To join any session by phone:
Dial 1 (669) 900-6833, then enter the meeting ID, then press #, then press # again.
The meeting ID for the whole assembly is 918-906-317 – except for the sessions on Saturday from 2-4, which have different meeting IDs (see Complete Program or Quick Schedule).
10:30 - 11:00
Welcome Session
Zoom Link →
Meeting ID: 918-906-317
Passcode: 8585
A moment of silence for all those we lost.
Orientation to the weekend’s events.
–
11:00 - 1:00
Tenant Inquiry: Naming The Moment Together
Zoom Link →
Meeting ID: 918-906-317
Passcode: 8585
Over the last few months, tenants from across our union have taken part in a Tenant Inquiry process, in the popular education tradition elaborated by the radical educator Paolo Freire. A team of 18 interviewers from 11 different locals conducted 30 personal interviews with LATU members from across the city, in Spanish and English, with a particular focus on working class, poor, and undocumented members of the union. These interviews invited both interviewers and interviewees to reflect on their experiences as tenants and within the tenant power movement. Our team of interviewers and interviewees then spent weeks collectively investigating the themes in these interviews, taking special note of the contradictions that emerged. The interviews were generous and profound, and we learned a great deal.
In the first hour of this session we’ll listen to some audio excerpts representing the contradictions we found among our experiences and discuss them together as a union. In the second hour, we’ll generate a list of our priorities as tenants building power in the coming year.
–
1:00 - 2:00
Break
Zoom room will stay open for live music, videos, and fellowship.
–
2:00 - 3:50
From Contradiction to Strategy: Discussion Circles
Choose one of these four sessions
➊ For new LATU members
Zoom Link →
Meeting ID: 832-1298-1916
Passcode: 8585
Founded in 2015 by tenants from across the city, the L.A. Tenants Union fights social cleansing (i.e. gentrification) and defends working class and poor communities. We have organized local chapters in fourteen neighborhoods, organized dozens of tenant associations, and supported new tenant unions across North America. This discussion circle is for new or new-ish members of the union, first-time visitors, and those that want more grounding in the history of our union. We will reflect on the values and goals of LATU, how the union works, and how new members can get involved, where every tenant is a potential solidarity organizer, know-your-rights educator, and leader.
What do you see as the causes of the crisis in housing access and affordability?
What do you think are solutions to stopping social cleansing and defending our communities?
What role can you have in L.A. Tenants Union as a dues-paying member?
➋ Violence and Tenant Organized Defense: When knowing our rights isn’t enough
Zoom Link →
Meeting ID: 863-7417-1149
Passcode: 8585
Current state and local COVID-19 measures mean we have more legal protections against eviction and landlord harassment than ever before. But our experience shows us that our “rights” as defined by politicians and the courts rarely match our conditions on the ground. Evictions are violent, even deadly, whether they’re “legal” or “illegal,” and they’re happening every day, all across Los Angeles. Often tenants living with “master tenants,” “mom and pop” landlords or in “transitional housing” face the most direct, intimate forms of violence. How are we experiencing this violence? What strategies are emerging in our communities and our locals to fight back?
Have you faced harassment or violence from your landlord or the person you pay rent to? How did you respond? What other types of violence do we face as tenants?
What are our experiences with the police and with ICE? How do we relate to these institutions as a movement?
What are some ways we’ve showed up as a movement to defend each other against harassment and violence? What makes a successful defense? What doesn’t work?
What steps can we take now to prepare our neighbors to show up for each other?
➌ Survival Pending Revolution: from Casework to Tenant Power
Zoom Link →
Meeting ID: 820-5728-0127
Passcode: 8585
The scale of tenant emergency means there is another leaking roof, another harassing landlord, another cash-for-keys scam every minute of the day. Abandoned by politicians and the agencies supposed to protect them, tenants seek out LATU for support. We know that teaching each other our rights as tenants is an important tool for defending our communities from displacement—a practice of “survival pending revolution,” as the Black Panthers wrote. At the same time, we know that tenants have power when we organize and fight back, that the best defense tenants have for keeping our homes is not a lawyer but a tenants association, not a caseworker but a movement. How can we change our structures so that tenants in crisis come to see themselves as collaborators in building our movement, rather than as clients to whom LATU provides services? How do we go from talking about the rights we have to building power to demand more? How have we gone through this transition ourselves?
Why do we do casework? Should we call it something else? What’s the difference between mutual aid and service work?
The laws governing tenants rights are complicated and overwhelming. How can we help each other navigate the legal system, while using the law as a basis for strategy, instead of an end in itself? How do we help each other take risks?
Why do some tenant members and tenants associations stay with the union after their demands are met? Why do others leave? How do we promote the idea of the union as a long-term vision for liberation rather than a means to an immediate end?
How do we use casework to build tenant power? To build leadership?
➍ Solidifying LATU’s Theory of Change: Autonomy, Participation, Politics
Zoom Link →
Meeting ID: 830-1512-8058
Passcode: 8585
This year, many of our locals saw the difficulty of pursuing multiple political strategies at the same time. A strain on our capacity has demonstrated a practical need to decide what we should prioritize, and moments where we lost our footing have revealed a political need for focus: a theory of change. Presentations from our members about their experiences with different forms of political activity will ground and advance a conversation about where LATU stands.
What processes for participation / influence does the city make available to tenants? Are they available to the most vulnerable and most exploited tenants? Do they work?
How are advocacy and activism different from organizing?
Why do we want to build 100 local LATU chapters? What could we do if we had them?
–
3:50 - 4:00
Closing Session
Zoom Link →
Meeting ID: 918-906-317
Passcode: 8585