UCLA

The rise of evictions, houselessness, and criminalization for severely rent burdened tenants has necessitated sustainable and transformative justice-centered discourse and praxis that is accountable to the public. In recent years, the eviction epidemic, prompted by predatory gentrification processes, has exacerbated, creating a tenant crisis occurring in, but not limited to, major cities like Los Angeles. Undocumented, queer, and multi-generational tenants, populations most affected by this crisis, have been and continue to unite in confronting and resisting the ongoing disruption of the ways in which property is increasingly valued over people. They do so through grassroots frameworks that enact direct actions like rent strikes, boycotts, and popular political education that provoke local officials and housing policies to recognize and uphold the dire need of pro-tenant protections that restrict mechanisms of harm within the scope of housing injustices. Such examples of predatory housing financialization are landlords illegally overcharging rent, illegally evicting tenants, and enacting harassment upon tenants. This project highlights such moments in three interconnected ways. I first examine how housing organizers critique the limitations of local governments who influence tenant policies. I also analyze the ways that state-funded housing organizations, like the Los Angeles Center for Community Law & Action (LACCLA), face systemic barriers as a non-profit, due to its contingency of state funding through grants and protocols that inhibit autonomous decision making, while also working towards tenant-centered housing justice initiatives with grassroots housing organizations. Additionally, I discuss the role of the local and transnational housing brigade to Venezuela that brought Los Angeles housing organizers together with Venezuelan communes to discuss and envision liberated housing futures. This project ultimately examines tenant organizing in Los Angeles as a unique and transformative place where many unite across diverse diasporas, yet find common ground in social injustice, community organizing, and fostering global solidarity.