 Hi and welcome to People's Dispatch. Today we are joined by Kenya Alcocer, who is an organizer with Union de Vecinos in Los Angeles, California. This organization works around a lot of issues relating to housing and amid the pandemic and lockdown, the organization has been very active in organizing and calling for the cancellation of rent. So thank you Kenya so much for joining us. The Union de Vecinos has issued a very clear demand of food, not rent. The organization is called for rent strikes. It is called for the cancellation of rent. And this is something we're seeing in the U.S. not only in Los Angeles, but also by organizations on a national level across the country. So why has the demand for the cancellation of rent become so pressing? The reason why it's because we don't see a future for tenants to keep their homes if there are in debt to their landlords. A lot of our community members had to go on rent strike on April 1st because they didn't have money to pay for April's rent. We're in May. It doesn't seem like it's going to be any anytime soon that we're going to be able to have the communities actually go back to work and receive full payment of not just what they missed of work, but for them to continue to survive for the following months. So reconciliation, it's very important for us because it tells people that it is not okay for people to be in debt. We know that there are a lot of our community members that are already in debt, whether it's credit cards or student loans. So adding another debt onto communities and onto folks, it's very, very, it lives them in a very precarious situation. If we say people go into rental agreements where they start paying rent to landlords and they sign this document, then that really tells tenants that if for whatever reason they're not able to pay that rent, then they will go through an eviction proceedings and lose their home anyway. So it doesn't it doesn't really solve the issue of people not losing their homes. And that is why rent forgiveness is the best way for people and anybody to be really safe in their homes during this pandemic. And the Food Not Rent actually calls on to really prioritize different things during this moment. Food is more essential right now than paying your rent is feeding your family is more essential. And that is where we're also trying to like really push back against this essential worker narrative. Although, yes, we understand that there are workers that thanks to them, we are surviving through this pandemic. There's also need to be an understanding that those workers safety nets are not being protected, which is housing, health care, and even workers rights and salaries. If the worker is essential, then his necessities need to be essential as well. And that is what the push for Food Not Rent is actually also talking about. So amid this context, what is the organizing by Union de Vecinos and other community organizations looked like? And also, what are the amid this organizing? What are the what are the demands that have emerged to the state government, the federal government and from the organizations themselves? So Union de Vecinos, we are in both Heights and East LA, which are very predominantly Latino immigrant communities. We have a lot of our membership that are in the informal economy sector. There are other street vendors, mariachis. We have folks that that babysit other community members, kids. So there is not, oh, and then for the most part, a lot of our workers are also garment workers. So on the former sector, they're either garment workers, they're fast food workers, retail. So all these jobs that are low wage jobs for the most part. So one of the reasons why this trying to push this through, it wasn't, like I said, a no brainer. A lot of our members came on April and said, you know what, we're not going to be able to pay our rent. For us as Union de Vecinos working with tenants for many, many years. We know and working with lawyers that defund tenants that we know that the first thing that you need to do is document to protect yourself and start documenting in case you do go to a fiction court. So for us, it was like, okay, we need to start documenting this. So sending your letter to your landlord saying I've been impacted by this COVID-19 health and economic crisis. And I'm not going to be able to pay this month's rent actually helps tenants out in the process of like when we do go to court. We have something to back up these tenants case in order for us to win some of these cases. And the other thing that we also have a clear understanding on is courts and this particular system doesn't have the ability to evict every single person. They're going to have to do some negotiations even within court. There are 70,000 cases eviction cases that go through one court here in LA, which is Stanley Moss Court every year. If they were to do something like this, I mean, it would be very difficult and very drastic to evict. We have in the city of Los Angeles 62% of the population are tenants. And this is just the city of LA. If we were really going to go through a process of evicting every single person that didn't pay their rent. It would have been nearly impossible to go through the court system one and it would be impossible for the sheriff's department who are the executors of those court processes to lock out every single person in the city of LA. So we're also utilizing this as tenant power to really bottleneck and push a system that has been for a very long time in oppressive system against poor communities. We're also operating under the understanding that this housing crisis didn't start with a pandemic, that it was an existing housing crisis. In the United States we had, before the crisis, the numbers were 10 million houseless folks in the community, so homeless folks in our communities. And 18 million vacant housing. And this is the felt aftermath after the 2008 housing crash. So there is a clear understanding that there is housing. Here in LA you go to poor communities like East LA or South Central and you see empty houses that are still owned by the banks that they were foreclosed on. Houses that could be utilized right now to house people during this pandemic because one of the things that has been essential to put this curve down has been people staying in their homes. But what happens to those that don't have homes? So we have organizations here that have been amazing like the California Homeless Union and others that their job has been to push and really demand for all these vacancies to be utilized. During this moment, especially not just the housing that has been foreclosed or housing that is currently vacant, but also these hotels and motels in the community. We have a lot of vacancies there. So one of the things that we are trying to figure out, it's like, how do we start pushing our government and our local officials at every single level locally statewide and nationally to really start thinking about the ability to housing every single individual. We know that that is a possibility. And one of the things that we're also realizing is that within, we are also part of the Poor People's Campaign and National Call for More Revival. And one of the things that it's not just a policy issue, it's also a moral issue. And in this moment of time, when we're talking about people dying, it is okay for some of our government officials, it's okay for them for Poor People to die. And that is something that we're also pushing back. The No Paying Van Campaign, it's also a campaign of telling people to not put anything into the system that is actually wanting them to die. So it is going to work earlier on this stage, means the possibilities of you catching this disease and bringing it back to your home. So it is pushing back. It's something that we're thinking about more critically, even with our community members. It's a process where we're actually engaging in more political education of talking of why are we going back to work or why are we paying rent. The little relief that people are receiving from federal government or state-wide government, it's so insignificant in reality. I mean, I believe it was like what, $1,200 per adult and then $500 per children. Well, that could be just what you receive. It's just one month's rent. And that's it. If that, yeah. And if you pay that money, then where are you going to find the money for food? Where are you going to find the money for medication? And those are the things that we need to start prioritizing. I mean, a lot of the things that we're also seeing with this campaign, it's no, we don't want to put our money into the pockets of our corporate landlords or back into the banks. This money needs to stay in the community to secure the community's survival. We are pushing for something that it's more realistic for community members. One of the things that our community members that are those essential workers are getting sick. And we were seeing the effects of that. In Texas, a lot of folks that are working in the meat packing industry are getting sick. Therefore, all these meat companies are closing down. Well, in California, the need has, price has doubled for the most part. So even food is becoming more expensive during this time. And if you're having to choose between paying a huge amount for food and then having nothing left from your rent, then that is a problem. A lot of our community members here in LA are paying 60 to 75% of watching more 60 to 80% of their income is going into rent or into housing. And that is something that we are also talking about. That's not fair. We know that folks that live in public housing are paying only 30% of their income. And there are some protections for those folks. But again, housing has been something that has not been prioritized. Even public housing is something that has been dismantled a lot across the nation. A lot of folks that are poor are now being forced to work. If they want to continue to live in public housing, public housing has been disinvested from. It has been attacked in the sense that mixed income families are being evicted from public housing. I'm sorry, mixed immigrant status families. Has there been any response from California's governor to the demand of rent cancellation? I think early on California was one of the first states to kind of proclaim that they wouldn't be allowing evictions to happen and taking this very progressive stance. But have they responded to this demand at all? Well, I just want to say that California progressive stand is not such a progressive stand. It's a stand that they were able to take thanks to the organizing happening on the ground. In 2018, a lot of community members were pushing for rent control. LA Tennis Union was one of those organizations that we were able to put prop 10 on the ballot. It didn't pass, but the way that a lot of organizations have been pushing for rent control, eviction moratoriums, rent freezes is something that it's been on the works for many, many years. So when this pandemic hit, they were able to implement a lot of these things because they were already in conversations with a lot of organizations that were already pushing some of these policies and legislations. So they had that in hand and were able to implement it. And that is thanks to the organized base in California of tenants and people. So it's not that they just came out of that out of their goodness of the heart. It's just something that it was already there for them to actually be able to do when it comes to to what they're doing right now. These have extended eviction moratoriums. They are looking into legislation. But again, a lot of the legislation that they're wanting to do for the most part, even though one of them that it's actually I believe point right now and they're having discussions around. For gifts, some people for gifts, rent forgiveness for some, but the rest are talking about a 10 year process for them to pay their rent back to the state. So again, it's a way to indeed people into something that they might not be able to pay back. The reality is nobody's getting wages back wages from since this crisis started. So how are you going to pay that especially when in California rents are very, very high depending on the communities that you live in. We know that the Bay Area is one of the most expensive areas for rent. But here in LA, back in 2000, I wouldn't say that in 2003, you were able to find housing a one bedroom apartment for seven to $800. In Boyle Heights, currently it's $14 to $1500 a one bedroom apartment. Now, if you take into account that most of our families are very big family so three to four children, then you're really looking at like that. It's not even a possibility. So we have a lot of actually people that rent multi families that rent one single unit to live in, which only puts these people into a very dangerous position, especially if there's no way that you can self quarantine if one of the family members are actually sick. So that means that an entire sector of our population will get sicker. And so I wanted to come back to just to close out something you mentioned before is that a lot of in Boyle Heights in East LA a lot of community members are migrants. And I wanted to ask specifically what has been the economic impact of the lockdown on these communities? You mentioned that a lot of them are in the informal sector. I don't maybe some people aren't having access to federal relief. So I wanted to kind of ask about how what has been the impact and also, you know, of coronavirus itself? What are the rates of infection if there are any stats on that? Yeah, I mean, for the impact is very real, especially when we're talking about like our community members income is from $15,000 to $35,000 a year. So when even if like some of them working full time now went to part time like that is like a significant huge pay cut. A lot of our community members, we have cases where we're actually figuring out how to fight some of these things that are their day laborers, and they work for the day. And now let's say the person that hired them refuses to pay them back. Before this virus, there were court processes and there were actual legal processes that we can take on to make sure that stolen wages were returned to some of these workers. Of course, and everything being closed down, it's very, very difficult now. So it's been it's been hard. It's been something that we've been talking about and something that we've been pushing to figure out like how we continue to push some of these things. But I want to say here, the fights have been very real in in bull heights, not just when it comes to this current pandemic, but we've been going through a process of gentrification in our communities. So even that has been pushing people out, displacing people. So it's been it's been a fight for many years here in bull heights where we've been pushing a lot of these things and fighting against a lot of these things. And bull heights has actually been targeted in many occasions by border patrol. We had folks that have been taken away here in this community. So immigration, it's obviously a huge issue and the only way we can protect ourselves. And we know this it's by knowing each other organizing and mobilizing when these things happen. So immigrant communities, even though there are one of the most impacted, we also know that they're one of the most resilient and the ones that will organize and push back against these things. So we're not just waiting for people to to to just come out and say, Oh, poor community, let's let's see how we help them. We're actually figuring out ways ourselves to push back. So we have created instances of mutual aid ourselves where people help people, you help your neighbors help their neighbors. If there are folks that can go out to get groceries, their community members are organizing and doing rounds to deliver groceries to other folks. And and and to say it's one of the things that I think it's very important is that communities are also learning that scarcity is something that it's been a myth created by our government. And this is something that it's been very helpful when they say we cannot. We cannot do I mean a lot of the possibilities and a lot of the things that we've been asking for we actually been seeing it during this crisis social services right. When people are saying we can't pay our electric or gas or water bill. And they're saying, Oh, well, we're still going to shut it off. And now things are being turned back on at no cost. Then we know that there's a reality for that when they're saying, you know, food cannot be actually free for y'all or there's no access for free food. And we're seeing all these mutual aids popping up everywhere where they're giving free food. When we're seeing that the state of California has talked about, well, it doesn't matter if you qualify or don't qualify for Medicare during this crisis. If you have COVID-19 will take every single case and people have access to health care. We're seeing that there's a different way of doing health care in this country. So I think that one of the things that it is important for us to talk about and see it. There are there are fixtures within this particular economic system, which is the capitalist system that are breaking down and that we are able to see possibilities of actually integrating. And we're also talking about how different countries have had different responses to this virus compared to to the United States, because I think that that's also very important, especially poor countries, countries that have been under attacks because of imperialism because of this country. I think that that is something that it's very critical for our membership to also have discussions around. So while we're fighting, we're also trying to figure out like what are the best ways to to figure out what the best housing is. The United States is the richest country in the world. Yet we have 140 million poor and low income people. Before this crisis, we would say a lot of these folks are a paycheck away from being poor or homeless. Now we know that that is a reality. A lot of us are a paycheck away from being homeless and poor. So this is something that we really need to figure out how to push back against this notion of scarcity because there is no scarcity. There is enough transparency for everybody. If there is enough money to make on basels, the first trillionaire during this pandemic, then there is enough money to house, feed and provide health care for every single person in this country. And in reality, not just this country, but all the other countries that we've been putting under tremendous stress during this pandemic. Thank you so much. And I think it's really amazing to end on that note of resistance and hope. And I think that will be what powers us through kind of this next period. So thank you so much for joining us and keep watching People's Suspect.