February Newsletter 2019
Leslie the Greedy Slumlord, Albany Park Town Hall on Housing & Displacement, Introducing Our Tactics Zine, and Helping Margarita and Her Family!
In mid-December, ATU and supporters held a march in the neighborhood of landlord Leslie Nguyen, demanding she drop her threats of eviction against the Garcia family.
In April of last year, the Garcias asked for the heat be turned on when temperatures dipped into the 40s (which is legally required by the RLTO). Leslie proceeded to try to evict the family. Rather than simply meet with the Garcias, Leslie spent thousands of dollars in court to force them from their home. We let her neighbors know about her senselessly cruel behavior towards tenants advocating for their own safety.
Just before Christmas, we returned for a round of Anti-Eviction Caroling, using the occasion to spread the bad news about Leslie’s greedy and unjust practices. We sang such hits as “Leslie the Greedy Slumlord” and “We Wish You Won’t Evict Us,” among others — watch here.
After negotiations broke down and their landlord refused to budge, the Garcia family prepared to go in front of a jury to defend their place in their home. Tenants and supporters gathered outside Daley Center for a press conference ahead of the Garcia’s pretrial hearing. Shortly after, the judge on their case pressured the landlord to come to a settlement and the Garcias won extra time to move and the eviction was dropped. When we fight, we win!
Albany Park Town Hall on Housing & Displacement
On February 9, ATU hosted a town hall with aldermanic candidates from the three wards that encompass Albany Park. Candidates from the 33rd, 35th and 39th wards answered questions about how they would intervene in the gentrification and displacement of immigrants and working class people in the neighborhood. About a hundred people came out to the event, which was cosponsored by Organized Communities Against Deportation and Albany Park Defense Network and moderated by Streetsblog Chicago writer Lynda Lopez. In the 33rd Ward, an estimated 5,000 Latinx residents have left since incumbent Ald. Deb Mell took office in 2013. We’ve written about Mell’s role in collaborating with the major architects of gentrification in the ward, like Ron Abrams of Silver Property Group, in exchange for more than $150,000 of campaign contributions. Check out our roundup of candidates’ responses to key questions here.
ATU knows that real power comes from an organized working class, and that we cannot rely on elected officials to win that for us. However, we hope that our efforts to cut through the tenant-friendly facade of aldermanic candidates’ campaigns to expose their material allegiances will help hold them accountable and change the neighborhood for the better.
#DumpDeb #FueraMell
Introducing Our Tactics Zine
ATU is happy to release our new zine on tactics for fighting landlords and building tenant power! By necessity, ATU’s work often centers around talking to tenants about their “rights” as given to them by the legal system. In our organizing, these rights are referred to as the shield. A shield can protect you, but it cannot win a fight for you. Your rights often can only protect you if you have access to a lawyer, and can fail you on a judge’s whim. You need something more — you need the sword. We offer this zine in hopes the tools within will help folx go on the offensive and fight back against their landlords. Because even when the law and the courts serve the landlord class, the power of tenants united will prevail!
Web & print versions in English and Spanish here.
Help Margarita and Her Family
Albany Park Defense Network member and longtime neighborhood resident Margarita is asking for help after her husband, their family’s sole source of income, was deported in mid-December.
From Margarita:
“I have lived since December on our few savings, but rent and other bills don’t wait. The financial costs are on top of our emotional distress — our daughter is very depressed and I fear that this affects her grades. I have a job just one day cleaning a house and this income does not cover what I have to pay in the next few weeks.
For this I ask for help through this platform to cover the immediate expenses. Your help will be very valuable and appreciated. Thank you very much in advance.”
Please donate here!
The Autonomous Tenants Union (ATU) is an all-volunteer organization committed to organizing for housing justice from below and to the left. As an independent collective based in Chicago, we strategize together to defend and enforce our right to dignified housing. We believe that housing is a human right not a commodity! We fight for an end to all of evictions, and for community control of housing through the building of popular power.
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Donate to ATU here.
