TENANT HORIZON #4

Valley Tenants Union
May 1
19 min read

We’re back at it again with another issue of Tenant Horizon! We kept busy in April with our A/C Summer Program, Eviction Defense Working Group, and our outreach in different parts of the valley. As the weather heats up, so does the urgency to organize against the dangerous conditions that landlords and the state leave us with.

Since our May general meeting falls on May Day or International Workers’ Day, we included a short description of its significance as well as Langston Hughes’ Chant for May Day (1938). We also interviewed a tenant we met through the Abolish Rent reading group with Food Not Bombs, who shared her perspective on the reading, the exploitation in low-income housing, navigating with physical disabilities, and more.

Interested in contributing? Reach out to any Research and Analysis Committee member or email us at ValleyTenants@proton.me.

All credit to Wolf for the incredible cover art!

Updates

A/C Summer Program

Heat is murder! As the summers keep getting hotter, we expect more mass air conditioning breakdowns. This condition of tenancy will be constant as long as landlords hoard land and shelter as profit streams, and it will worsen if this trajectory continues. To counter this, we formed the A/C Summer Program to learn the terrain of tenants' rights around A/C, see where problems pop up the most, organize tenants when their A/C inevitably breaks, and prepare to hit the ground running even when legal rights prove inadequate.

We've made solid progress with a brochure and are working on a longer toolkit with sample demand letters and more detailed city-specific rights. We also began noting where there have been newsworthy mass A/C breakdowns and have noticed patterns of repeated issues even when ownership changes hands. We've also found slumlords who own multiple complexes with similar issues, like Buenas Communities LLC, who own the apartments near The Blade that earned a lawsuit from the Attorney General last year.

At the same time, we've drawn from the People's Cooling Army by All Chicago Tenant Alliance in considering how to implement mutual aid. Talking to technicians made it clear that amateur repairs would be unlikely to work, so we'd like to collect some window A/C units. We aren't a service organization and won't be able to provide A/C units to everyone, but we want some way of immediately helping those in the most danger if their unit breaks down, like the elderly and families with young children. We want to explore collaboration with mutual aid networks for this and to include tenants who have neither A/C nor shelter itself. If you have a spare window A/C unit or are willing to provide one, please contact us!

The next time we meet up, we're also planning to knock doors at apartments with a history of widespread A/C issues. Reach out if you're interested in joining us at 6pm on Thursday May 15th!

Eviction Defense Working Group

The committee held a courtwatch week from April 22 to 26 for union members. We attended the courtrooms of El Centro, South Mountain and West Mcdowell Justice Courts, whose precincts cover our outreach projects. The week was informative for us to know how the eviction machinery works. We collected data and made observations on judges, landlords, attorneys and tenants in the court. Within the first week of May, we will analyze the data, identify patterns and synthesize our findings for the union. Our goal is not to make legal reforms in the courts; switching out judges or legal codes is not enough, we want to imagine a world without eviction courts. Please join our committee if you’re interested in fighting back against evictions; we meet biweekly on Wednesdays at 7pm.

Grant Park Project

Grant park is in full swing! The committee met last Thursday (4/24) to create a flyer for the neighborhood, talk about a tabling event opportunity, and discuss a plan of action for distributing flyers in the neighborhood! The group reached out to Barrio Defense Committee on the opportunity to table at their upcoming event in Grant park on Sunday (4/27), they agreed and this will be our first time representing ourselves as a union in the neighborhood! We will also be inviting the neighborhood to our next meeting which will be May 8, 2025 at 6:30 at the Grant Park Gardens (702 S 3rd Ave). Exciting things ahead!

West Valley Project

In April, we continued outreach at two laundromats. It has been good to identify issues in the area and meet neighbors. We have made improvements to the set-up, materials and signs to attract tenants. Some challenges we are working through is having meaningful conversations in the short time span at the table, clear actionable asks and posing larger questions about housed/unhoused tenant organizing. How can the union include homeless organizing? What are ways to build solidarity to organize in our capacity as housed tenants alongside houseless tenants who are organizing to get their immediate and long-term needs met? We also faced pushback from both laundromat owners and have had to make adjustments to where our table was placed (abolish private property)!

Additionally, this month we discovered that one of our members’ rent is being increased; the apartments are subsidized and requesting from the city and HUD to allow the rent hike. The catch is that tenants are able to submit comments speaking against the increase. May’s priority will be to support their fight by doorknocking, gathering petition signatures and coordinating community meetings. We hope that through this we can learn more about the number of tenants on subsidized housing or section 8 vouchers at the apartment, and lay the groundwork for an organized tenant association!

Do you live between 35th Ave-43rd Ave and Van Buren-Thomas? Do you want to organize with your neighbors to address shared issues? Reach out to us via text or phone call: 602-726-9849.

Language Justice Committee

Besides our weekly Intercambio Language Exchange practices, we haven’t met in the last 2 months. Please reach out if you’re interested in the committee, and text 505-377-7882 if you’d like to join an Intercambio!

Research & Analysis Committee

In the April Research & Analysis Committee meeting, we discussed our newsletter, a question about rental history, and the end of the Abolish Rent reading group. To check rental history, we found that tenants can use free resources like RentGrow.com as well as request annual reports from Experian, Transunion, or Equifax. In the future, we want to avoid pigeonholing ourselves as "experts" for questions like these, and empower others to find answers too.

With the Abolish Rent reading group, we recognized the successes and areas with room for growth. We've connected with tenants in the park, which opened up space for political discussions that genuinely resonated. Still, we saw how VTU's presence was minimal, our open-ended facilitating may have been unfocused, and have concerns about a drift towards activist-centric organizing. With Food Not Bombs planning to continue a reading group, we'd like to get input from others that have been involved on how best to engage from here. We meet online on the 3rd Tuesday each month (next on May 20th at 6:45pm), so reach out if you'd like to join or assist what we're organizing!

Broke Income Housing

I conducted this interview with Ceci in March, a week after she shared some of the issues she was experiencing at her apartment complex during a discussion at the Abolish Rent reading group. Ceci is a loving mother and grandmother, a talented storyteller, and a delightful presence at every Sunday meal. I am thankful for our friendship and the opportunity to continue learning from her.

What follows is a conversation on landlord neglect, broken locks, power shutoffs, laundry room floods, rent hikes, and the struggles of living in a structurally inaccessible apartment unit after developing a physical disability. There is also a brief discussion of domestic violence.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

M: Have you always lived in Phoenix? Where were you from originally and where did you grow up?

C: I’m originally from St. Louis, Missouri from a family of 11. I’m the youngest of 11 kids. Growing up as a child, my parents both had to work. We went to private schools, so…we made do. Because my dad worked for the railroad, he was gone a lot. Mom had to take care of 11 kids of course…and put big pots on the stove, and stretched the food. 11 kids, that’s a lot! But for the most part neighbors were good neighbors. I know most people in the neighborhood were buying their homes. We were one the first 5 Black families to move into that neighborhood. Whereas the people that owned the homes [in the neighborhood] didn’t want us to live there because we were Black. But through the school St. Bridgets, there was a sister called Sadie, and she fought for us to get that house, so we got it.

In 2001, I came here to Phoenix. And that was due to me changing some things in my life. I’m a recovering addict, and I’m celebrating 31 years this year! I wanted my son to have a better outlook on life as far as people. It was more Black/White in St. Louis. If a Black guy dated a White girl, you would find him beat up or dead. That was back when I was coming up—that’s all you heard about! I remember my brother was dating a girl named Hazel, and he wanted to marry her, they fell in love and he went off to the military. Her parents did not like him because he was Black. And she wrote him a Dear John letter. My brother eventually [came out as] gay and that’s how he lived the rest of his life. He had that one [young] love of his life and when it rejected him, it just went the other way.

M: That’s intense. In moving here have you found it different contrasted with the racism you experienced back in St. Louis?

C: Oh I love it here! Oh my goodness. I’ve met so many [people of different] races. I call myself the international grandmother because [here in Arizona] my son [has had interracial relationships]. [These relationships] were very accepted, you know what I mean?

M: So it seems, for your son, there was much more acceptance and freedom [here in Phoenix] to find love wherever [and with whomever]?

C: Yes!

M: Whereas you didn’t, and your siblings didn’t, get that in your childhood in St. Louis?

C: No.

M: A little bit of a pivot: How long have you been attending Food Not Bombs, the meal here in Civic Space Park?

C: Maybe a year. I’d say, around 7-8 months [of coming regularly to the Sunday meal].

M: How have you felt about reading Abolish Rent together? The content we’ve read and the discussions we’ve had…have you felt like related to any of it?

C: Oh I definitely relate! [I relate to them] raising the rents because of the new buildings they’re building around where I live. I’m with a company that’s low-income, that has some properties in this area. The buildings that are new, that have risen up [in the neighborhood], are $2200 rent for one bedroom which is ridiculous. [This] caused them to raise my rent $69, which makes it $770 now. That’s a $69 jump! And some people say “Oh I wish mine was like that…” not if you on a broke income! I’m not on a fixed one, I’m on a broke one!

M: What you’re seeing in the area is these luxury apartments get built up, and the developers and the property managers and the landlords of these luxury apartments charge exorbitant amounts of rent. And then in your building the property management and the company that owns it [are] trying to match that [so-called] “market rate.” Despite you living in low-income, subsidized housing, they’re still hiking it up. Which proportionately is a huge impact on you!

C: It definitely is! Last week after I left [the Abolish Rent reading group], we were talking about things that landlords do and don’t do. I never would have expected to come home and find my electricity off. Someone had turned it off, they have access to that [electric box]! That shouldn’t be visible to the people in the neighborhood, to where you can just go and turn somebody’s stuff off!

M: Somebody unrelated to the apartment got into the power box, tampered with it, and cut power to your entire place?

C: Yes! And when we tried to call emergency maintenance, he said it’s not his problem! Then, everybody started calling APS. APS said they have to have more than one person call, so we’re all calling. And then finally one neighbor’s visitor went down to the box, flipped the switch! And then an hour and a half later, the maintenance guy came out, knocking on the door, talking about “Was your power out too?”

It’s just unnecessary stuff that’s going on, that [property management] can control, but they’re not in control of it! This guy is like an idiot! If you get a call, from a property, and they tell you there’s a problem, you’re supposed to be putting your boot and hat on, like a fireman, and get out the door! And find out what’s going on! And then, you can ask everybody questions. A person that’s visiting another person shouldn’t have to be the one to take care of that problem!

M: Literally to take it into their own hands, when it’s something as simple as turning a switch on! Has management addressed at all that this important power switch is in a place accessible to anybody to tamper with?

C: Do you know what? I made mention of it when I handed over my $770! Hopefully something will be heard. I mean you only can hope!

It’s just like when…okay it’s 28 units in my building. And we have 3 washers and 3 dryers. Well, it had gotten to the point where the washers broke down, here I am, in a [mobility] scooter, how am I supposed to do my laundry? [It’s] taking forever, it’s taking my money…

I remember one time I was doing my laundry, and I was ready to dry, and it’s $1.50 to dry. I put the $1.50 in there, it gives me ten minutes! I say “Oh something must not be right.” I go up here to Circle K to get some more quarters. I come back, put more quarters in—ten minutes. And it’s not even drying them! You can’t even feel the heat on them!

So when [property management] got it addressed, they did come out, they bust a hole through the walls, trying to see if it was a water problem. This ended up flooding the whole laundry room, which left us out of washing completely for two weeks! So here I am sitting up here, with clothes in my house that need to be washed!

M: What are they doing with the rent [money] if not investing in the amenities, right?

C: I’ve been asking them since I’ve been there “could you change vendors?” [To] someone that has newer and more up-to-date, functioning washers and dryers! They say “Oh it’s not that, it’s people that don’t know how to wash clothes!” —NO! You got these same [old] ones and they ain’t no good! Always have to replace parts. Why do that? You’re getting the money from us, you’re ripping us off, you’re collecting that money in the middle of the night so nobody sees you…

I wrote a dirty note on one of the out of order signs on a washing machine saying “You owe me $200!” Because of all the times I’ve lost money and I’ve just let it blow over my head. But when that 10 minutes came up, and I spit $4 and something, putting coins up in there trying to get these clothes dry. I’m taking them clothes in the house, handing them up on the hangers, and turning my oven on so the oven can dry them!

M: Having just 3 sets of washers and dryers for, you said, a 28 unit building, is not enough! Especially if they’re not functioning correctly! And for them to charge $1.50 for a10 minute dry!

C: He talking about, he “didn’t know it was doing that.” Yeah you did! You trying to recoup from what you’ve been losing! And I understand that but don’t get on me, as I’ve said before, I’m on a broke income! I don’t get much of SSI. Only enough just to survive on! You know, I get the U-card, which I can get food and over-the-counter drugs. Other than that, ain’t nobody giving me nothing! Ain’t nobody giving me nothing.

M: Beyond the negative experience with the encroaching fees in both paying for laundry, the rent hikes…you also mentioned last week some aspects of your specific unit that aren’t accessible. Could you talk a little bit more about that?

C: Right, well when I first moved there I was a working person. I was teaching Zumba, I was going to work everyday, I had a great job. But when COVID came, they sent everyone home and everything, and that sent me into my illness. I didn’t need an ADA unit [in the beginning], but I did prefer to be on the ground level. Once I made mention of [needing an accessible unit], there is supposed to be a waiting list. It’s only three [accessible units] on the ground floor. One is held by a woman, a good friend of mine. And then the other two [units] are occupied by people who are not [physically] disabled at all. [The landlords] just wanted to have a full house, so [they could make rent from those tenants].

I need something for physical disabilities. I had to get rid of so much stuff out of my apartment just so I can move this [mobility scooter] around the house. So, that’s not being addressed at this time. You know, I’m just stuck where I’m at because of my health. They can’t [modify my existing unit]! There’s no way to do it! I already have a shower chair. Other than that, what else can they do? They would have to come in there and take out everything, and make [cabinets, counters, light switches, etc.] lower, and all that. Just like how the ADA units are already made.

M: I remember last week you were also talking about tension between property management and tenants in these community meetings they’ve been holding. Do you want to talk a little bit more about that?

C: Yeah, you know, me and a couple of other tenants out of the 28 units that do come to these community meetings, it’s about 5 or 6 of us that come. And things are mentioned, notes are written, and minutes are kept. But you’re not seeing any [engagement from other tenants].

I just signed my lease, just on Friday. This March. [Property management is] supposed to be ahead of the game. I say “Is the rent gonna change? Here’s my award letter.” “Is the rent gonna change? Here’s my rent money.” They couldn't tell me anything! And then finally they told me, yeah it’s gonna change, $69 more. Like, where am I supposed to pull that from? But I have it, you know what I mean? But [the rent increase] takes away from getting other stuff for the household.

M: It’s a type of theft, right?

C: It is! Just as quick as I get a raise, they take it away, and then some!

M: Do you know if other tenants were hit with the same rent hike?

C: Oh yeah, everybody is. Whether their income changed or not, the [landlord] is jacking it up.

M: So, in your mind, what do you see as the future for your building, and for buildings like yours? What patterns have you observed in the last five years you’ve been there?

C: That it’s going down. I’m a person—let me say what it is—I’m nosy. It’s a gated community, so you have to have this key [fob] right here to get in the gate and to get in your door. There have been numerous times where someone has reached up and cut the wires so the gate can freely open. Instead of a buzzer, if you a tenant there, to have someone to let you in. Or call emergency maintenance so they can re-key you. [Also] when these doors [are held] open too long, they demagnetize, it doesn’t magnet shut and stay shut. They came by to fix it after awhile, it took us [tenants] calling and calling and calling. They finally fixed it.

But you got all this drug activity, and all these stragglers—I’m still waiting on a package my sister sent me two weeks ago! It ain’t coming, somebody took that package. Somebody took that package.

It’s just stuff like that, I don’t feel safe there, I’m the first door by the gate. I’ve been in a domestic violence situation in the past, since I’ve been here in Arizona. Last time he found me, he stabbed me on the bus stop. I threw my hand up, [the knife] went right through. Otherwise [the knife] would’ve come down on my head.

One day I was coming to Circle K. Well, a guy was at the bus stop, he had all this stuff strewn out on the sidewalk, so before I got to him I said “Sir could you please move some of your stuff so I can get by?” He called me names, he told me no, cross the street and use the other side of the street. I said no, I’m not going back! I need to come across this way! He pulled out a machete–I promise you—and pretty much scared the bejesus out of me. I don’t feel safe.

M: You don’t feel safe going around this area, but it also seems that your actual building is not putting in the proper measures to ensure safety, like having the doors lock or having people not be able to just turn off your electricity with such easy street access to the power box! I empathize with you, because you have this prior experience of violence, and then to feel as though you're on the precipice of experiencing it again at any given time, just because of your living conditions.

C: They have the nerve to raise the rent in this raggedy neighborhood!

M: Exactly! Like what are you getting with that rent money, where are they putting it? Clearly not investing in the property!

C: I don’t know, I have no clue! These are questions I have but, I’m sure they’re not going to give me an answer because they don’t even know. They just puppets on a string! So I can’t blame it on [the property manager], I can’t blame it on the liaison or maintenance. It’s way above them. They just do what they’re told or they’re going to be asked to leave. And people have mortgages, and they know this is a tough time for anyone, and so they put the pressure down on them, where they’ll want to keep their job, and do what they have to do, or they’re not going to have a job. And end up living in low-income [housing] themselves!

M: I think that’s a really insightful analysis, it’s like these layers of hierarchy and bureaucracy, so that the actual people who are lining their pockets with your rent are far removed from the day-to-day interactions with tenants.

C: So yeah, these readings [of Abolish Rent] help a lot, it helps me to vent, it keeps my pressure down, because at least I can vent about [my housing issues] and I don’t have to hold it in! And someone’s listening!

M: Absolutely! Everyone is listening, and sharing their own experiences too. You’re definitely not alone in this!

C: No, I'm not alone! And that’s the sad part. Because even if I could move, where would I move? It’s just rough everywhere, rent is high everywhere.

M: Same shit, different location. Definitely a tough time for tenants all around. Which is also why I like reading Abolish Rent together, and seeing what has worked for tenants in LATU. I think everyone’s feeling it, as more and more of the owner class, of the propertied class, keep extracting more and more [from tenants]. Do you have any lingering thoughts to leave us with?

C: I would like to stay a part of this group and I’d like to see it grow! I would like to see us stand up and make a difference. I’d really like to see that change where we can stand up and stand out for us.

May Day’s Meaning

What do we face as summer approaches? We work hard to barely afford rising rent, filling the pockets of the unimaginably wealthy. Some of us work to live on the burning hot streets, surrounded by buildings left vacant so their owners can keep gambling on land values. As our May General Meeting falls on May Day, or International Workers’ Day (IWD), we wanted to discuss its relevance to our intolerable moment in solidarity against oppression across borders.

When did it start? Inspired by an annual general work stoppage for an 8 hour day by Australian workers, workers in this country followed their lead on May 1st, 1886. In the following days, Chicago police shot and killed several demonstrators in what’s called the Haymarket Affair. Workers renewed their push for a general strike in 1890, and the state repression prompted workers to hold massive demonstrations simultaneously.

These actions and their labor movements, like industrial capitalism, initially grew in Europe and its settler colonies, with all the flaws that implies. Regardless, the idea spread like a wildfire. Anarchist Cuban workers were early supporters, filling the streets and raising funds for Haymarket protesters despite earning jail time. The Soviet Union, itself created through a revolution led by workers, unsurprisingly placed great importance on the holiday. Chinese workers led by communists rallied in the face of violence by US-backed warlords and drug pushers. In South Africa, the holiday evokes the working class’s major role in defeating apartheid. By now, most of the world celebrates IWD officially, and more celebrate it without government recognition.

Here, all efforts have been to suppress IWD. Chicago capitalists quickly built a statue of a cop at Haymarket Square, though generations of direct action forced them to hide it at the police headquarters. During the 1st Red Scare, there were attempts to replace it by naming May 1st “Americanization Day”. By then, the racist white workers in the AFL had already cowered away from the struggle for an 8 hour work day, the Haymarket martyrs, and the IWD. During the 2nd Red Scare, the president officially enshrined it as “Loyalty Day”, which is still trudged out each year.

Despite their best efforts, workers in the belly of the beast have continued to demonstrate the meaning of IWD. On May Day 1990, homeless tenants in 8 cities (Tucson included) seized vacant federally-owned buildings in a takeover coordinated by the National Union of the Homeless after politicians’ promises proved to be lies. Some stayed put and others forced big concessions. To counter the criminalization of migrants, May Day 2006 saw millions flood the streets for the “Great American Boycott”. This was enough to shut down many ports in California and cost millions of dollars.

Their bold actions have shown us the beating heart of the worker and tenant movement, though we confront heightened problems here and abroad. The conditions around us as well as the bipartisan support for war mongering and genocide challenge us to wake up to our historical need to seize the moment. To paraphrase Rosa Luxemburg: as long as the struggle by the working classes against capitalists, landlords, and the ruling class continues, as long as all demands aren’t met, May Day will be the yearly expression of our demands.