Episode Transcript
Move To Tacoma – Tenants Rights
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Producer Doug Mackey: [00:00:00] This is
Francis Faye Oak (2): Channel 2 5 3, move to
Producer Doug Mackey: Tacoma. On this episode of Move to Tacoma,
Francis Faye Oak (2): we democratically voted in the landlord fairness code. Right? Right. And now it is Undemocratically being gutted two days. After the two year mark, they’ve not waited a single minute to get their hands in there and gut these protections that we democratically voted to implement in this city.
Producer Doug Mackey: Channel 2 5 3 is member supported. I’m producer Doug Mackey, and I hope you’ll show your support by going to channel two five three.com/membership. And join. Thank you. We are back. Move to Tacoma. Move to Tacoma. Move to Tacoma. You’ll like
Marguerite Martin: it.
Producer Doug Mackey: Move to Tacoma. Move to Tacoma. Move to tacoma.com.
I’m Marguerite with Move to Tacoma, and I’m here today with two guests to talk about tenants rights and the tenants union in [00:01:00] Tacoma today.
Would you guys like to introduce yourselves?
Francis Faye Oak: Sure. My name is Francis Fay. My name is Devin Rydel Kelly. Yeah.
Awesome. And thank you for being willing to come and talk about this. I think the tenants union is something that’s really new in Tacoma, and I think a lot of people are like, wait, what is that? How does any of this work?
And so I’m really excited to get it straight from you all and learn about it. So thanks for coming.
Francis Faye Oak (2): Absolutely. Thanks for having us. I’m excited to share with you all. Yeah. Thanks so much.
Before we get into it, I’d love to know from each of you when you moved to Tacoma and why.
Francis Faye Oak: Uh, yeah. So I moved to Tacoma in 2014.
Uh, I fell in love with someone who, uh, was born and raised here. I was living in Seattle at the time, like many people had come to Tacoma, but I moved here for love. Um, and, you know, we were discussing what to do with their future and I have now adult stepchildren, but they were, um. 13 and 11 at the time, and it made sense for me to move here.
Mm. Um, I live on Hilltop. I [00:02:00] love Hilltop. I never ever wanna leave. Uh, I moved almost every year of my life as a child, and that’s really what, uh, partially informed my really deep commitment to housing justice. Mm. And I feel deeply rooted in Hilltop and, and I love how integrated it is. I love how gritty it is.
I love how accessible transit is. I love that there’s a Safeway a block from my house, even though a lot of other people don’t love it. And, uh, I never wanna leave.
What kind of house do you have like a one of those cute old craftsmen that they have in Hilltop or
Francis Faye Oak: Yeah, yeah, we do. It’s a kit house. Um, like pre craftsman technically, but like, it matches kind of the houses right north and south of ours.
But yeah, it’s got a lot of flare. ’cause my partner Holly, is a, I’ve, I’ve been told not to use the term master gardener because it’s in the technical term, but she’s a really, really amazing gardener.
Oh, wonderful. Yeah. That’s a handy person to have around the house.
Francis Faye Oak: Totally.
How about you, Francis Tech?
Francis Faye Oak: Yeah, I’ve actually been in Tacoma since 2014 as well.
Oh, I think we just found that out. We’ve been Tacoma for the same amount of time. I moved here in 2014 at the time with my. [00:03:00] Partner and then less than 1-year-old daughter. She’s now 12 and a sixth grader. And we live with our two cats in an apartment in Stadium District.
Marguerite Martin: Wonderful. And
Francis Faye Oak: um, we’ve only lived there about a year.
I have. Been wanting to live in Stadium District since I moved to Tacoma. Mm-hmm. Um, mostly just ’cause of like the historic feel of it. Yes. The proximity to being able to walk to both Hilltop and downtown mm-hmm. And all that, those spaces have to offer. Um, and also it, it’s kind of historically been like kind of the, a bohemian, artsy kind of space in Tacoma and that that fits my personality pretty well.
So, but I’ve lived in. Many neighborhoods of Tacoma in the 12 years that I’ve been here.
Yeah. Yeah. Do is stadium your favorite or do you have like a top three? Uh,
Francis Faye Oak: I’ve lived in Stadium. That’s my top. I’ve lived in Hilltop. That’s pretty great too. Mm-hmm. Um, so yeah, I’ve lived in fur Crest. That was my least favorite.
Really? Yeah. Okay. That’s a hot [00:04:00] take.
Francis Faye Oak: That’s a whole nother conversation. I’m sure
we, we can save that one. Well, that’s great. Thank you. Thank you both for coming and. I’m not even sure exactly where to start, but I feel like the most basic question is like, what is, what is the organization you’re from Devin because you actually are part of an organization that focuses on tenants rights.
Is that correct? Yep. And is that, is that Te Tacoma for all
Francis Faye Oak: It is? Yes. Okay. So
I’m I, I have a hard time kinda keeping all the different initiatives straight. Okay. Yeah. So you’re with Tacoma for All and what is Tacoma for All?
Francis Faye Oak: Tacoma for All is a housing justice organization, um, that emerged in 2022 in response to really outrageous rent hikes, displacement, um, seeing community just being impacted really profoundly by the ongoing housing crisis.
Uh, we tried to intervene in the city’s, uh, home in Tacoma rezone process. Mm. Um, and say if we do a rezone, we wanted to include a lot of things like mandatory affordability, tenant rights, um, and all sorts of other just common sense protections. Uh, unfortunately the city didn’t [00:05:00] listen to any of our requests and that what pushed us to, uh, uh, MOVE initiative one that the Landlord Fairness Code and Tenant Bill of Rights in 2023.
Mm-hmm. We ran a citizens initiative. We got thousands of signatures and we ended up. Earning Tacoma, winning Tacoma, the boldest tenant protections in the state, which has since been emulated historic. Very historic. Yeah. Yeah. And we’re in a big fight right now with some members of our city council and a landlord lobby that are trying really hard to roll it back.
Um, and that’s partially what’s actually informed our understanding of wanting to build majority tenant unions here in Tacoma. This realization that we need a base of power where people live, right? And we really need to have tenants feel empowered. Um. In their relationships with their landlords, which we can talk about more, uh, later.
But, um, we’ve been doing tenant organizing work of one form or another for about three years, three and a half years. And the tenant union movement work is really, uh, brand new to everyone in the community, and we’re just very excited about it.
Okay, so from the outside in, um. I have really [00:06:00] wondered about how the organizing has come about.
Like the way that you said like, you know, we tried to go through the process with the city. They were already doing home in Tacoma and we weren’t getting anywhere, so we kind of did our own thing and had this big win. And I know it didn’t just happen. You guys worked really, you all worked really hard right on the ground and from the outside looking in, it looked like a whole bunch of regular people, like.
Kind of snowballing into this. Like it, you don’t have huge funding from outside. This isn’t like an extra turfed situation. Right. George, George Soros isn’t cutting your checks. Right? Like, how, how, who, who are you and who do you find coming together and like at what point is it enough? I think this has implications.
Sorry, I keep tapping Doug’s mic. This has implications for things outside of tenant organizing. Obviously like unions and people, power is kind of the future, right? So yeah. How did you do this? Like.
Francis Faye Oak: Well, you know, without
some big leader telling you what to do.
Francis Faye Oak: Yeah. Well, I think that no one knows, um, their experience better than regular, everyday folks that are going through a [00:07:00] crisis or going through a struggle.
And when you create a framework where they can create change together, work together, uh, they feel really empowered and want to. Want to put their energy and time into it. And so we just led with bold vision and strategic organizing. Um, and really it started with just a few folks, you know, like people like the three of us here.
Um, and ultimately built out, uh, an organizing apparatus with, you know, well over a hundred volunteers during the initial initiative. Uh, really, um. Meeting people where they’re at in terms of their lived experience at home with their landlords in community, knowing that everyone struggles that for a landlord, uh, a house or an apartment as an asset.
Mm-hmm. Um, and for a tenant, it’s where they live. It’s where they make their lives. It’s where they make their communities. And knowing that, um, you know, people could be moved from anxiety and fear to a, a sense of power and change. Um, and we combined, I think a, a really kind of. Uh, effective grassroots organizing strategy with just common sense, uh, demands for change, [00:08:00] um, and a belief that people can do that together.
And that’s really what, what made us win. Um, and since then, I think we’ve been really flexing and building and, and really developing power for tenants and their allies. I think that’s demonstrated. Last week, uh, when the city council did first reading on council member Sarah Rumbas attempts to roll back our protections.
Mm-hmm. We turned out over 200 people. We had three overflow rooms and chambers and folks sitting out in the lobby. And it wasn’t just tenants, it wasn’t just activists, it was working class folks and community members of all backgrounds. Mm-hmm. That know we want a safe, stable, thriving community and, and now have a sense of their own power to achieve that.
And just on an organizing level, like I, and this is not necessarily, you know, like collaboration is not my strength. I’m kind of a lone wolf and I’m, I’m still learning how to be like in community. Like it’s complicated, right? Like they say something like, the price of community is annoyance or the price of community is discomfort or something.
Mm-hmm. Right? Mm-hmm. Like getting people that feel differently about all kinds of different things together around a common purpose. [00:09:00] You, you said it like, oh yeah, and then we had a hundred volunteers and I’m just thinking like, and how are you communicating with a hundred people? How were a hundred people getting along and moving in the same direction?
Nobody’s getting paid. Like how do you do that? Like just from a, like
Francis Fay: how, how does that work? Well, I think, I think there’s some organizational infrastructure questions there, but I think the more basic thing is when you find the common things that unite people around their material interests and you have a willingness to go talk to.
All of them, um, and bring them in based on what matters to them, and have them realize and understand that’s what matters to other people too. That’s where true community power lies. Mm. And it’s very organizing like that is very different than what people traditionally call activism.
Yeah. So what’s the difference?
Because actually I think that is my que you got to my real question. Yeah. What is the difference? This is a core
Francis Faye Oak: thing. Activism is showing up, being loud, having a strong opinion, and trying to persuade. People with power to do something different. Organizing is the hard work of going and finding people, listening to ’em about their issues, [00:10:00] um, moving them from having fear or apathy about those issues to a belief that they have agency and then creating that agency and the change together.
And I think that’s the work we’ve been doing, and that’s what tenant unions do as well.
Francis Fay (2): Yeah, absolutely. ’cause I was gonna add to that. I mean, when you frame organizing in that way, in the way that Devin has just framed it, then community building actually becomes something that isn’t that complicated.
What community building at that point becomes about is just being neighborly.
Marguerite Martin: Mm. And it’s
Francis Fay (2): about recognizing that we all live together. Mm-hmm.
Marguerite Martin: And because
Francis Fay (2): we all live in close proximity to one another. We share our living conditions. Mm-hmm. That’s a good point. And I think what all of us can recognize is that our shared living condition, whether we’re a tenant or a homeowner, or anywhere in between right now, is getting kind of worse, right?
Mm-hmm. And so when neighbors can come together and. Hey, look, we can recognize our shared living condition and we recognize, I recognize the humanity in you and in you, and you recognize the humanity in me. Then our care for one another [00:11:00] can naturally become a response to our situation. Yeah. And at that point, we’re organized to take action.
Mm-hmm. That’s a different kind of action than the sort of activism action that Devin was talking about. We’re all mad
about the same thing.
Francis Fay (2): Yeah. Right. Um, we are upset that we’re living in these, living in these like deteriorating living conditions like we live in, in my building. However, we also see that it’s pretty common sense approach just to get together and try to improve that in the best way that we know how.
Hmm. Where it becomes complicated is that we have. Political officials in this city, landlords in this city, nonprofit executives in this city who want to put their interest ahead of the people’s interest. Mm-hmm. And that’s where our organizing efforts then become a bit of a struggle that we enter together.
Yeah, and I think this is probably gonna come up a few times as we talk about this, this tension. Um, and I have, I have so many questions about all of that, but now that we’re over it [00:12:00] with you, Francis Faye, may I ask you, what is a tenants union?
Francis Fay (2): Yeah. And why did
you wanna make one?
Francis Fay (2): Well, it’s a, it’s a funny story.
I mean, our tenant union at the New York Apartments in the stadium district really started from like a single rusted pipe. Mm. And that rusted pipe that was under my sink, uh, ruptured and it was spilling water into the. Floor and unbeknownst to me, it was rushing down into my apartment, into my neighbor’s apartment downstairs, a person who, at the time, like I knew in passing, but didn’t really know.
Marguerite Martin: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Francis Fay (2): And so one day. She frantically ran upstairs and knocked on my door and asked if my apartment was flooding and I had no idea. I was like, not that I know of, but when I found out it was my dirty dishwater that was going all over her kitchen. So this wasn’t like a
spraying leak, this was like a, a slower leak?
It was,
Francis Fay (2): no, this was literally like everything I put down the sink was just going straight into her apartment downstairs.
That’s a great way to get to know your neighbor. That’s a [00:13:00] great way to get to know our neighbor. What
Francis Fay (2): we bonded over was. One that obviously we need to get this fixed right and do everything that we can to repair that and to make her apartment whole and my apartment whole.
And then we bonded over the fact that our landlord didn’t want to do anything. And then when they did want Kim in to do it, they did it poorly. Mm-hmm. Um, so they sent some maintenance people after, like my neighbor had to frantically call over a dozen times over three days. At this point I couldn’t even use my sink.
Mm. And it took tears and, and a frantic call to get anybody to come out there. And when they did, they reattached the U drain right to that rusted pipe again.
Marguerite Martin: Hmm.
Francis Fay (2): And so then we recognized like, that doesn’t feel like respect.
Marguerite Martin: Mm-hmm.
Francis Fay (2): So we started talking to some of our other neighbors and asking if they were having any of these issues, and it turned out we were all having issues like this.
Ah,
Marguerite Martin: okay.
Francis Fay (2): So a tenant union is our response to the deteriorating living conditions that were in. Mm-hmm. A union is what? It’s just a, it’s a type of [00:14:00] community.
Marguerite Martin: Mm-hmm. It’s
Francis Fay (2): the formation of relationships into something that recognizes that we’re stronger together than we are apart. Mm-hmm.
Marguerite Martin: And that if
Francis Fay (2): we’re all sharing these same conditions, then we can all respond collectively to try to get them solved.
Um, we didn’t know any of this at the time. Well, all we knew at the time is that we really had an issue and we really wanted our landlord to respect us.
Marguerite Martin: Mm-hmm. And to
Francis Fay (2): do something about it. Um. So I knew Devin and I went to Tacoma for all I knew the work that they had been doing and the organizing that they had been doing.
And I said, what do we do? And that’s when our group was introduced to what it means to form a tenant union. And since then we have been forming that union and it’s, it’s actually gone maybe quicker than some of us even imagined. But over the course of the last five to six months, we’ve really. Formed ourselves into what I think is an unbreakable power and our entire purpose is just to protect our, protect one another.
It’s about community protection. Yeah.
[00:15:00] So the, the thing that I immediately thought when I first saw Tacoma Tenants Union, I didn’t, I hadn’t seen, like, I’ve now seen some like little video snippets of the rally that you all had in front of the apartment building. But I was thinking about the Seattle Tenants Union, which I first heard about when I was a tenant, when I was in my early twenties.
Like, and I had a problem I think with something my landlords started like searching online and found, oh, Seattle King County, they have. Something up there. And then over the years when I have, ’cause I get a lot of calls from tenants in various situations and usually do not have the expertise to tell them what to do.
I’m certainly not legally trained to give advice on that kind of stuff, but I’ll say like, maybe check with the Seattle Tenants Union. Maybe they’ll know something and that’s, I’ve been pointing them up for years. Even just check their website. Right? They have a lot of FAQs and stuff about tenant law in Washington state and all that kind of stuff.
This was obviously before your organization. Formed and now obviously having Tacoma Pro Bono, we have a lot of resources in Tacoma, but I was thinking like, oh, great. Okay. So what we’re gonna have is like a local organization that just [00:16:00] generally reps the tenants, but that’s not what this is. No. This is very specific to your building and kind of a, like a test case that people could copy in other buildings.
Is that the idea?
Francis Fay: Yes.
I’m I, I, I’m really sorry. I know this is a really basic question, but I don’t know what it is exactly. Well,
Francis Fay: so just to, to address the first thing you brought up ’cause it’s really interesting and then I would love to kick it back to Francis Fey about, like, our vision for the future of organizing is that, um, there’s a lot of organizations over the last couple decades that have, have identified as tenant unions and there’s been kind of.
Fits and starts, um, in different communities and places around it. And what’s ended up happening with a lot of ’em. And, and the Seattle Tenant Union, which has become the Washington State Tenant Union, a great organization in a bunch of ways. But what they’ve ended up doing really is a lot of service and, and advocacy.
Um, so policy oriented work, which isn’t necessarily a problem. Um. But there’s a new wave of, of tenant union organizing around the country. It’s really exciting. That is kind of adapting, um, traditional labor [00:17:00] union models, really to go back to the 1930s, the, the era of real labor militancy and winning big contracts and, and even going on strike if they have to.
And it’s really about getting to a majority of the people or a super majority of the people in a building. Um, and having them have a sense of their, their collective, deeply widely felt issues and what unites them and how they can be united to push back and make change. And. Uh, you know, the law is great.
The law is very helpful. We, we love Tacoma Pro Bono. We work with them a lot.
Marguerite Martin: Mm-hmm.
Francis Fay: Um, the legal apparatus is great, but a true majority tenant union is about understanding that you have power just like your landlord has power.
Marguerite Martin: Mm-hmm.
Francis Fay: Um, and so we’re very excited to be, um, deeply connected to the New York Apartments Tenant Union and supporting them and for this to inspire folks elsewhere throughout the city, ideally.
Francis Fay (2): Mm-hmm. Yeah.
What’s the best pro tip you have if someone is watching and they’re like, uh, my building also, my landlord also. How did you do that for Fay? Like what, what are [00:18:00] the steps? What, how did you organize as a group?
Francis Fay (2): Well, I think I said it a little bit earlier, but the first step is just to care about your neighbors.
Yeah.
Francis Fay (2): Like the first step is just to get to know your neighbors and to listen to one another. Um, ’cause in our apartment building, you know, I said this at our launch on Saturday, um. We’re all different. Yeah. We all have different backgrounds. We all have different jobs, we all have different interests. Um, I’m assuming we all have very different politics.
Mm-hmm. We have different religions, but what we share in common, again, is our shared living conditions. Mm-hmm. And we also share in common a desire to improve our lives. We believe that we deserve a. Safe and healthy and stable home. And so what we’ve asked as a, to form a tenant union, we’ve just recognized that we, we believe that we have more power coming together.
With that and asking our landlord [00:19:00] to meet with us and negotiate to address the conditions of our building. That’s the primary thing we’re looking for.
Marguerite Martin: Mm-hmm.
Francis Fay (2): We want our landlords, um, Robert and Candace Hoover, who live in Huntington Beach, California to sit down with us face to face and negotiate and make the changes that would make our lives healthier.
Safer and more stable. And I hope that that’s something that all of Komens can really get behind because, you know, so often there’s a deep love for Tacoma for those of us who live here. Yeah. There’s a, there’s a sense that we are a really cool and connected community and we have tens of thousands of our residents.
Who are living in deplorable conditions. Mm-hmm. Even way worse than we’re experiencing right now at the New York apartments. Yeah. And what we hope that our group can do is, is sort of show, be a, a part of creating a citywide movement, [00:20:00] uh, so that tenants around our community can begin. Building their own power and reaching out to their own landlords to have these kinds of conversations.
And what I said in my launch, uh, speech on Saturday is true. Um, you know, we want to just sit down and negotiate. Right. The only reason a landlord would not want to sit down and negotiate to make better living conditions for their tenants mm-hmm. Who are their paying customers?
Marguerite Martin: Mm-hmm.
Francis Fay (2): Is that their neglect and their exploitation is their point.
And I hope that we can all in Tacoma, agree that we shouldn’t have landlords like that in our community.
This is reminding me of the conversation I had with the tenant or with the union that was forming at the art museum. It’s, it’s like you were talking, it’s based on labor organizing, right? This, these principles and, um, the idea that if you’re negotiating in good faith, why wouldn’t you want your.
Your people to be [00:21:00] talking to each other, to be working together.
Francis Fay (2): Absolutely. And we should, uh, not have any laws in this community that restrict tenant’s ability to be good neighbors with one another. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Are there any laws in this community that restraints,
Francis Fay: I mean, some landlords would, you know, frame it otherwise, but I think that, uh, you know.
Rental laws, rental law enforcement historically in many municipalities, including Tacoma, has been largely in favor of the landlords. Mm-hmm. Um, in terms of, uh, obfuscating, uh, what people’s rights are in terms of, uh, landlords very, very selectively, uh, enforcing the law when it’s in their interest. Mm-hmm.
And entirely ignoring it when it’s not. Um, including with many of the things we passed a couple years ago. Um. And knowing that, uh, there’s very, very little enforcement capacity. You know, the, the, the office that handles it in Tacoma is a [00:22:00] department of one, um, and is understaffed, overworked, uh, and. Like landlords do all sorts of things to divide tenants from each other, to instill fear in them.
Um, it’s very regular to do things like issue, you know, a two week notice or a 10 day notice or a three day notice depending on the issue. Uh, some landlords like giving ’em out like candy. Mm-hmm. Um, and. When you hear that you might get evicted for just complaining about a thing that’s within your rights to complain about,
Marguerite Martin: right?
Francis Fay: It is extremely limiting. Um, and we should be creating laws and illegal structure that empowers tenants and empowers people to stay where they live, feel connected and belonging in their community, and know that they have right.
Great. Well, Doug is making the the motion at me, so we need to take it to the break, but we’ll be right back with more about this.
Erik Hanberg: This is Eric Hanberg with Channel 2 5 3. I’m Doug Mackey. And Doug Mackey asked to keep this short, so here it is, $4 a month, $40 a year. Supports Channel 2 5 3. Go to [00:23:00] channel two five three.com/membership. More so we’d like to thank our members, especially our long time members. Now it’s too long
Producer Doug Mackey: move
to Tacoma.
Okay, we are back with Devin and Francis Fay talking about organizing tenants in Tacoma and um. The future of landlord tenant law. I guess that’s the word we’re also talking about. One question that I have and you know, I am a real estate agent and so therefore like I’m a part of the realtor association and our lobby, you know, nationally and locally is very powerful and generally they align, uh, a hundred percent on government affairs.
Stuff with landlords, because obviously landlords are our clients. And so at a policy level, whenever I’m getting messaging around this, the first place I tend to get it from is my professional association. And they’re like, this is bad. This is all bad. And you know, the, the goal is to make things as easy as possible for people to own and rent out property.
And it should be less expensive and there should be less [00:24:00] barriers. And I was just saying to you offline, like I, I, I don’t even really wanna give a ton of. Uh, I, I just don’t wanna have that conversation here because it happens so much. I see it in the comments of all of your posts. I see it on Reddit. I, I, I think it’s a, it’s, I don’t wanna say it’s played out ’cause it’s a relevant conversation, but it’s a conversation that’s happening a lot and the landlord voice, I think is very well heard.
Their perspective has been well financed. And so that’s the only reason I don’t wanna have like a huge, like, oh, let’s get a landlord on here and have you debate, right? Like, I, we know, we know what they think and why they think it, but I think the more nuanced conversation that I’m interested in, I went to a leadership event, uh, last week and they were talking about how um, some of the nonprofit leaders in the community are saying like, oh, we need an exemption for this.
And their reasoning is around OFR. And I’ve, I’ve seen you all having these conversations as well. Like the, oh, if the, the tenants can’t pay, uh, for their rent, then our loans are in jeopardy. And then that’s gonna impact our ability to pay our [00:25:00] own mortgage and then to finance future, uh, you know, affordable housing projects, right?
Like that’s the case that they’re making. And then we, we have this situation where I’m watching it go down mostly online. ’cause I haven’t gone in person. For better or for worse, like I’m watching this go down online and I’m seeing people I respect that work in organizations that are trying to do good work and I see people that I respect that are literally gonna be homeless if things don’t get sorted out.
Like the stakes are very high, but these are all community members and the problem seems to be way upstream of this community. This the problem, the real culprit seems to be banking, financing laws, all of these different. Tax, the, the tax structure of our state and city and federal government like these are, and, and those problems are never really the focus of everyone’s ire.
It’s like everybody’s pointing at their neighbor down the street who is, you know what I’m talking about? Like, I feel like it, it’s very frustrating watching it, like, why aren’t we all working together? [00:26:00] On the big problem instead of like, I don’t know, maybe I’ve talked too much.
Francis Fay (2): You answer that. You kind of just answered the question for us.
You did. Can I answer that question? You literally just answered your own question, but Yeah, yeah. No, you totally did. The problem is capitalism. Now I’m speaking as a person who’s a tenant right now and my own self. I’m not speaking for any organization. Yeah. The problem is capitalism and in the system that we have.
Um, we are taught and we are lifted up and we are, um, exalted when we focus on our own particular self-interest. Right. And the self-interest of the real estate industry at whatever realm you are at in that mm-hmm. Is making money.
Marguerite Martin: Mm-hmm.
Francis Fay (2): And um, unfortunately the self-interest of those of us who are paying all this money is often never included into the equation, right?
And our self-interest is in safe, healthy, stable housing. ’cause every human being needs a house. To live.
Marguerite Martin: Mm-hmm. [00:27:00]
Francis Fay (2): Right. Um, one thing I’ll take issue with though is the idea, and again I’m speaking for myself Yeah. Is the idea that in the Landlord fairness code and, um, rollbacks that we’re experiencing right now, that somehow are non-profits who have in many ways risked their entire organization on, I mean, I think
this is the reason they’re kind of stressing, right?
It
Francis Fay (2): is because they have risked their, the literally. An existential risk in their organization on the industry of providing quote unquote affordable housing. What that means is they’re providing housing for the most vulnerable people in our community and what they’re wanting to do right now and what they are going to do tonight at City Council is gut the protections for our.
City’s most vulnerable people, and what they’re wanting to say is when those vulnerable people can no longer pay, they deserve to be on the street. Why? Because it’s in the best interest of our donors and our bottom [00:28:00] line. Yep. That we put them out of the street and get someone in there to pay.
Marguerite Martin: Right.
Francis Fay (2): And I just fundamentally, as a human being, disagree with that approach.
Yeah. And I don’t think that we should have. City leaders who are taking that approach. And if that’s approach that our city leaders who do continue to take that approach, want to take, then we need new leadership from the top down.
Marguerite Martin: Mm-hmm.
Francis Fay (2): We need to take power back as tenants and workers in this community, and we need to put in common sense approaches that do factor in our self-interest, which is for safe, healthy, stable homes for everyone.
That’s why we call it Tacoma for all. In my opinion. Mm-hmm.
Well, and I, I’m like, I’m, I’m trying to like say this back to make sure that I’ve got it. ’cause it’s like this, this idea that you have an organization, and I’m not speaking about any one particular, uh, nonprofit, but let’s say you have a nonprofit that wants to do a good thing and so they’re like, we’re gonna build some.
Like you say, quote unquote affordable housing, more affordable than what they would have to build if they built it for the market. Right. Where they would charge the most. ’cause it’s [00:29:00] brand new and new stuff usually costs a lot. Right. So they’re gonna do, they’re gonna probably get a tax credit when they do it.
Mm-hmm. They’re probably gonna get some specialized financing from a bank that also gets a tax credit if they offer nonprofits funding to build. Quote unquote affordable housing. Right? Like, and they actually, this is their mission. Their donors happy, their donors are happy, their board is happy because they’re, they’re providing this, they get to put this in their annual report and actually, you know, they are doing something.
And from a real estate perspective, I’m like, let’s add to the housing stock at all. Like, that’s, I mean, anything at this point. Um, but what they’ve done from what you just said is like, put themselves in a precarious position financially for the rest of their mission. Um, because they’ve done this and actually they are advocating to de.
Stabilize the very people that they were trying to serve with the policy changes that they’re advocating for. So like now, not only are we not really housing people affordably and we’re putting those, we’re, we’re potentially evicting those folks, uh, if they can’t pay rent. But now we’ve actually made like laws.[00:30:00]
It’s more harsh for the people that we were, we, we are now advocating politically for things that make things harder for the people that we came out here to serve.
Francis Fay: That’s, that’s precisely right. We’re aligned
with private equity companies that own lots of, uh, properties and big landlord, big for-profit landlords.
Francis Fay: Yeah, that’s, that’s precisely right. And I think that, you know, um. Many of these organizations that are speaking this way have become over leveraged. Uh, they’ve become overexposed. Uh, they’re in the same exact kind of contradictory space under capitalism as a, as a housing provider or landlord that other people are where you, uh, are incentivized to build and get more mm-hmm.
And take out additional loans. And in this case, uh, they’re securitized by the, the payments of very low income people. Uh, sometimes as people are on, you know. Um, disability or social security, right? Other times they’re just, uh, they’re working poor. And when those people have disruptions in their lives, they become unable to pay, and that [00:31:00] means the landlord is more exposed.
What’s interesting about right now is that. I, I believe when Tacoma Housing Authority says that the percentage of folks that, um, are delinquent or laid on rent has gone up dramatically. I don’t believe when they say it’s the fault of the landlord fairness code. Uh, when rules, when laws change. Right.
That’s a convenient, uh, scapegoat.
Francis Fay: There people, people want a safe, stable place to live. Mm-hmm. People want dignity in their housing. People don’t just randomly decide because the law changed a little bit. All of a sudden, I’m not gonna pay rent for years.
This does not make sense to me either. I see this, I see this said a lot.
The passing of the code is causing more people. They just, they just, they’re just not gonna pay rent as if you can get another piece of, you can’t get another rental if you have an eviction, right? That is,
Francis Fay: no one wants an eviction on the record. And you know, at the end of the day, if you have to choose between food and your utilities or your rent.
You’re gonna do the stuff that keeps you warm and keeps you fed. We are, and we are facing a profound economic crisis of [00:32:00] capitalism.
Marguerite Martin: Right, right
Francis Fay: now that has downstream effects in everyone’s lives. And again, I believe when THA says that this rate has gone up, there’s no evidence that it’s a result of the landlord fairness code.
And I’m known THA leadership personally, a number of them for a number of years. Mm-hmm. And April Black. The executive director. Yeah. Spoke at city council last Tuesday and ended her talking points and saying the exemption should apply to a bunch of corporate landlords as well.
Marguerite Martin: Oh,
Francis Fay: and I like April. She might hear this podcast.
Uh, but I think that that is indicative of their material interest as a housing provider. They, their interest is their bottom line. Uh, overall else, and it’s. It kind of hard to say that because they do a lot of good in the community. Uh, but until tenants have an organized, active voice that is really willing to consistently speak up and push back on that, that’s just gonna be how it is.
Landlords are gonna dominate pol local politics.
Francis Fay (2): Absolutely. And I think you said it, you know, what we’re hearing [00:33:00] is a red herring argument that scapegoats are city’s most vulnerable people.
Marguerite Martin: Mm-hmm.
Francis Fay (2): And I hope that as a city. We can come together and say that isn’t right. And in fact, it’s not a hope. It already happened.
We democratically voted in the landlord fairness code. Right? Right. And now it is Undemocratically being gutted two days after the two year mark. They’ve not waited a single minute to get their hands in there and gut these protections that we democratically voted to implement in this city.
Marguerite Martin: Mm-hmm.
Francis Fay (2): Right.
Francis Fay: Yep. The, the, the, I’m really proud of our organizing in recent months and pushing back on the absolute worst of the rollbacks, which I think we’ll, we’ll win on tonight. Yeah. But the absolute worst indicate the profound contradiction in this. Sarah Rumba, the council member that, uh, really is advancing the rollback, wanted it to be set, um, for winter eviction [00:34:00] protections at 80% of area meeting income.
Marguerite Martin: Mm-hmm.
Francis Fay: Meaning only people that make below 80% of area meeting income would qualify for it at the same time that they wanted to exempt a bunch of organizations. That provide housing for people at less than 80% of 80 of very immediate income. You can’t have it both ways.
Marguerite Martin: Yeah.
Francis Fay: Um, and that to me indicates kind of the core contradiction here.
Like no matter how you cut it, what you’re doing is hurting poor people, putting ’em on the streets, uh, putting ’em into homelessness right after you passed a draconian expansion of the camping ban. And we, we will not tolerate that. As a community
Francis Fay (2): council. Rumba said in an interview earlier this, that was just on KNKX yesterday, that the reason that she introduced this legislation was to teach us a little bit of accountability,
like living on the street isn’t accountability.
Francis Fay (2): Well, I just, I found it interesting because I think the only real accountability that we need her worried about. [00:35:00] It’s her accountability to the people. Mm. And who she seems to be most accountable to is her own landlord’s self-interest, the landlord lobby and these other organizations that we have been talking about who make their money off the backs of low income people in this community.
Marguerite Martin: Mm-hmm.
Francis Fay (2): And as a low income person in this community, I don’t approve of it.
Marguerite Martin: Yeah, I don’t
Francis Fay (2): consent to that and I will do everything in my power with my neighbors. Mm-hmm. To push back on that. That’s why we have formed a tenant union.
Well, and I think fundamentally, and I, I don’t imagine a ton of, uh, folks, uh, from the real estate or landlord lobby are gonna be watching this podcast.
But if they were, I think what, what is fundamental here that they must understand is that they have, um. Funding. They have ways of organizing and to advocate for their political and their material benefit. What? Beyond an one single tenant union in one building in the city, [00:36:00] do you all have, and your organization, Devin?
Mm-hmm. But like what do tenants have?
Francis Fay (2): We have the truth number one, right? We have the truth. We’re telling the truth about our experience.
Yeah.
Francis Fay (2): Right. So we have that on our side, and with that we have a tremendous amount of power. Because with that, we have the ability to come together and represent our own self-interest in this process as well.
So yes, it’s one tenant union, but someone has to start it.
Well, and this is where I’m like, okay, so for the people that do regularly listen to the podcast and they’re like, well, I own a house, or my mom has a rental, like I’m a landlord. I’m big landlord. Like, no, you’re not. Mm-hmm. Um, and how does the community begin to, first of all, begin to really understand this situation better?
Uh, and, and empathize with the people in their community and know more about what’s going on, and have the courage to know more about what’s going on. I think that’s hard, right? If you’re not living in that situation, if you’re living over the bridge or [00:37:00] whatever, like how, how, how can you first begin to understand the situation that y’all are in?
And second, begin to see your own community and the, the priorities and the organizing happening in your own community is at least as important as. Out of state equity, private equity companies or big landlords, like how, how can, how, how can normal people begin to understand this problem and empathize?
’cause you’re saying it’s a human problem. How do we tap into our humanity and start recognizing it?
Francis Fay (2): Yeah,
yeah.
Francis Fay (2): Well maybe this is helpful. So I have been both a renter and a homeowner in this community, right? So I have experienced both sides of that equation. Um, when I was a homeowner. And something went wrong, right?
Like I had a pipe bust and my basement was flooded. I had to wake up at four in the morning and start paling that water out of my basement.
Marguerite Martin: Mm-hmm. And then
Francis Fay (2): I had to do everything in my power and within my financial means to fix that as quickly as possible. Why? ’cause it was very important to the [00:38:00] safety and health and stability of my.
Family.
Marguerite Martin: Right?
Francis Fay (2): Well put yourself into a renter’s shoes, all those same things go wrong, and you have to call a landlord. What happens when that landlord says, sorry, we don’t care.
Marguerite Martin: Mm-hmm.
Francis Fay (2): Well. I don’t think anybody in this community should have to deal with that question,
Marguerite Martin: right?
Francis Fay (2): If you want to be a landlord in our community and you want to create housing for others, and you want to make money from that housing, you should also have to take care of that housing the same way that you’re gonna take care of your home, right?
The same way you and your partner are gonna take care of your homes. The same way that I would have taken care of my homes when I was a homeowner. Mm-hmm. Now I call a management company, not the landlord. ’cause the landlord’s not available. Right. I call a management company who has been hired with the explicit instructions to provide as little services and extract as much money for me as possible.
Right. And we are [00:39:00] trying to make that not the conditions that people live in, in this community. It is so. Simple and common sense, in my opinion.
Well, and we act like, you know, and this is the thing that is, is kind of confusing for me because like, you know. We act like this is like such uncharted territory and how could, how do you even do this?
How would we even provide rental protections while also making sure the landlords aren’t being taken advantage? Like, well, every other developed nation like right, if you go to Europe, like the baseline renter protections that exist in other countries are much higher than the ones that exist in the United States, much like they would be.
Far too radical to even be like, like verbalized here. Right. And, and yet they have functioning economies and they have, they still have a housing crisis it turns out like, you know? Right.
Francis Fay (2): Yeah. There’s a housing crisis all across the world right now.
Francis Fay: I mean, the housing crisis is a crisis of capitalism, ultimately.
Yeah. Right. That commodifying a basic need, a basic human need that everyone needs that. Yep. A [00:40:00] basic need that is if you don’t have stable housing. You don’t have stable mental health. You don’t have stable physical health. You don’t have a stable school life. You don’t have a stable work life. It all cascades down from there.
Well, I think this acceleration of wealth to the top, the way that’s playing out in housing, I don’t think it’s like, I think people like to think like, oh, this is really common sense. It, it, it. It’s, it’s not so common when you realize like how I, I, I think I, I, sorry. I have like a hundred things that I wanna say right now, but a, a lot of the times when I’m in rooms with leaders of organizations, whether it’s a leader of a local nonprofit or if it’s the head of a department in an organization, in a government, and they’re talking about housing, they don’t actually know that it’s been so long.
Since they had a one bedroom apartment that was, you know, maybe 20% under median. Right. Or since they had to pay rent at all. Uh, with a job, uh, with a job, with a regular job. So you, you have people making $35,000 a year. You have people making $150,000 a year at the pinnacle of their career. Right. About to retire, you know?
Great. [00:41:00] But they are remembering when they made $35,000 a year, they were ballers. Right. And now you, you really cannot get by on that. Even if you can scramble and afford housing, well, you’re gonna be choosing between housing and healthcare. You’re gonna be choosing between housing and food. Like I don’t think people, this is what I’m trying to get at when I talk about like how to get people to care and understand because the assumptions people are making, they’re not, I don’t think they’re all rooted in like, villainous behavior.
Like they really don’t get it. How, how do we like, and I, I think that’s why it’s so brave what you’re doing. Because you’re saying, yeah, I’m in this situation. It really is a struggle. It really sucks. And people are not always meeting that with empathy. They’re meeting it with a lot of harshness, I imagine.
Francis Fay (2): Well, no. ’cause we live in a culture that, um, that makes poverty a moral it issue. Yep. And it’s not. It’s a material issue. And I’m not ashamed of poverty. In fact, I choose to make. Uh, just enough to [00:42:00] cover my cost of living.
Marguerite Martin: Mm-hmm.
Francis Fay (2): So I can have more of my time to do the stuff I really want to do, rather than what a boss wants me to do.
Marguerite Martin: Mm-hmm.
Francis Fay (2): Right. So that’s a personal choice that I make. The cost unfortunately, for making a personal choice, is that I’m dealing with substandard living conditions. Right. But you said it so perfectly. I mean, you asked, our first question you asked was how long we’ve been in Tacoma and I’ve been here, this is my 12th year in Tacoma.
When my partner and 1-year-old child moved to Tacoma 12 years ago, we rented a brand new three bedroom, two bath apartment for $1,200 a month on sixth Avenue. Right now I pay $1,400 for a not even one bedroom apartment that is owned by a slumlord. That is the, that’s the issue that we’re dealing with.
And to, to circle back around, that’s also the issue that the [00:43:00] people that are affordable housing folks want to put into the streets right now, they’re dealing with an even harsher issue. They may be living on a fixed income of $1,500 a month, and they’re still in affordable housing needing to pay 1200 a month just for their rent.
Rent. The math. The math isn’t math, and that’s the crisis. That’s the heart of the crisis, right?
And that’s not, um, a problem that like one policy is gonna fix. You know, like we can’t fix that. Even as a city, we probably can’t even fix it as a state, right? Like this is a collective national crisis with hard decisions that it doesn’t seem like, uh, we’re making at the national level.
Francis Fay: Yep. And I mean, part of this is building the power at the local level Yeah. To exert the pressure. I hear, hear it at all levels of government to make that change because if we’re not gonna do it for ourselves, they’re certainly not gonna do it for us. And that’s become very evident in housing policy over many decades.
And it, it, it feels like the tide is turning a little [00:44:00] bit and the tide is turning a little bit. As a result of great pressure and great organizing by working class folks like Francis Faye and people throughout our community and many other communities. And it’s gonna take a lot more than what we’re already doing, which is why we want more people to get organized.
Marguerite Martin: Yeah. We
Francis Fay: want more people to get involved with Tacoma for all. We want more people to form tenant unions, uh, and we want more people to discover their own power and realize that they are more like their neighbors than they thought, and that their greedy slumlord that lives in California has nothing in common with them.
That’s really good. Thank you, Devin, that that wraps it up really well. Francis Faye, final word.
Francis Fay (2): Thanks for having us. This has been fun. Thanks for coming.
Mm-hmm. Thanks to both of you. Thank you.
Producer Doug Mackey: If you like this podcast, check out, move to tacoma.com. Move to tacoma.com is a neighborhood guide, blog and podcast to help people in Tacoma Pierce County and beyond find their place in the city of Destiny. [00:45:00] More information at Move to Tacoma. Dot com. Move to Tacoma as part of the Channel 2 5 3 Podcast network.
Check out these other shows. Nerd Farmer, interchangeable White Ladies, citizen Tacoma Crossing Division, grit and Grain. What Say You and Kitchen? 2, 5 3. This is Channel 2 5 3.