Campaign for Renters Rights

Campaign For Renters Rights
Help us Fight the Landlords

Brothers and Sisters:

just a few notes on the progress of our housing/eviction struggles this week. On monday, July 1st we had a very productive, if not long, meeting of the Campaign for Renters Rights.

This was the first meeting Vivienne had been to since we won her an apartment on a public housing project here in Oakland. She came along to thank us. she lived in a storefront with no running water or heat with her two kids who'd tested positive for lead poisoning. It almost five years of organizing tenants it was the worse conditions i'd run across.

On monday she thanked all the CRR members for their help and explained how after she got her new place, she took a warm shower and sat down and cried for an hour because she was so happy to get out of her slum conditions.

Next up we had a review of Sue's case. she was evicted a coupla months back by a trendy lefty non-profit CEO who then took out a restraining order against her to stop her getting her security deposit back off the cheap bastard. Sue felt extremely victimized by getting illegally evicted and then having to go to court to get the restraining order dismissed. The nonprofit the guy worked for were having a fundraiser so we figured we'd picket it to
OUT the guy to his friends.

This was not something we'd done before, usually to attempt some direct action to prevent an eviction or to pressure a landlord to do repairs. this time we had to approach things a bit different. Three CRRers put together a small pamphlet explaining what happened to sue,
titled the seven deadly sins, with a picture of the ceo on each page, the front page with a saintly halo and the next seven each titled, sloth, gluttony etc with a pic of the CEO with lambs (devil) horns on it. We figured it'd get a laugh out of the artsy crowd attending the fundraiser.

The event had some hitches but was generally a great success and we concluded that not
only was it closure for sue as a tenant but it was good future prevention
from this guy doing it again.
We also discussed Dorothy's case: an older lady taking care of her grandchildren who's slumlord had refused to clear up a gaping hole in her bathroom and mold which was giving all three tenants, skin disorders and contributing to worsening asthma. We've taken the case up with Oakland Housing, Code compliance and the landlord is beginning to show signs of our pressure.

Lynn is a tenant of so called affordable housing where the private landlords are preparing, through refusing to do repairs, to privatize their building. Next monday we're having a meeting of the most active tenants in her building to prepare for a wider meeting of tenants of all the buildings managed by this landlord.

Lynda ( the last case discussed that evening) is a well-known tenant activist whom her landlord forgot about when they raised rents recently on all the other tenants. Her lanldord manages 600 units and we're planning a city wide meeting of Linda's co-tenants to see if there's a mood to fight.

Finally, Lynn's case seems most interesting right now because her landlords receives huge funding from the Housing and Urban Development agency of the federal government. HUD has recently been in the news for vast sums of missing funds and has been accused of being a conduit for public money into big landlords pockets. so this case may have wider repurcussions.

Just a brief convaluted update on the work of the Campaign for Renters Rights this week.
The Campaign for Renters Rights meets first Monday of each month in Oakland.

Rob Rooke CRR, Oakland.
Campaign for renters Rights 510-505-5545
Fight to Win