The Tenant, Issue #9
SEPTEMBER 2019
Welcome to the ninth issue of The Tenant! Each issue features updates from LATU locals about recent goings-on in their neighborhood. We hope this will foster solidarity and communication across LATU citywide. If you’d like your local represented in the next issue, please send a 100-word blurb describing what you’ve been up to for the past month as a local to media@latenantsunion.org.
— Los Angeles Tenants Union media committee
HOLLYWOOD
The battle at 1719–1731 N. Whitley Ave rages on. Vulture landlord Fariborz Moshfegh hopes to evict the forty Latinx and Black households so he can cash in on the hotel boom that is social-cleansing Hollywood of working class and poor tenants. But he can’t move on his plans as long as the units have functioning four-burner stoves. Moshfegh has illegally capped gas lines, stolen privately-owned stoves, ignored Americans with Disabilities Act requirements protecting seniors, and has repeatedly bullied tenants. But the tenants are unified. Hollywood Local and our allies in NOlympics formed blockades protecting tenants on August 6 and September 4. On September 10 the tenants will finalize their association demand letter to be sent to Moshfegh.
NORTH HOLLYWOOD (NoHo) (formerly SFV)
We have finally found a new meeting location: MCC United Church of Christ in The Valley in North Hollywood (5730 Cahuenga Blvd). We will now be meeting on the 2nd and 4th Thursday of each month from 6:30–9pm. Our first meeting is on 9/12. The Gilmore St. tenants are still on rent strike. Tenants went to Councilmember Paul Krekorian’s office to demand a meeting. Half of the tenants were given unlawful detainers. In addition, the management has installed cameras, which is an invasion of the tenants’ privacy.
SOUTH CENTRAL
The South Central Local organized and planned the 5th Annual Labor Day Picnic for LATU. Over 150 members (our largest ever picnic!) gathered in MacArthur Park for some amazing food, catered by Revolutionario North African Tacos; a raffle; a LATU-SILA t-shirt pop-up shop; and our ‘Tenant Handbook Vol II’ and ‘Naming the Moment Vol III’ booklet distributions. LATU-SILA Locals shared updates about their current struggles, and the Language Justice Committee and the Unhoused Tenants Committee shared their updates as well. Shout out to Inglewood Tenants Union and Hawthorne tenants who joined our picnic too! The movement is growing. Tenant Power!
NORTHEAST L.A. (NELo)
A dozen Highland Park tenants are coming together to form the United Tenants of Twin Apartments to fight back against Joshua Chen of ALM Alliance, LLC. Chen has raised their rent but refuses to do repairs while the units face numerous habitability issues, including leaks and mold in bathrooms and graffiti in hallways. The tenants have requested inspections by HCID and have started a rent strike in response to a retaliatory rent hike. Meanwhile, long-term members of NELo gathered to re-examine our meeting structure and priorities as a local, with the goal of better serving tenants in crisis and strengthening our local.
POLICY AND LEGISLATION
In the largest expansion of tenant protection in California, the LA County Board of Supervisors passed permanent rent control and just-cause eviction protection for tenants in Unincorporated LA County. * AB 1482, an anti-rent-gouging bill passed through the state senate — now we need to pressure our assemblymembers to make it final. * SB 329, a Section 8 Anti-discrimination bill passed the Assembly! * City Council Homelessness and Poverty Committee voted to amend LAMC 4118 (d) to further restrict sitting, standing or lying within 500 feet of a school, park, housing shelter or venue. Over 93 people showed up at the Homelessness and Poverty Committee meeting on Sept 4th to protest the move, which criminalizes our unhoused neighbours. The amendment has yet to be voted on by the full City Council.
