Why Renters Protested at Senator Monroe’s Church…Again
On Sunday, December 17th a large crowd of renters and allies showed up at Oregon State Senator Rod Monroe’s church to present him with the notorious “Scrooge of the Year” Award, annually bestowed by Portland Jobs with Justice upon the worst local actor in the realm of labor or politics — the boldest champion of corporate cash and enemy of the working class.
The Democratic Senator beat out a tough crop of big bosses and corporate monsters to win the Scrooge election after taking thousands of dollars in landlord lobby cash in exchange for slaying House Bill 2004, the critical renter protection bill that would have banned no-cause evictions and allowed cities to regulate outrageous rent increases that are currently bankrupting Oregon’s families and rendering many of them homeless.
Who Would Jesus Sue?
But the Senator doesn’t just show his disdain for renters by blocking legislation aimed at protecting them. Last Sunday’s protest highlighted his outrageous treatment of his own tenants. In addition to being an anti-renters’ rights lawmaker, Monroe is also landlord of the Red Rose Manor, a 51-unit apartment complex in his East Portland legislative district. While Monroe hid inside the church, Areli Lopez, one of his tenants, was on hand to personally present the Scrooge award to Monroe.
Areli is not just a random tenant of Monroe’s. She recently filed a lawsuit against her landlord–senator to recoup the cost of her medical bills after an injury related to a neglected leaky roof. Monroe finally fixed the roof but refused to let Areli file an insurance claim, declaring that the leaky roof was “an act of God”. If the leak was an Act of God, was it the same God who directed Monroe to file a retaliatory lawsuit against Areli’s boyfriend José — a union laborer working two jobs to care for Areli — claiming that José should have done more to prevent Areli’s fall? In addition to presenting the Scrooge award, protesters demanded that this slumlord–senator drop out of his race for re-election and drop his bully lawsuit against his tenants, whose rent already feeds Monroe’s bank account.
During Sunday’s rally, renters passed out information to the church attendees as they were leaving. Many were sympathetic to our cause; likely because many of them are renters also or have kids and grandkids that are struggling to pay the rent. Protesters also sang tenant rights-themed holiday carols, reworded to fit the occasion.
Silent Night
Denied Tenants Rights
All Was Calm, All Was Bright
No Cause Eviction, Mother and Child
Hungry Infant, So Tender and Mild
Now They Sleep on the Streets
Now They Sleep on the Street
Portland Tenants United first paid Monroe a visit at Lynchwood Church of God — a large church in his renter-packed district — back in March of 2017. While this may seem “out of bounds” to some, the Senator prominently advertises his church involvement on his legislative website and in the media and rarely makes himself available to constituents (his legislative office is his home address). Protesters quietly held signs and handed out flyers informing the Senator’s constituents about House Bill 2004, in hopes they would urge him to do the right thing as a senator and as a Christian.
The landlord lobby — major donors to Monroe’s reelection campaign — wasted no time distorting the facts about the peaceful action, twisting it into a fairy tale of bombastic disruption, a version of reality that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Several weak-willed Democratic legislators, eager to give cover to their obstructionist colleague, howled with moral outrage, claiming that we went too far and even attributed the failure of the bill on the protest, despite Monroe’s very public and well known unwillingness to support it predating the protest by months.
But their moral outrage is misplaced. Instead of being outraged by people demanding dignity and housing security, our lawmakers should be outraged that 80 people died on Portland’s streets in 2016.
Instead of being outraged by peaceful protesters, lawmakers should be outraged that an 80 year old woman is being forced to move out of her long time home a week after Christmas due to a no-cause eviction — a tragic eviction that would not have been legal under HB 2004. And because this elderly woman is in Gresham, she doesn’t benefit from Portland’s Relocation Assistance ordinance — thousands of dollars that Portland landlords must pay to tenants for moving expenses when they force their tenants out of their home — a new protection that Monroe tried to smash during the legislative session, and that Monroe’s top campaign donors are still trying to challenge in court.
Senior citizens on small fixed incomes are routinely made homeless through no-cause evictions; Monroe believes these no-cause evictions “can be useful”, and “are justified”.
These stories of vulnerable renters being priced out or forced out of their homes are not rare, and not just a Portland metro area phenomenon: Just one week before their first baby was due to be born, a Eugene woman and her husband were given a no-cause eviction, another tragic outcome of the failure of House Bill 2004. The Oregon Department of Education found that over 22,000 K-12 students statewide experienced homelessness in 2016–17, an almost 20% increase from 2014.
According to Lincoln City shelter director Elizabeth Reyes in a recent issue of the award winning publication Street Roots:
“A vast majority of the people that come into our program have full-time employment. They do not have a drug and alcohol problem. They have simply lost their housing because they were renters.”
Yet Republicans and Democrat lawmakers like Rod Monroe continue to believe that we should do nothing to keep these working families and students in their homes. That is an outrage.
There is no sin in protesting injustice. The original sin lies with justifying $500 rent increases and no-cause evictions, and taking large sums of money from the bad actors in exchange for a promise to kill our best chance at doing anything about it. Lawmakers pointing to our church protest to justify killing the the bill is a slap in the face to all tenants, and callously ignores the lives ruined or ended by our housing crisis. Faulting the lack of justice on those demanding it is a blatant abdication of duty.
Portland Tenants United didn’t protest Monroe’s church simply because it’s an edgy thing to do. Monroe refuses to have an office in his district, and very rarely participates in town halls — or just doesn’t show up when he schedules them. It is simply very difficult for the public to find this public official in public. With unprecedented donations from corporations and the landlord lobby funding his re-election campaign, he clearly sees little value in being accountable to the working class constituents he represents.
The church setting also brings into sharp focus the hypocrisy of a wealthy landlord exploiting the poor while being a “good Christian”.
Do not exploit the poor because they are poor and do not crush the needy in court, for the Lord will take up their case and will exact life for life.
— Proverbs 22:22–23
Senator Monroe is 75 years old and has been in and out of office for 40 years. Instead of further embarrassing the Democrats by taking money usually earmarked for corrupt Republicans, and obstructing progress when a Democratically controlled legislature should be setting an example for what’s possible with progressive change, Monroe should take a hint from those lining up to endorse his strong primary challengers and decide to retire.
The housing crisis in Oregon deserves bold action, not caution, from the Democrats in Salem who run the state. Portland Tenants United was forced to publicly shame Monroe precisely because his colleagues gave him cover, refusing to speak publicly about his obstructionism regarding HB 2004. If legislators in Salem continue to take such a mild-mannered approach to politics, they’ll prove to their constituents that they believe the housing crisis isn’t that big a deal. Instead of deriding the bold actions of fed up renters, Monroe’s Democratic colleagues must take much bolder action to protect them.
To our legislators we say, don’t blame groups like PTU for inaction on housing; look in the mirror. If lawmakers don’t want to be protested there is a simple solution: Do better.
God will never forget the needy; the hope of the afflicted will never perish.
— Psalm 9: 17–18
When we fight, we win.
#TenantPower
