. It had an affordable housing
covenant for thirty years up until twenty eighteen, and as
(02:20):
soon as that expired, as would be expected, the landlord,
Tom Botts, immediately tried to raise rent to market rate,
which for the low income, working class tenants that work
at Hillside Villa, it was a two hundred percent increase,
right yeah, which is a de facto eviction, Like folks
(02:42):
who were paying eight hundred dollars in rent were now
being asked to pay twenty five hundred, which is literally
impossible for some tenants who are on fixed incomes. And
so it was a huge issue for one of the
largest buildings in La China Town has one hundred and
twenty four units, multi ethnic, multi generational, and so as
(03:06):
soon as that happened, I think one of the tenants,
Doniel Luisa, who is no longer with us, called the
news channels and organizers got involved, and yeah, this was
six years ago at this point, and pretty early on
in the fight.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
I think at the time, we were working with.
Speaker 6 (03:27):
The district one council member at the time, Gil Cidillo,
who's you know, an establishment democrat, and he had tried
to negotiate a deal with Tom Bots, the landlord, for
a ten year extension that ended up falling through because
Bots renegged on it. And that was I think one
(03:48):
of the first moments where tenants realized we cannot trust
these politicians to liberate us right to actually solve the
root issues. And so that's when tenants started actually demanding
to use eminent domain, which is the government's power to
basically seize land for public use, to actually use that
(04:11):
power for affordable housing, and to use it as a
long term solution for all of these expiring covenants, which
is a city wide issue. It's not just a Chinatown thing.
There's actually like thousands of buildings where covenants are set
to expire in the next few years. So that was
(04:32):
how this fight was going, and we had actually successfully
pressured our city council in twenty twenty one in May,
which was I think the first time we came on
the show to set aside the funding to actually do
that and to actually, you know, take bold action for housing.
And yeah, I'll pass it over to ANII to just
(04:53):
share from your own experience.
Speaker 7 (04:56):
Thanks. I don't know how I could follow that, but
I'll try with Yeah.
Speaker 5 (05:01):
So, like Jennis was sharing, the covenant expired in twenty eighteen,
there was already an attempt to evict my family, as
I shared in the previous episode. So after that is
when we all started organizing, and then shortly after the
pandemic happened and everything shut down. During this time, the
(05:26):
landlord Tombot like wasn't stopping. He was going full throttle
into his mission of completely evicting and displacing all the
families living here in Chinatown, the multi generational families that
have been in Los Angeles not known nowhere else.
Speaker 7 (05:46):
You know, this is this is our home. Los Angeles
is our home.
Speaker 5 (05:49):
So with this eviction, it meant that we'd have to
first be houseless, be out on the street and be
forced to like figure something out last minute for our
ourselves and moved somewhere in the outskirts of Los Angeles
to a place where we're not familiar with. So these
are some of the things that we were facing then
(06:10):
during the pandemic, and also facing a continued rental increases
which were illegal during the pandemic and is something that
we've been dealing post pandemic and recently in a lot
of our more current meetings. Who is like bringing that
to light that these were illegal rental increases that had
(06:31):
happened and that he actually asked the city to pay back.
Speaker 6 (06:38):
Right, Yeah, So we had applied to e wrap which
is basically a rental relief program to support tenants.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
And what Bots did was he asked.
Speaker 6 (06:50):
The government to pay him the increased rent rates, the
two hundred percent increased rates, and the government fucking gave
it to him.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (07:00):
Yeah, and yet he is still demanding that tenants themselves
pay back their rent debt fully. And what happened with
the recent deal that was made behind tenants back, which
is what we're going to get into, is that the
government basically took the extra money back and are not
(07:22):
applying it to the tenants rent debt. So that's something
that we're pretty pissed off about because basically they took
money that was supposed to be for tenants and just
gave it back to the city government, which also doesn't
even make sense because it was federal funding.
Speaker 4 (07:38):
So that's kind of one of the issues.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Yeah, so we have a situation where the landlord has
stolen this money and then the city has now stolen
it from him, which they have stolen federal money for themselves.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
Jesus Christ literally literally, oh god.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
Yeah, it's all just like state sanctioned theft.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
You know what else is a structural problem that is
causing the massive miseration of most of the population on Earth.
It is the fraudusts and services that support this podcast,
and we're going to go to them briefly. We are back.
(08:23):
So is there anything else from sort of I guess
like the background era of this that we want to
get to before we move into what's been happening now.
Speaker 6 (08:31):
Yeah. I think maybe some additional context we can share
is that after that May twenty twenty one council meeting,
we ended up really supporting our current council member, a
Nieces in her campaign to get elected. This was November
of twenty twenty one. We hosted large forums in Chinatown.
(08:54):
We really mobilized our base in CCD to turn out
to vote for her. And I think a powerful anecdote
is that Richard one of the longest Vietnamese tenants at
Hillside Via, He's been there for over thirty years. For him,
this was the first vote that he ever cast in
this country. And I think that, you know, it's not
(09:16):
a unique story. I think for a lot of our
elders it was only because of our efforts that they
participated in this election. So I think a lot of
the statistics show that the Asian base.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
The Chinatown base was really essential to.
Speaker 6 (09:30):
Getting a Nieces elected, and in twenty twenty two she
officially got in office.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
She was able to beat the incumbent Gil Cidio and.
Speaker 6 (09:41):
Was the first quote unquote abolitionist DSA, so Democratic Socialists
of America kind of sponsored candidate to win an LAC council.
And since then we've only seen her maybe two or
three times. Right, and I to address the issues at Helsaibia.
(10:04):
Even though during her campaign phase she rhetorically supported our
eminent domain struggle.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
She made a lot of promises as politicians.
Speaker 6 (10:15):
Do, around housing in Chinatown, and yeah, I think that
kind of brings us up to where we are now.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Yeah, so let's get into what is currently happening, because
dear God, it's really I don't know, things somehow getting worse.
What's been happening in the last I guess immediate period.
Speaker 5 (10:36):
Yeah, so wow, so much has happened, and it's really
hard to actually like keep track of. Yeah, all the
big things, whether positive mostly negative things happening.
Speaker 7 (10:53):
Just so much has happened over.
Speaker 5 (10:54):
The last three years. We've been in the fight for
six years. So as we were mentioning in twenty twenty one,
there was a vote that happened at City Hall where
there'd be an evaluation of the building in order for
the city to purchase a hillside villa or last resort
(11:16):
would be expropriate through eminent domain, although that was never
something that the people in power at LAHD or that
politicians really did behind and like always wanted to try
something a little less radical. Therefore going into negotiations working
(11:42):
with the landlord and having these conversations with the landlord
with LAHD, with us somewhat in the picture, but mostly
not in the picture.
Speaker 7 (11:57):
And that was done on.
Speaker 5 (11:58):
Purpose behalf of LAHD and Tombots and the politicians at
CD one. So because we were waiting for this evaluation
to happen at Hillside VA, I believe LAHD.
Speaker 7 (12:17):
Needed to do that evaluation.
Speaker 5 (12:19):
Well, the landlord Tombots didn't allow them to come into
the building to do that evaluation because it was private
property and they needed some kind of core order like
permit or paperwork to allow the city LAHD to come
into the building to evaluate. That actually halted the process
(12:44):
of evaluating in order to purchase the building and actually
had tenants waiting for this evaluation to happen for months,
if not over a year, and you can imagine how
tenants felt like if they were like suffocating under these
circumstances of waiting for the city to act, for tom
(13:09):
Bots to allow and there was always this resistance with
the landlord and with getting LAHD to get up off
their ass and actually do something. Unfortunately, the chair of LAHD,
her name is Anne Seul. I'm sure a lot of
(13:30):
people have heard her name by now. She is not
our friend. She's wicked in like in not a cool way.
She's actually as like some conflict of interest in my
opinion that shouldn't allow her to even be in that
position that she's in and to have such power over
(13:52):
a case like ours at Hillside Villa, where she was
going into negotiations with tom Bots. And she's also a
landlord and a white woman.
Speaker 7 (14:01):
Oh Jesus Christ, so it's a double lammy there.
Speaker 5 (14:06):
And yeah, she became really buddy buddy friendly with tom Bots,
and that is when negotiations began between her and Tombots.
Behind the lucha, the fight for housing, behind the organizers backs,
behind communities back, and so we rallied, we protested, We
(14:31):
did phone banks for over a year and things were
so stagnant, Like I can't even express to you how
how that at least that one year was. And that's
part of like, since the last time we were here
on this podcast was three years ago, well a year
or more, of that was us just waiting around for
(14:52):
the city to actually do their job. And we can't
get them to do their job. Yeah, but we can
protest and we can do direct action. And so we did,
and we pulled up to Ansel's house, not once, not twice.
We rallied the housing community to go protests at her
(15:13):
home and to make her uncomfortable because at any moment,
any of us can get kicked out of our home.
You know, there's no sense of security here. And we're
never there to cause harm, you know, to anyone, no
physical harm or anything. But we're there to also like
kind of get her to understand how uncomfortable it is
(15:34):
and how like safe she is in her own home. Right,
So she called cops on us, She targeted organizers by name.
Speaker 7 (15:44):
It was really.
Speaker 5 (15:44):
Sloppy on their ends. And yeah, so I think I'll
stop there in Janice, if you want to kind of
add anything, I'm sure you have a lot.
Speaker 4 (15:55):
To Oh yeah, that was a really borough summary.
Speaker 6 (15:59):
I think all I want to add is that while
Box was denying the city access to the building, which
we you know, questioned deeply because why couldn't a tenant
just give them access to the building. Why do they
need special permission from the landlord.
Speaker 4 (16:18):
It's all just.
Speaker 6 (16:18):
Smoke and mirrors, right, delay tactics put on by this
trifecta of LHD, which is the LA Housing Department, so
the bureaucrats and then CD one City Council District one,
the politicians and then bots. They're all completely aligned with
each other in their end goal of essentially protecting capital,
(16:42):
protecting landlords.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Right.
Speaker 6 (16:44):
So as he was doing that, he initiated the eviction process.
He started evicting tenants the you know, thirty five plus
families that are deeply involved in the Tenants Association.
Speaker 4 (17:00):
We sent eviction papers to all of them.
Speaker 6 (17:03):
So and I maybe you can speak to a little
bit of what that experience was like to get those
papers while the eminent domain process wasn't moving forward like
it was supposed to.
Speaker 5 (17:15):
Definitely, well, speaking on behalf of like my mom, who
I live here with and who's lived here for over
twelve years, and speaking on behalf of other tenants, a
lot of them are elders over fifty years old, have
lived here for over twenty thirty years. They definitely felt
(17:38):
the burden of those eviction papers and the anxiety, the
heavy emotions that comes with being at fear of like
losing your home at any moment, the health issues that
come up with that. So they definitely felt a lot
of that, and as much as much as we've been fighting,
(18:00):
as much support as we have from the community, like
they still felt that insecurity of their housing. For me,
as someone in their twenties and where we've been in
this fight for over six years or about six years,
I felt like we've gone through the eviction process and
(18:22):
I don't fear tombots and I don't fear his tactics
or his eviction papers. So there's definitely a difference in
the way that like a lot of our elders feel.
But I do have a lot of trust in the
organizing that we're doing the solidarity, all though things haven't
(18:44):
necessarily been all like happy and like we're still not
really getting the things that we've been demanding for I
have a lot of trust that we're going to be
able to win those evictions, and and we know how
weak Tombots is his way of thinking, and how weak
(19:06):
their lawyers are. So we must keep pushing. There's no
other way, and we will until this is over.
Speaker 7 (19:15):
If it is ever.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Over, Unfortunately we need to go to ads. Then we
will come back with not ads and instead more incredibly
beautiful stories of struggle. We are back.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
I guess I promised struggle and I didn't. I should
have added and also betrayal because it's kind of the.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
Next part of this.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Absolutely, let's talk about that and the deals that are
being cut.
Speaker 6 (19:50):
Yeah, So at the beginning of this year, we learned
that a deal had been negotiated between LHD and bought
completely behind tenants backs, and we had frustrating meetings with
a Nieces our council member, where she was not willing
(20:12):
to take a public stance, you know, against these backdoor negotiations.
And so in April of this year, about four months ago,
there was another motion that was heard in La City
Council when the kind of details of this deal were
actually revealed.
Speaker 4 (20:30):
And they are just obscene.
Speaker 6 (20:34):
Basically, Tom Bots is being paid fifteen million dollars by
the LA government and having a five million dollar loan
that he has owed the city for I think the
thirty years Simple's idea was first bill. He's having that
loan forgiven with zero percent interest, and all of that
(20:56):
is just to extend the affordability covenant for a mere
ten years, which might sound like a lot to some folks,
but in reality is not a lot at all. It
just means that the children who are in middle school
now will be in college and have to fight this
fight another time. Right, And so that happened for Bots,
(21:20):
great for him. Whereas tenants are being asked to pay
back over one point five million dollars collectively of back
rent with three percent annual interest added on. And yeah,
their eviction cases were not being dropped. They were promised
(21:41):
to get their eviction case dropped. But what happened was
that this month one of our key tenant leaders, Adela,
her case was moved forward in the courts by Bots,
and we believe it was basically like a test case
to basically pressure tenants to sign the new contracts, you know,
(22:02):
threatening if you don't sign, this is what's going to
happen to you too. And she is supposed to have
a court date in September or October, So the timing
is very obvious. Right time this so that tenants would
sign these new contracts that we were told would come
out last week.
Speaker 4 (22:21):
It ended up being that they didn't come out till
a little bit later.
Speaker 6 (22:26):
And when we actually received the details of the new lease,
we were even further taken aback because some of the
details of this lease are just really wild. You know,
it's a complete regression from any kind of tenant law
or tenant protection against harassment. Some of the things that
(22:49):
this new lease includes is that there are behavioral stipulations,
is what they're being called. Yeah, just that term itself, right,
is so cur But the stipulation say that if a
tenant merely plays amplified sound in any of the public
(23:09):
communal spaces of the building or records slash slanders, slash
harasses the landlord or management, they can be immediately evicted without.
Speaker 4 (23:22):
A jury trial.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Jesus like that.
Speaker 4 (23:26):
Is insane.
Speaker 6 (23:28):
You know, these are clearly anti organizing policies because these
are some of our tools are to amplify sound and
to and it's our right to be able to record
landlorder management when they are usually the ones harassing us.
They are always the ones harassing us, right, So that's
one of the key issues with the new lease. Also,
(23:50):
the eviction cases are not even being dropped after tenants
sign this new lease. They're merely being suspended, and the
court actually retains jurisdiction for six years over the eviction cases,
which is not something that any of the tenant lawyers
we have worked with have ever seen before. And what
this means is that if the tenants are late just
(24:12):
one day on the rent plus the debt repayment that
Bots is asking for, they can also be immediately evicted
without a jury trial. And then, finally, this one is
one of the kickers is that in the least Bots
also wrote language saying that the tenants are responsible for
(24:33):
paying his lawyer fees which are up to oh are
up to thirty thousand dollars, and he is also demanding
that the tenants pay his lawyer fees with three percent
in Jesus Christ, so he's asking tenants to pay for
their own evictions. And one of the most wild parts
(24:56):
of this whole thing is that a U Nieces is
doubling down on.
Speaker 4 (25:00):
Calling this a good deal.
Speaker 6 (25:03):
She is caught on recording at a recent protest that
we did at her house, saying that she would recommend
that one of her family members signs this deal, which
essentially signs their rights away and commits them to paying
an exordinant amount of money to get evicted.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
So, yeah, this is what we're dealing with.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Yeah, and I want to kind of focus in on
that last part because that is a DSA elected like
that is one of the people that she ran. That
was also very specifically was you know, someone who was
elected off of your organizing and is now instantly turned
around and gone, I would tell my own family to
(25:48):
pay this guy's lawyer to evict you, which is nuts.
Speaker 6 (25:54):
Yeah, hardly socialists, hardly progressive, hardly even liberal at this point, right,
It's just such naked, blatant protection of neoliberalism. And she
not only called this a good deal, she when we
brought up the behavioral restrictions, she referred to those as
(26:19):
simply good neighbor policies that we all have to abide by.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
Yeah, which is ridiculous, Like what.
Speaker 6 (26:30):
So just completely normalizing the landlord, you know, maximizing his power,
gaining more power than any landlord has ever had. In
the city and completely restricting the tenants right to organize
and to fight against harassment.
Speaker 4 (26:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Yeah, And I think this raises a really important question
about what are we actually doing as a movement for
the people who aren't involved in this, like who are
involved directly the tenants organizing, Like, if the thing that
you're doing is putting people like this in power who
get elected off of movement and immediately turn on them
inside with landlords, what is what is your political project
(27:09):
supposed to be doing?
Speaker 3 (27:10):
Right?
Speaker 2 (27:11):
And if this is something that you're okay with, you
need to sit down and reevaluate what you actually believe.
And it's something that you're not okay with, you need
to sit down also and ask yourself how did it
come to this and why is this something that you
think is acceptable?
Speaker 6 (27:26):
Mm hmmm, yeah, A thousand percent. So far, even though
we protested Anie Says last weekend, we haven't really heard
from DSA folks in terms of actually publicly supporting us
and publicly holding a Nie Says accountable. So that's something
that we would like to see ideally.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Yeah, it's like like again, like I know there are
DSA people at LA listening to the show, Like please
come collect your trash like this is this is this
is your problem, and you also have to be part
of that of the solution to dealing with it, because
right now what you have is a situation where a
bunch of tennants and a bunch of tenant organizers are
(28:08):
fighting your people at the same time as they're also
fighting the landlords and the rest of the city governments
and the city bureaucracy. And this is the situation that
I think is just absolutely unacceptable and that can be
intervened in by people who are supposed to be doing
this and haven't been.
Speaker 5 (28:30):
Yeah, speaking on that, I have a lot of feelings
around that, and as someone that has experienced a lot
of displacement in Eco Park and not happening in Chinatown,
it's something that's followed me my whole life and dealing
directly with the problem of gentrification and the people coming
(28:53):
into our neighborhoods or mostly like liberal folks, I know
a lot of them benefit from the displacement and gentrification,
and it's really easy for them to look away or
just kind of like show their shoulders and just go
have brunch at a new Eco Park or Highland Park cafe.
Speaker 7 (29:14):
So definitely thank you for.
Speaker 5 (29:17):
Calling that out, and yeah, we really need to like
think radically and reimagine what it would look like to
find a different solution where we're not relying on these
politicians or yeah, the city to find those solutions, because
it's evident that six years into our fight at Hillside Villa,
(29:41):
it's been cyclical where we're asking our council members to
represent us, and again and again they give us false
promises and disappoint us, and there's complete hypocrisy and backstep
on behalf of the politicians. And you know, all of
(30:06):
these are tactics with the LAHD making us wait for
so long, with tombots working with them, I think that's
a tactic, is making the people the community wait for
so long that they get tired, They get tired of fighting,
they get tired of waiting. And unfortunately that has been
(30:29):
a tactic that I've seen, like has gotten to a
lot of our elder folks or people that are just
fed up having to deal with the bureaucracy of it all.
That a lot of them, kind of not everyone. For
example me, I'm still believe eminent domain could have been
like a more radical solution in a way for us
(30:51):
to take that power back from the city and the
way that they use these laws to benefit them, and
that we could use like eminent domain to help us
for once, but eminent domain was completely given up on
on with like certain tenants that we're tired of fighting
and wanted to reach an agreement and wanted to reach
(31:14):
a deal. So then we have this fifteen year deal
that is then turned into ten years because those five
years that we had been fighting is included into that
fifteen years. Not only that, but yeah, he gets fifteen
million dollars plus his debt to the city forgiven or extended.
Speaker 7 (31:39):
I forget which one it is, but this was a millionaire.
Speaker 5 (31:44):
Yeah, he has a bunch of houses in Malibu. He
doesn't need any more money. And it's just really disappointing
that at a time like this where we know that
thing aren't working anymore and that things needs to change,
(32:04):
that again, the city and the politicians are continuing to
side with the landlords and continue the cyclical oppression of
lack of housing and lack of accessibility to housing that
affected me as a child, and that is going to
(32:24):
affect the children that are around me now and the
teenagers and the single parents. So that's why we need
these better solutions. And yeah, like Jenna said, for the
two or three years that Eunees has been around in office,
(32:44):
we've only seen her two or three times. She doesn't
know what's going on half the time. And she is
actively supporting shops here in Chinatown that are gentrifying the community.
Not only herself, but her office is actively trying to
divide our organization and our tenant association.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (33:06):
I think even during her initial meetings with us, she
would kind of use this line of I don't want
to hear from organizers, especially one of our most committed
organizers is a white male lawyer.
Speaker 4 (33:22):
He's there with us every single week.
Speaker 6 (33:24):
She would specifically scapego him, and you know, say, oh,
I don't want to hear from a white lawyer.
Speaker 4 (33:29):
I'm here to hear from the tenants. And that dynamic.
Speaker 6 (33:33):
Actually like really got entrenched in our organizing, where some
tenants then began to weaponize that and sow division, and
she continues to use that as a talking point. Like
we saw during the most recent protest at her house,
(33:55):
she continued to use both of these tactics weaponizing identity politics,
which was really ironic because as she was saying that,
you know, from one side of her mouth, on the
other side, she's receiving advice from this white hipster musician
that she appointed to her office who's literally telling her
every two minutes, like, what is actually on this contract
(34:17):
because she clearly has not read So it was just
really ironic to see that play out in real time.
She continued to say that she only wants to hear
from tenants, even though tenants are saying the same exact
things that the organizers are, but she's infantilizing them right
by saying like, oh, you wouldn't believe these things if
(34:38):
these organizers weren't putting them into your brains. No, these
tenants very much have the ability to make their own
decisions and their own critical thinking, and we're offering them
information that they are then you know, taking in themselves.
And then ultimately, with the most recent protest, she just
(34:59):
completely gas split us for demanding more than she's giving.
Speaker 4 (35:03):
The whole vibe was.
Speaker 6 (35:04):
Basically like, why aren't you guys grateful for the ten
year extension? Why aren't you grateful to me for finding
two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to help you repay
your debt.
Speaker 4 (35:15):
Maybe we're not grateful.
Speaker 6 (35:16):
Because when that two hundred and fifty thousand dollars runs out,
tenants we're on fixed incomes are immediately vulnerable to eviction,
and they're vulnerable to eviction even before that if they
even just blast their music too loud in the patio
based on this lease. So yeah, we are very very
(35:37):
pissed off at.
Speaker 4 (35:38):
CDU one right now. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
I think you know, people, people listen to the show
a lot, like you should all recognize these tactics because
these are all incredibly standard union busting tactics, like the
whole like dragging out the first contract negotiation, trying to
do divide and conquer between the union and you know,
doing the Oh these are outside organizers, like the union's
outside organizers. This is all just straight up union busting
(36:01):
one oh one stuff exactly.
Speaker 6 (36:05):
Yeah, I'm so glad you brought that word up, because
that's what we've been calling it the past year, exactly
Like you said, third partying the union, dragging out contract
negotiations and the I think the sad thing is that
tenant organizing has a lot less protections than labor organizing
or a lot less you know, formalized law, so we
(36:27):
don't have things like the NLRB that can maybe give
us a little bit more teeth in fighting against unfair
labor practices. So that could probably be a whole other conversation,
a comparison between tenant and labor organizing, but so many
parallels as well.
Speaker 5 (36:44):
And then like also, she made so many promises and
sweet talked so many of us, and there's just like
respectability politics that a lot of even tenants became divided
within our movement because they put so much trust into
(37:07):
her office and into the in their hands, whereas other
tenants were still very critical and very hard on u nieces.
Anytime she was around, we really questioned them, and a
lot of the tenants didn't like that, and they, you know,
(37:28):
demanded that we not question them and that we behave
in an educated manner.
Speaker 7 (37:35):
But look look at what we have now.
Speaker 5 (37:37):
We have a contract that is completely has sold all
of us out, and what for, you know, for these
promises and fooling the people into believing her, into trusting
those promises or that she would actually have our best interest.
(37:59):
So here we are are, and these are some of
the things that we've also been dealing with in the association.
Speaker 6 (38:06):
Yeah, and just to quickly add on to the point
you were just making an i E. I think we've
really learned these past few years about the insidiousness of
these so called progressive electeds, right, who come from some
kind of left leaning background. Aanieces comes from Law Defenso,
(38:28):
which is a nonprofit that has organized for you know,
certain kinds of reforms within prison spaces, and so she
would constantly refer to herself as an organizer and weaponize that, right,
like as an organizer, like I know what I'm doing
and you guys can trust me. Whereas with Sidillo, the
(38:51):
previous council member, the contradictions were just obvious, like we
knew this guy was bullshit, and you know, we would
just be openly fighting him all the time. But in
a lot of ways, us getting her elected I think
made our organizing harder because of the way that she would,
you know, call us her fam which should have been
(39:12):
a red flag from the beginning.
Speaker 4 (39:14):
Right, that's also another word.
Speaker 3 (39:15):
Yeah, yeah, family, Well.
Speaker 4 (39:17):
Your co worker, here's your family.
Speaker 6 (39:21):
But yeah, I think that's definitely been a huge lesson
in the past few years.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
Yeah, and that's I think something is not very well
understood about the way that sort of campaigns are destroyed
is that like someone who is nominally on the same
side of you is significantly more dangerous of an opponent
than someone who isn't right. And I mean, like you
can look at immediately after World War Two in Italy
in nineteen nineteen nineteen twenty, there's this thing called the
(39:49):
Bennio Rosso.
Speaker 3 (39:50):
This is the two Red years.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
The two Red Years culminate in what becomes known as
the occupation of the factories. This is these mass sort
of workers' movements sort of cumulate from all of the
effects of the war and all of the sort of
repression that's been happening for centuries in Italy. And what
happens is, instead of calling a conventional general strike in
which you know, workers leave the factories and allow bosses
to hold on to them, workers instead just seize control
(40:14):
and occupy the factories they work. And this is why
it's you know, it's called the occupation of the factories.
And in this period, right, these workers have the capitalists
on the ropes, right. Without control of the factories, the
bosses can't restart production with scabs, and more importantly, it
puts the workers in the position to simply drive the
bosses out entirely and restart production under the control of
the workers who work in these places and who literally
(40:37):
built the entire economic system that these capitalists have been
profiting from. And this was the best chance any country
in Europe was ever going to get to defeat the
capitalists once and for all. Right, this was this was
the best they were ever going to have it. But
the worker's oldest allies, these are the socialist and social
democratic politicians in the Socialist Party opposed the occupants. And
(41:01):
these these Socialist Party politicians, these are their friends, These
are their comrades, These are these are the people who
lead their unions. I mean, these are people who you
know a lot of these people have spent thirty years
organizing with these people just to carve the workers movement
out of sort of the stone of history. These are
the people, you know, who, in a lot of cases
like they had gone to war with So when the
(41:22):
social Democrats told them to immobilize and told them to
go home, and told them to, you know, just give
the fact the factories back to the capitalists and give
up all of their leverage. The workers listened, and once
they've been totally demobilized, there was no way for them
to resist the fascists. Mussolini Marshall on Rome the next year,
and in the wake of the socialists betrayal, the fascists
(41:42):
would rule Italy for twenty five years. You have to
be incredibly weary of these people who who take power
from you know, like the most personal example to be
is we have this with Brandon Johnson, who is like
a you know, the big here. He was the mayor
of Chicago, where I I guess technically now I don't
live there, but I live there for ages. Who was
(42:03):
you know, quote our quote unquote movement mayor and then
immediately started just fucking putting migrants that had been like
bust up in just like these fucking horrible conditions in camps.
People were dying, people are getting fucking terrible diseases, like
buildings with mold in them, like stuff that was condemned
and like all of this stuff happened, and you know,
(42:24):
and it really kind of in a very similar way
because this was, you know, this was supposed to be
one of us.
Speaker 3 (42:30):
The resistance to it has been really innutered.
Speaker 2 (42:33):
And that's a dynamic that you know, we haven't had
as much in the US because there hasn't been a
left in this country until really the last maybe decade,
and that's stretching it. And now, you know, we need
to actually get back to understanding how this kind of
stuff works, because more and more the people who are
(42:53):
going to be arresting you are people who you know,
you used people used to be organizing with people, people
who you used to know, people who, even when you
put a mic in front of their face, will claim
to be on your side.
Speaker 4 (43:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (43:04):
No, those are some really great comparisons to draw to.
And yeah, I think we've definitely learned to be more
vigilant collectively.
Speaker 7 (43:15):
It is here.
Speaker 3 (43:16):
Yeah, is there anything else that you two want to
say before you wrap up?
Speaker 5 (43:19):
Yeah, I think it's really important to hold people accountable always.
As much as they don't want to be held accountable,
they still they probably won't, but they still have a
responsibility to the community. And yeah, I think we need
to do stick to direct action and less working alongside
(43:42):
of politicians because at the end of the day, the
same thing will happen again and again will be sold
out and it'll be a big waste of time. So
I think the collective power of community in doing direct
action always will be the solution. And that's something that
(44:03):
I've learned more recently the way that things have kind
of unfolded with Hillside Villa. And lastly, I know there
are some key demands for CD one we can share too.
Speaker 6 (44:18):
So yeah, I think, picking up on what you were saying,
an I, direct action has always been our bread and
butter to actually get meaningful results, and we're already seeing
it after this recent protest at Aune's house.
Speaker 4 (44:32):
Where CD one, the city council district is now.
Speaker 6 (44:36):
Completely changing their two and saying, oh, this this lease
was just a draft, like you don't have to feel
pressured to sign it. You can put together account proposal,
And that is completely not what they were saying at all.
Speaker 4 (44:50):
For the protest.
Speaker 6 (44:51):
They were really really pressuring us to sign the lease,
and even at the protest right a Unie is recommending
that a family member would sign it. So we're already
seeing the results, and in our counterproposal, we plan to
really highlight a few demands first and foremost that the
rent debt is turned into consumer non evictible debt, no
(45:14):
behaviors stipulations, those are bullshit.
Speaker 4 (45:18):
The eviction cases actually.
Speaker 6 (45:19):
Get dismissed and not suspended in court for six years.
And finally, no fifteen million for Bots until a fair
deal is reached. And that's a key point of leverage
because CD one is acting as the escrow of the
fifteen million, meaning that they're supposed to. Yeah see if
(45:41):
both parties, so US and Bots quote unquote like fulfill
what we're supposed to do with a deal before giving
Bots the fifteen million.
Speaker 4 (45:50):
And so they have so much power over this situation.
They keep throwing their hands up and saying they don't
have power, but they can withhold the fifteen million from
him until he actually responds to some of these demands.
So that's what we really want to highlight in this moment.
Speaker 6 (46:06):
And for folks who you know, want to kind of
stay updated on the struggle, our handle on both Twitter
and Instagram, I believe is Hellside Underscore yep, So feel
free to check us out there and stay updated.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
Yeah, well we'll put the link to the description too.
And on that note, thank you to both so much
for coming on and yeah, fuck them, Fuck the DSA electeds,
Fuck the landlords, but the housing department. Hope, hope you
crush the ball.
Speaker 4 (46:42):
Absolutely fuck them all.
Speaker 7 (46:44):
Thank you so much for having us.
Speaker 5 (46:45):
And yeah, definitely the city a lot needs to be
dismantled and reimagined and reconstructed, starting with housing and so
much more.
Speaker 7 (46:55):
But thank you again.
Speaker 2 (46:56):
Yeah, and I encourage everyone listening to the show give
them hell. Whoever them is in this scenario, give them hell.
Speaker 1 (47:09):
It could Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 3 (47:12):
For more podcasts from.
Speaker 1 (47:13):
Cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zonemedia dot com
or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources
for It Could Happen Here, updated monthly at coolzonemedia dot
com slash sources. Thanks for listening.
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Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
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