Rent control rebels
Puntorojo interviews two of the founding members of the San Diego Tenant’s Union (SDTU), Virginia Angeles Hernandez and Rafael Bautista.
How did the San Diego Tenant’s Union come into existence? How would you describe SDTU's political approach, organizing strategy, and overall goals?
Virginia: The Tenant’s Union arose from the need to avoid further displacement in low-income communities. I have been a community organizer for more than 15 years in City Heights (a community in San Diego). City Heights is a predominantly immigrant, multicultural, and low-income community. I began organizing alongside 300 other parents to improve the schools for our children, including providing access to bilingual education. Through this work, I learned that there were a lot of problems with housing, and we began to focus on this issue as well as living conditions are highly connected to school dropout.
We found that families frequently move or relocate due to poor living conditions, moving their children to other communities or even other states. We also learned that poor and unhealthy living conditions affect student performance. Connecting these points, we started a project that we call PCS (Proyecto de Casas Saludables/Healthy Homes Project). This project, sponsored by California Endowment, gave us the opportunity to evaluate 300 homes in City Heights.
This gave us the opportunity to evaluate 300 homes in the community. We found that more than 80% of the homes had serious moisture problems, rat infestations, cockroaches, bed bugs, broken pipes, and cracked and leaky ceilings.
Faced with this serious problem, we decided that it was urgent to begin organizing tenants to advocate for sustainable changes in housing. We ceased to be a program, and transformed ourselves into community-based organization called la Asociación de Liderazgo Comunitario (Community Leadership Association). Our approach was to begin educating tenants about their rights through a popular education curriculum.
We managed to organize more than 2,500 tenants through this campaign. This campaign helped push the “just cause” law which protects tenants from unjustified evictions. We took this experience into the creation of a new tenant’s rights campaign (SDTU) and are now working on having a 2% cap per-year rent control policy implemented in San Diego.
Our political approach is to get this on the ballot so it can become law. Our organizational strategy is to create social and political awareness in tenants, and educate them about their rights so they understand the inherent inequity of an oppressive system that only works in the interests of the rich. We organize door-to-door and building-to-building, inviting them to be part of the union.
Rafael: SDTU developed from work that was being done through San Diego Tenants United; which was the former housing committee for the San Diego Socialist Campaign. Our political roots are grounded in radical principles. We have a principled stance in that we see this as a class struggle, and we are always on the side of the working class.
We are methodical in our approach and are fully committed to building campaigns through to the outcomes. We are never willing to compromise with the capitalist elite, whether it be property managers, landlords or politicians, and we are determined to obtain revolutionary change that benefits the whole working class of San Diego.
We aspire to empower the community and organize people to take direct and immediate action on tenant matters, but most importantly on matters of human rights in general. We want organize tenants to be involved in other actions as well, whether it be monitoring cops in their neighborhoods, how to respond to an immigration raid, or how to organize against worksite abuse. The goal of the union is to help eradicate segregation and displacement. We do this through various proven civil acts of disobedience and protest.
What methods have you used to meet tenants and to organize them in different complexes around the city? What challenges have you encountered and how have you addressed them?
Virginia: We work through a community outreach system. When tenants contact us, we visit the apartment complexes and set up meetings to allow them to explain their problems and let us know how they think it should be resolved. We explain their rights as renters and we work together to develop a strategy and plan of action.
We have encountered many challenges. An initial one is trying to establish trust. Because of the many abuses they have experienced, we find that tenants do not give their trust easily. Another challenge is in the meetings. We typically start with attendance of up to 80 tenants in the bigger complexes, but maintaining that level of involvement is difficult. When landlords find out about the meetings, they often threaten or try to intimidate the tenants. The hardest thing is convincing them that their cases are winnable. When the case goes forward, the number can dwindle down to the as few as five people who see it through, depending on the situation.
This is because of they are often very afraid to suffer reprisals that come from the owners or property managers. Sometimes, they fear being involved because of their legal situation in the country. Because of the oppression faced, many come to think that they have no rights. Others are so physically tired from their daily lives that they do not continue with their cases. Another difficult challenge is the little overall exposure they have as migrants to learn from their rights as tenants.
This is of paramount importance because they do not have the opportunity to learn the details of their cases and that is possible to win, so they often surrender early. The tenant’s union works in one-to-one and in groups to build solidarity and support to discourage demoralization when the struggle is prolonged or because of other issues such as illness, unemployment, or family problems. We give support and demonstrate respect and understanding for their situation.
We also understand that once they learn about their rights and see they have a strong base of support we support, including in the legal process if their case requires it, we motivate them to move forward so that they not only persist but they also become leaders in their community.
Rafael: We have been always active with media in covering our campaigns and actions. So several media outlets in English and Spanish have done spotlights on our work. We get people calling us after they have one-on-one meetings, or referrals from tenants that we have helped before. Sometimes people doubt their own ability to build the struggle within their complex. Sometimes it’s fear of the unknown or fear of the power that owners have in San Diego. Some landlords spread myths about themselves to their tenants to convince them that they can never be defeated.
Tenants ultimately don’t want to risk their home and aren’t typically willing to put it all on the line unless they face displacement through rent gouging. In other cases, they are fed up after having been oppressed by neglectful slumlords for so long. People are aware of how landlords enrich themselves at their expense. So it’s a very direct and real revolt in some complexes we are currently working in. We try to counter disbelief with facts and information. We hold “know your tenant’s rights” workshops. We also have a process for developing tenant’s associations through weekly or biweekly meetings and chapter meetings as well.
How would you describe the people that have joined SDTU? What has been your experience and what have you learned from working with these different tenant groups?
Virginia: People who have become members of the tenant’s union are those who have become interested in the program, have learned about their tenant rights, and above all, who want to continue learning housing issues and want to support their community.
Personally I have learned a lot from the tenants. We work with diverse communities, many of whom are migrants. Solidarity comes very naturally within these communities, and gives us a great lesson in humanist teaching. We see how people face of so much oppression and exploitation help each other, and how this allows us to be stronger as a community, as a tenant’s movement, and as human beings. The owners of these complexes only fight for their profits without realizing the value of the people.
I have learned a lot from the diversity of cultures of the people, and from various ways of organizing to combat this system that is gradually annihilating us. Most importantly, I have learned to be as strong as a migrant and to how to better unite people in the struggle.
Rafael: We work with a variety of personalities, and building solidarity between tenant’s unions is integral to the work. People develop community and take leadership roles. Every person matters in the union, but different tenants have their own purpose and their own reasons for participating. The most rewarding experience is seeing tenants flourish and become freedom fighters. Being able to connect tenant struggle with the overall class struggle allows the work to be consistent and grow in different ways.
We not only organize the tenants in their own buildings but we get them out into the streets and interacting with other tenants. We involve the different groups in supporting each other’s legal cases and also supporting each other in their in their respective community struggles. In sharing experiences, tenants grow and learn how to defend themselves for the rest of their lives. We have helped tenants lear owners transform buildings and get better contracts. Every tenant meeting is interesting because tenants step up and add information that benefits the group. But often times, it’s just the energy that’s generated by organizing for a purpose with tangible results that drives the work when it’s at its most difficult stages.
What have you learned about the class of landlords that you encounter in your campaigns? What has been your experience with local government and the political establishment in San Diego regarding tenant’s rights?
Virginia: The owners are vigorously opposed to the 2% rent control campaign. It has been very difficult to enter dialogue on this issue. Nor have we had much success working with city council either. There is a lot of opposition. The politicians are basing their strategy on talking about more development and building affordable housing for low-income families, but we know that this is not the solution to prevent the eviction of the community, nor would there be enough units to solve the housing crisis.
Rafael: Our push for rent control has opened our eyes to the grip that developers have over local politics and city officials. Large real estate investment trusts and management companies have funded a landlord class that is getting wealthy off the lack of protections and the lack of housing. The landlord class is definitely the biggest contributor to oppression in San Diego.
There is a real housing crises and there are developers and pro-development politicians in power who controls what comes out of City Hall. They have worked hand in hand to create a shortage that must now be remedied by “mass transit development”. They will be developing along the transit corridors and will be wreaking havoc on working class communities along the way.
They are beautifying areas and gentrifying areas with the hope that they will be selling to the highest bidder and the people who will be displaced would be nothing but a memory in a museum. This is happening in San Diego’s Districts number 4, 7, 8 and 9. We are fighting back against a concerted effort by the capitalist class to displace communities of working class people in economically marginalized neighborhoods.
Local council people have failed to take any serious steps towards addressing this issue. While they mouth hollow words and empty promises, the tenant exodus continues. Rent Control has been subverted as a topic in San Diego by those who we look towards for guidance on working class struggle. Some labor unions and Democratic Party affiliated non-profit organizations have been used as shills for the Building Trades and the developers who have influence over policy from San Diego to Sacramento. Development without restrictions has been their priority and has put tenant’s rights on the back burner. Even though they have passed some tenant protections with AB 1482, they are still weaker versions of what we are pushing for locally.
You emphasize organizing rent strikes as an important part of building the tenant’s rights movement. Why do you think this is an important tactic? What has been your experience with organizing rent strikes in San Diego?
Virginia: The rent strike strategy we do through the tenant’s union has allowed us to empower tenants with to enforce their rights. These strikes have been conducted after all other methods to get landlord compliance are exhausted. Strikes are a last resort when landlords refuse to provide maintenance or demand high rent increases that are beyond the incomes of the tenants. We conduct the strike after a process of teaching and documenting absolutely everything related to each case.
We believe that by using a rent strike tactic we can put pressure not only on the owners also on the politicians. They see that a tenant’s movement conducting strikes can influence others affected by the housing crisis to do the same. This is how we can build a movement for rent control in San Diego, through empowering the working class which currently spends up to 60% or more of its income just to pay rent.
Rafael: Organizing Rent Strikes has been the pinnacle of tenant organizing. After writing letters, holding protests, marching in the streets and organizing unions, the rent strike is the most powerful tool at our disposal. Ultimately, if the owners don't listen to the tenants, and choose to disregard their requests for repairs and their demand for collective bargaining, we declare a rent strike and move forward with the withholding of rent payments.
This makes it clear that we will stand up for our rights and that we will fight against abuse. Withholding rent money from your landlord is like withholding labor from your employer, especially when there is a dispute and there is a union advocating for your rights.
So, we cite property conditions and unfair rent increases to organize tenants and prepare them for a rent strike. Escalation tactics are employed based on the response from the landlord. Going to their offices and disrupting their work is key in advancing the agenda and boosting morale for the tenants involved.
Marching through the streets and taking control of the streets in the communities is part of the propaganda that we spread letting others know that they can stand up and fight back. The victories that arise from a rent strike vary but ultimately the goal is to change the mind (and weaken the resolve) of the landlord.
We will use tactics to get results. Mass direct action works best when it’s the most personal. So we tend to couple our rent strikes with mass direct action. We take the tenants and concerned members of the community directly to the multi-million dollar homes where the wealthy landlords reside, in place like La Jolla. Victorious rent strikes have led to major improvements and repairs. We also have seen rent strikes lead to favorable contracts which reflect our demands for rent control capped at 2%.
Virginia Angeles Hernandez was born in Mexico City in 1963 from a peasant father and working mother. As a migrant to the US, Virginia have had to get by being a housekeeping and a senior caregiver. She has been a community organizer and leader for education and housing rights for migrant families. She is currently a co-director of the San Diego Tenant’s Union, which organizes in low-income communities to achieve housing justice.
Rafael Bautista is 34-year old Mexican immigrant who was born in Mexico City and raised in San Diego. He is a graduate of San Diego City College and San Diego State University. He has worked as a real estate and mortgage broker since 2011. He has been a freedom fighter since his youth, and today is human and housing rights organizer. His commitment and determination to the progress of the people grows each year.
