Welcome Dack. It Appened Here, a podcast about landlords doing bullshit and how you can stop them. Today, we're continuing our interview with two tenants in California fighting a massiveviction by landlord Ghules core spaces Enjoy. Yeah, something else I wanted to ask about that I'd heard about was like harassment from the guards and the fact that there suddenly started being security guards after this started. I'm talking. Yeah, either you want to talk about that a bit.
I yeah, I would love to talk about that. So I have lived here for almost three years. We did have security. I want to say it was Saturdays between It was one security guard for all four buildings Saturdays between eleven pm and like three four am, just just one security guard that will walk around just during that time. Since core Spaces has purchased the property, we have two
to four twenty four to seven security guards. I know they're they're really They've made me personally super fucking uncomfortable. I've had them ask me where I live, Like when I'm going around canvassing right trying to get flyers people's doores let them know, like, hey, this is these are the actual facts.
Stuff like that. They've asked me, like where, what building.
Do you live in?
What's your name? Creepy things?
And I'm like, I'm not going to tell you that I have no idea who you are. They walk past our apartment constantly. It's every time I go outside, they're waiting right outside the building. They're taking photos of the things across the buildings, like stuff outside of people's units. It's really uncomfortable, and it's kind of telling because it's like, well,
we never need a security before. Oh, but but once you bought the building and wanted to kick everyone out, Oh, all of a sudden, you're you're you know, you're hiring these random people, which I will also add one of our neighbors talk to one of the security guards. He worked there for a day and was like, yeah, they lowered my pay to like minimum wage.
I'm not going yeah, yeah, he literally don't.
Maybe we should try to like help utilize the yes course baces. You guys are such Mark Lips and Chris Richards. You guys are the cheapest, stummiest him in the England planet.
Right And and he was like, yeah, I'm leaving, like I'm not going to do this.
This is stupid.
But usually when I go out, you know, I mean for the most part, they're usually just sitting on their phone, standing in front of the entrance, locking the doors again, stuff like that.
Kind Yeah, well with yeah, well the standing around part of the cops chop so far hopefully not the other part of the cop jop where they yeah.
Minus any credentials.
Basically not that I want cops here either, but but yeah, it's been in my own personal opinion, it's harassing behavior, you know, and it's in and I've talked to so many tenants here, especially again the more marginalized tenants. I'm not I'm not gonna like specify them, but they're very intimidated by them, and they actually do think they are cops. They don't know that. No, these aren't police officers. They
aren't trying to. They don't have the power to do certain things that you may be afraid of.
Are they like, are they like in like like policy uniforms.
Yeah, yeah, no, they have Yeah, they have security uniforms. They have tasers on them. They they they like to direct their power.
Yeah, probably not similar enough to be able to get them on a person, to get police officer, but it's still really depressing that Yeah, I don't know.
Yeah, but and again, and the strategy is to get to it's to scare the ship out of people say.
Yeah, it's just terror.
Yeah yeah, it's it's uncomfortable.
It's uncomfortable when you go out of your apartment and there's just some random person with a taser just like right next to you, and you're like, uh, I'm just trying to go check my mailbox, Like what the what the hell?
Yeah, yeah, well you guys are safer though, right, So that like that's happened Like if a like like if an evil landlord and their slimy scummy evil law tine were to try to like put you guys under the streets, the security guards would come and defend you against them.
Right.
Oh wait, no, I am I mixed up. Oh they're here to serve the evil people trying to put you on the streets. Oh that's minimum minimum.
Yeah.
I mean that's the sad thing too, is that that the security guards are probably going to get renevicted by like the Homeboys of the Core Spaces executives at some point, right, Like yeah, uh, they're they're going to get renovicted. Somebody is going to look at their wherever they're living as a as a low performing asset that needs to be retenanted and ship. Yeah, so yeah, I don't. So that's fun, that's cool.
I don't I don't blame I know, I understand the job.
I don't blame them.
I guess as individuals, well, some of them, I do, because they're clearly on power trips.
They like to enforce their power.
But I do understand that they are being hired outside to do a job. But it's it's really not fun. I couldn't imagine ever, Yeah, doing that myself, I wouldn't feel right.
But I don't know.
You know, everyone, we're all suffering, right like the you know, we're all trying to survive.
So I try not to judge too much, but I can't help it. When you know they're taking photos.
Inside the windows of my apartment, it's sucking creepy, like.
Yeah, pretty creepy.
Yeah, I guess. Okay, is there anything else that I teach you to if.
You want to talk about Let's see, we got the beginning, so we got the law passed, and then we got.
The slimy.
Time. Taylor Fox Howard LP Garbage Law Firm came along. Well, okay, so one one thing that's been a struggle, and I would say, like Sam and a couple others have been it's just nuts to me, like how much stamina. Well no, actually, let me say this, like, uh so I am. I'm a mental professional, which I don't like to say in organizing spaces a lot because I don't like to mix up the role too much. But like, straight up, everybody I talk to in these situations, like in the role
of like tenant organizer, not not like therapists. It's just everything reeks of PTSD symptoms, Like straight up like people can't sleep, people are hyper vigilant. They're going out to their car and they're looking around to see if there's a security guard. They're in constant fear, they're confused there, you know, their their startle responses up, which is which
is hyper vigulous. I mean there's literally can pick up a fucking ds M five and look at the definition of PTSD, and I would say, uh, I can't say everyone. I haven't talked to everyone in the building, but I mean this process creates fucking PTSD. Like I'm not exaggerating, I'm not making this up. And also because the mental health fields, as a side note, is such a like neoliberal, individualistic, fucking trash fire. It's hard to actually look at this correctly to say like this is this is like a
mass like trauma of it. But despite the mass trauma that everybody experiences with this, the resilience in it of being like Okay, we're still going to go out and we're going to fly her and we're going to knock on doors and so like, there's been this phase, like a two part kind of phase, which has been continuing to talk to the county supervisors to try to get them to pass a stronger law because there's kind of this race now where if and when course Spaces gets permits,
then they can send out like actually proper notices, although maybe there'll be problems of the notices and that can be addressed or whatever, but like it is, it is kind of just buying time, right if they if they get permits and then they try to evict everybody, then then then there's the actual sixty day uh like countdown,
I guess, depending depending on a lot of different factors. Right, But so the county one of the supervisors said, you know, I want to I want to make like the most gruesome speed bump to you know, to speed bump is eviction for core spaces. And so what they did is it is a big speed bump, but it actually doesn't like solve the problem. Would solve the problem is either a no fault of diction moratorium, which would be like really broad. We're not sure how how what the chances
are getting them to pass that. But another thing would be it's usually called right to return, but we're calling it right to re rent because right to return, I guess is a thing that like I don't know, I
don't know, like Ziona Day or something, I don't know. Yeah, it's a whole right right, right, So so, but right to re rent, which is like a thing that is in several other other cities and counties, which just means like if the landlord legitimately needs to make renovations because of like safety and inhabitability concerns or whatever, they have to relok relocate the tenant temporarily, and then they have to re rent to the tenant for what we were
asking is the same rent. We also think that like using the using the ten percent a year framework would be fine, like relocate them and then raise it by ten percent if you didn't already once that year, right, just just treat it as a normal thing. Like so if we get them to pass that law, then they can divict anybody.
Right.
So on the one hand, we're like really trying to get the supervisor studious and it's just sort of it's just unknown, like how likely we are on that in this moment. But then simultaneously we need to continue kind of like educating the tenants on like on their rights because they keep like as of today, management started illegally in a racist way, targeting Spanish speaking Latino tenants telling them that that they have to pick up their checks
right now. And Sam, you can correct it from but it's like you have to pick up your checks by today, I don't know, like next week or something. It's like really soon or otherwise, like you don't get your relocation money and then you're going to get intoviction lawsuit and course spaces already as permits. Just making up all the like all these things are lies. None of them they're true.
I was just gonna say I'm white, so I actually didn't get that notice. But you are correct that Latina families take get that.
Yeah, yeah, because course spaces are racist and John Tyne is a racist and Lacy Taylor's a racist, and they're fucking evil pieces of shit. And I'm glad they're listening to this and they quote me as many fucking times
as they want in any context. But so having to like try to counter those all that disinformation, all those lies is like this constant, like parallel process, like trying to get the county to do stuff, but trying to get people to like understand, like, no, they're lying to you, right, Like while they're in this like chronic state of kind of like PTSD, they're like where am I going to go?
What am I going to do? What's happening? And it's hard for them to know who to trust because they're being pummeled with with disinformation and rise from people with a lot of power over them. I don't know if you had anything else. Sorry, I kind of went off there.
No, you're you're fine, It's yeah, that's that's kind of the way I see it as well. I guess what I would add is if the county doesn't do something, this is.
Going to be.
Horrible for the entire county of Santa Barbara, but just California in general. I mean, you have to think of two one hundred and forty plus units, fifty whatever.
We don't even know how many units.
There's so many units here, it's like it's insane.
This is going to be so bad. Where are these people going to go?
If Santa Barbara has a from what I've heard, a one to two percent vacancy rate, these these these people have, including me as a person living here, have nowhere to go. I'm I will be entirely forced out of the county. Me and my partner, who holds a job here. He works as such a livery driver. He likes his job. It doesn't pay great, doesn't have good benefits, but he enjoys it and he's an important part of the community.
And if all of these human beings are forced out of here, what is that going to do to Santa Barbara? You know who's going to who are going to be, the teachers, the healthcare professionals, the everything. I will say in addition to that, this is why we formed Core Spaces Tenants Association with the help of SBTU, so that we can not only stay together and work together as a union to fight this, but also what core spaces will likely do in the future. So we actually learned
from the Santa Barbara Independent. They interviewed one of the I think it was one of the Course Basis representatives.
Who said this was they have done this forty six.
Times and this is the first time they ever got this level of community outreach, which I was like, excuse me, what what we know that their executives are They've previously worked for Goldman, Sachs and Blackstone, and to find out they've done this forty at least forty six other times and just gotten away with it. Now we're we're not
going to keep letting that happen. And so whatever happens here at CBC in the sweeps are four buildings, however it turns out, and hopefully it turns out in our favor, We're not going to stop.
Because they are further.
They're just going to keep continuing this and it's we it's disgusting. We can't keep letting this shit happen. Like someone needs to stop it. It needs to be stopped. And if I hope that we can get legislation to stop it, but if not, we're going to be a fighting force and we're not yeah, we're not stopping hell yeah.
Oh and then I guess like, yeah, I don't think you really said this, but like if any other tenants that are you know, course Space as tenants wanted to join Sam and her neighbors, right, Like that's that was like you're saying Sam, Like the point was to create something like they could have They could have named it as more of a local thing like there their tendant Association,
but they chose Course Spaces as the company name. Right, So like, and if you're in Arizona, if you're in Tennessee, if you're in Seattle, Seattle or whatever, and you are people getting renevicted by these people or or I don't know, you're just students like renting by the bed, I won't fix stuff or whatever, like you can join the course basis then association this very well could be like a
national level organization. Like right now it's local, but it's been set up to be something that could be potentially national or international. Of course Bass wants to go you know, Capital and those no boarders, so they want to go fuck people up in other countries. Then you know, we can pay more interpreters. I guess.
Yeah, And I guess that's the thing I wanted to close on is like, you know, tenants unions are not composed of like some kind of like like special group of people, right. They're just people, right, Like I did it back when I was doing stuff right, and like it's just it's just composed of random people. And like that random person could very easily be you. And you know, yeah, you're saying, like someone has to stop these people, and if it's not going to be that, it's not going
to be you. The tenants fighting them like no one, no one is ever going to and they're just to keep running people over forever.
And politicians just aren't going to do this. I mean acted really quickly because of the like show of force from right, so they get like a cover from the constituency. We're like, oh, we're allowed to do this, Like we can do this, and or we're terrified of what will happen, like will this be like another police station burnt down if we pissed them off or something? Right, Like you actually have to sort of like make the politicians afraid of you. I mean you want to be their friends
and stuff too. I'm not very good at that I'm good at like scaring them, I guess, but like you have to like kind of scare them into acting. You have to like discipline the politicians in acting. So anybody that's like we just see more policies, it's like policies don't just happen.
Like yeah, like the like the Center burd people, It's like, yeah, they acted quickly when they were forced to, but you know, they could have literally at any time in the entire history of Santa Barbara, they could have just passed this, and they didn't until until you came for.
Them, right exactly.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And I think you're right about like the Tennis Association, the Tennis Association being just we're random tenants. I'm not some politician, I'm not some leader. I'm a student, you know. I usually just spend my nights making dinner with my cats, watching Jeopardy, Like I don't do this. But the point being is when you come together as
a group, you have power in numbers. And although I have faith that we will win against core Spaces for our complex, even if we don't, we've left a huge mark and we've helped so many residents of Santa Barbara County.
For maybe.
Landlords that we're planning to change the stove out and not get permits, Well now they have to find a reason to get a permit.
We've at least done that.
But I think there's a lot more that we will do and can do, especially against core spaces and their future endeavors their properties they decide that they want to overpay.
For yeah, I will throw out. Like one other resource that is like a group that's called the Autonomous Tenants Union Network, which is a network that SB two is a part of. Just if you are if you're in attendance union or you're interested in tenant organizing from anything you've heard, they are there. It's it's like a network.
Like the word autonomous again is like it's people who are sort of independent of various like you know, like nonprofits, foundations and governments to just be sort of responsive just
to tenants themselves. So I'm not like a representative of the group or au tuned, but it's a really strong network of really experienced organizers that are really intent on these kinds of things, right like forming like there's a crisis former tenant association, like organize your whole block, like get the politician to do a thing, go on rent strike like whatever. Right, this more sort of militant, like we desperate requires us to you know, to meet the
crisis where it's at and act that way. Right. So, and there's other resources and I'm sure you can have like you know, show notes and stuff, or you can have links.
But yeah, other places specifically people can go if they want to help the struggle specifically.
Yeah, so for core spaces Tenet Association, the social media handle is all core spaces t A. That would be for Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and TikTok. We have a go fundme going as well, just to pay for things like you know, food for events or i don't know, printing paper, flyering stuff like that. We also have an email that anyone can reach us at at core spacesta at gmail dot.
Com and we will we will put all of that in the show notes. Sounds good. Thank you to so much for coming on, and yeah, go beat these sons of bitches, letting us swear.
We're definitely making their lives a lot harder than.
They expected, which is kind of cool.
But yeah, yes.
Let's been naked up in here, and yeah, you too can go make your landlords days worse and your day's better.
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