By Chris Tyler, Communications Manager
April 26, 2025
Yesterday, SAJE members and staff gathered for a public action in support of organized tenants living across the street from L.A.’s Exposition Park. The action was coordinated as part of 2025’s Global Housing Action Days initiative on April 25 and 26, organized by the European Action Coalition for the Right to Housing and the City and the International People’s Assembly for Housing. Soaring rents, lack of social housing, gentrification, speculation and mass evictions are not only major issues right here in L.A., but around the entire world—and we’re proud to stand in solidarity with tenant organizers everywhere to fight for the dignified housing we all deserve.
Tenants participating in yesterday’s action first connected with SAJE two years ago after their former landlord passed away and the building came under the control of a predatory real estate investment firm, organized formally as a limited liability company, or LLC. According to our 2020 report, Beyond Wall Street Landlords: How Private Equity in the Rental Market Makes Housing Unaffordable, Unstable, and Unhealthy, “the limited liability, secrecy, and tax benefits of corporate … investment vehicles [like the LLC] all play a role in enabling the harm to tenants and society that these landlords perpetrate. Landlords of all sizes are emboldened to circumvent protections and avoid fiscal, social and legal responsibility for their behavior by the protection of the corporate form.”
Photo: Jun Ampig
Once escrow closed back in 2023, conditions quickly deteriorated beyond the threshold of habitability. Broken windows, chronic leaks, vermin infestations, and significant mold growth worsened as agents of the firm began illegally entering apartments with no notice, sometimes accusing the tenants themselves of harassment and non-compliance.
Fortunately, the tenants were organized through SAJE and understood their rights. But that didn’t stop the new owner from serving each tenant an unlawful detainer and initiating fraudulent eviction proceedings against the same people who’d lived peacefully in the building for decades.The tenants remained organized and the eviction cases were eventually dismissed. However, conditions continued to worsen as the tenants successfully petitioned the Los Angeles Housing Department (LAHD) to place the building in REAP, or the Rent Escrow Account Program.
REAP exists to resolve the most persistent health and safety and habitability issues found in rental properties in the City, and involves the creation of escrow accounts that allow monthly rents to be used for repairs. Unfortunately, the best intentions cannot protect any of us from bad actors. Recently, in an act of retaliation, an agent of the landlord removed the entirety of one family’s kitchen sink and adjoining cabinetry. Now, the owners claim their hands are tied because the building is in REAP!
Photo: Chris Tyler
If corporate ownership is the problem, social housing and the decommodification of our homes must be the solution. It won’t be a straightforward process, and it certainly won’t happen without significant challenges and moments of strife. And that’s exactly why we’re proud to amplify this year’s “Homes, Not Profits!” message around the world. As articulated so thoughtfully by Adrian from the Berlin Tenants Union, “our human need to be housed, to live in a healthy environment, and to have access to community life and basic services unite us.”
You can learn more about this year’s internationally-coordinated action here.
