大象传媒

Erica Jackson grows palm, pothos, and aloe plants at the entrance to her South Central Los Angeles apartment to create a 鈥渟afe haven鈥� in a neighborhood marked by addiction, poverty, and violence. The 33-year-old dreams of one day owning her own house, in a neighborhood like Leimert Park, where she grew up and where it鈥檚 safe for her children to play outside. But for now, she鈥檚 working to overcome the challenges of poverty and mental health, while building a home for her 11-year-old son, her husband, and their dog. Jackson was served with an eviction notice in July 2022鈥攑art of a growing  as pandemic-era renters鈥� protections have ended. 

Unwilling to give up and accept the eviction, Jackson soon sought out support from other tenants like her, and within just a few weeks, she organized meetings in her garden to support fellow tenants facing eviction. She and others are banding together, using creative means to fight for their right to housing. 

First, a Housing Crisis; Then, the Pandemic

The pandemic exposed the long-standing failures of the housing market. After tens of millions lost their jobs and were unable to afford rent, the federal government  by adopting housing organizers鈥� demands for financial aid and increased  for tenants. Activists say that while these responses were inadequate in dealing with the scale of the problem, they demonstrated the power of collective action in bringing about meaningful change. 

Many pandemic-era protections, like the eviction moratorium, have since been struck down or have been allowed to expire, but community organizing in cities like L.A. has only intensified.

Today, Jackson is a member of the  (LATU); she displays a poster in her garden for the organization that reads, 鈥淭his tenant is safe and cannot be evicted.鈥� 

鈥淧eople like me were already fighting individually,鈥� says Jackson. 鈥淏ut now I fight with a union of people.鈥�

LATU employs tactics such as eviction blockades, mutual aid, and courtroom packing to fight evictions鈥攁ll part of a long local history of collective action to fight gentrification in the face of rising property values and luxury development. The organization has secured historic wins, such as pressuring the LA City Council to vote to from a developer who was tripling rents after the properties affordable housing covenant expired. It also helped elect longtime LATU organizer  to the position of city controller in the November midterm election.

The scale of the rental crisis and the resulting social costs are difficult to fathom. Even before the pandemic, one study found that had to pay over 30% of their income on rent, forcing them to cut back on other essentials such as food, clothing and transportation. Since then, nationwide, the average rent has increased . High rents are increasing  and are a .

Further, researchers have linked evictions to increased rates of , , and mortality. One  found there were 10,700 additional deaths nationwide after eviction moratoriums were lifted during the pandemic. 鈥淲e are learning that eviction is a cause, not just a condition, of poverty,鈥� sociologist Michael Desmond  Harvard Magazine.

Deep-pocketed private equity firms are increasingly speculating on housing stock, which in turn has incentivized landlords to push out low-income tenants.  of households nationwide could face eviction as local, state, and federal protections implemented during the pandemic expire. 

And, despite statewide rent control protections,  California had a higher than national average rate of households facing eviction according to data. Low-income renters have few options if they are evicted. 

Additionally, renters like Jackson face  for receiving Section 8 subsidized housing vouchers. Nationwide,  voucher recipients is protected from landlords rejecting their housing applications based on their source of income. 

Tenants Refuse to Return to 鈥淣ormal鈥�

By summer 2022, L.A. County evictions had surpassed pre-pandemic levels, says Kyle Nelson, a postdoctoral fellow at the . In 2013, Nelson began compiling eviction statistics in LA after he discovered no local agency does so, as is common in other jurisdictions.

Marques Vestal, an assistant professor of urban planning and Critical Black Urbanism at UCLA, and a member of LATU, says the impact of the crisis depends on whether the public accepts 鈥済oing back to normal,鈥� or whether mass movements can successfully demand that housing should be a fundamental right. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 what鈥檚 going to give a future political movement of tenants that鈥檚 happening in the country right now longevity,鈥� Vestal says.

Meanwhile, Jackson aspires to one day be able to return to the neighborhood where she was born, which is only a dozen miles from where she currently lives, but where her family was priced out amid rapid gentrification. 

鈥淚t would be a beautiful experience and a joy to not only live in the Leimert/Crenshaw district, but to be able to afford and qualify to purchase a home, and raise my children and family in the neighborhood that nurtured me in my childhood,鈥� says Jackson.

Across town, other activists have a solution they think could make that possible one day.

Long-Term Solutions: Beyond Rent Control and Eviction Bans

Even as activists fight evictions and demand better housing conditions, they recognize that a long-term solution to evictions and insecure lodgings is to create housing stock that is owned by communities and not controlled for profit.

This is especially a challenge for people of color, who have historically been targeted by exploitative housing policies and systematically denied opportunities for homeownership and wealth creation tied to white-dominated real estate. Today, Black and Latino households have as little as  as their white counterparts. Unable to afford rising rents and housing prices, they are often priced out of the neighborhoods they have long called home. 

Crenshaw, considered an African American cultural mecca, is the site of a Black-led approach to resisting gentrification and displacement through collective ownership of land.

鈥淏lack is the only race that鈥檚 anticipated to see a decline in population in L.A. in every decade into the foreseeable future,鈥� says Damien Goodmon, an L.A.-based activist and board member with the group . He adds, 鈥淏lack is the group that鈥檚 most disproportionately represented in the unhoused population.鈥� L.A. County is home to over  homeless people, according to a recent survey. 

Downtown Crenshaw was inspired by the success of community land trusts, a model that keeps ownership of land and housing in the hands of the community, who can choose to keep it permanently affordable while providing tenants a pathway to wealth building. 

The biggest limitation to collective ownership is raising the funds needed to purchase land. When the historic , which sits on 40 acres of land at the intersection of Crenshaw Boulevard and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, went up for sale, Downtown Crenshaw submitted the top bid, raising over $100 million. But in August 2021, the owner inexplicably , and Downtown Crenshaw鈥檚 attempts to have the decision overturned in court have so far fallen short.

Despite the setback, the group is continuing with its vision, and since May 2021 has purchased ten parcels of land, which will be developed into residential and commercial space that鈥檚 affordable for longtime residents and businesses.

鈥淥ur goal is to build what will be the largest community land trust in America,鈥� says Goodmon. He explains that in order to 鈥渟top the displacement crisis, we have to take as much land off of the speculative real estate market, so that people in Black communities can be free from displacement, [and] communities and commercial spaces can be free to grow and thrive.鈥�

鈥淲e are so very intentional about saying this is not about closing the Black-white wealth gap by making some Black people rich; this is about lifting up an entire community,鈥� says Goodmon.

Paul Yelder, who was once the executive director of Boston鈥檚 storied Dudley Neighbors Incorporated (DNI), understands what Goodmon means. DNI was a community land trust established by the . Yelder, who currently calls the Crenshaw District of L.A. his home, says, 鈥淭he goal of this community land trust is really to acquire and preserve some of the affordability.鈥� 

Yelder says Downtown Crenshaw is adopting innovative solutions to the challenge of collective ownership, including 鈥渢aking one single-family house and turning it into three and sometimes four units that can then spread that cost,鈥� Yelder says.

The organization is acquiring inspiration from how other countries have largely eliminated housing insecurity through rent control and publicly controlled housing, even when local governments refuse to do so, says Dwayne Wyatt, a retired L.A. city planner and Downtown Crenshaw board member. 

鈥淸Policymakers] refuse to look around the world and see how other countries have addressed this,鈥� he says. 鈥淵ou go to Scandinavian countries. They don鈥檛 have people living in the street. 鈥� They have housing policies that see housing as a human right, not just a function of the market.鈥�

This story is part of Building the Block, an original 大象传媒 series supported by a grant from the , which encourages the development of burgeoning alternative economies and fresh social contracts in ways that can help artists and cultural communities achieve financial freedom. Reporting and production of this story was funded by this grant, but 大象传媒 maintains full editorial control of the content published herein. Read our editorial independence policy.

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Jaisal Noor is an independent journalist and educator based in Baltimore. His work has appeared in outlets such as The Real News Network, Democracy Now, The Atlantic, Bolts Magazine, The Progressive, and the Baltimore Beat. He's Democracy Cohort Manager at Solutions Journalism Network. Connect:

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