ALEJANDRO,
TENANT
LEADER
26 years in HSV
Where are you from?
Irapuato Guanajuato, Mexico.
How did you move here?
My friends and I were looking for a place to move in and a lady from my church told us about this place. November 1996, my friends and I came and we moved into Hillside Villa.
Tell me about your about dogs.
My dogs were never mine in the beginning. My friend Jose Perez was looking for a place with his two dogs but most places didn't accept him because of the dogs. I told him we had an extra space and that he could stay with me. 6 months after he moved in, he got cancer. In September 2014 he passed away. I had gotten comfortable with the dogs Lynn and May so they stayed with me. Now they are under my name and are 13 years old.
How has the rent increase affected you?
This rent increase has affected me hard since we can't pay the amount they want us to pay. When we first lived here no one really knew that the apartment had a covenant for 30 years that would expire in 2018. When Tom Botz gave us a paper that there was a possibility that the rent was going to increase and the landlord didn’t want to renew it. They gave us information of different places to move, the paper only said he didn’t want to have a covenant so the rent was going to increase. No one really paid attention to that paper but 6 months later the second paper came saying how much we were going to pay but in my case I was paying double the rent. At first I wasn’t happy and it was very unfair. I thought it was going to be way less but it was more than double I couldn’t believe.
At the time Doña Luisa was calling people to help us and then Channel 34 came by and called for help. Trinidad came by and helped us telling us we had the right to fight for our home. He said we can make an organization and fight for our home. The first meeting was on a Thursday and every neighbor joined to help fight. It was a very selfish thing for the owner to do since he knew the majority of us couldn’t pay rent and if we didn’t we would have to move out.
What does this community mean to you?
Chinatown is my neighborhood. I have gotten so comfortable living in Chinatown. I used to live close by here and I came to church here in the Plaza Olvera. You get comfortable once being in the same area you know for a while. A lot of buses passed by here to go anywhere. There are many different freeways here. It is also a very quiet area and not many dangerous things happen. You only hear a few things once in a while which is another reason I like to live here.
“This fight has taught me that when people come together, they have power. When you unite with other people your voice would be heard more than it would with just one person.”
What motivates you to fight?
Justice is what motivates me to fight because Chloe the owner's daughter told us they were doing everything legal. The tenants found out they weren't doing a process and we were gonna go to court for it but Tom Botz dropped it and never continued it. Later the process was repeated and they had won a year more. There are things that are legal but not fair. That isn't good. For example when African Americans were treated differently from white people. They fought for their rights to be treated equally. Another example is when women didn’t have the right to vote. They also fought the right to be treated to equality as men did. We are also fighting for our rights. Tom could raise the rent as much as he wants. Families should not become homeless because they can’t afford double or triple rent increases.
Are you paying double the rent?
No, I am not paying the rent increase. I stopped paying in October 2022 because of the pandemic, I wasn’t earning as much which affected paying rent. Neighbors stopped paying because we all can’t afford the rent.
What has this fight taught you and shown you?
This fight has taught me that when people come together, they have power. When you unite with other people your voice would be heard more than it would with just one person. There are also many people who are scared to fight. They prefer to protest than fight in court. This fight also taught me we have rights as tenants and when we gather people, our voices can be heard with the support of people and people who are also going through what we are. There are many politicians that have heard of us because our voices and stories have been heard.
What does faith mean to you in this fight?
Faith is one of the most important things in this fight, In order to have faith you need to believe in yourself. I had told people that if Tom Botz kicks us out it's okay but we must have faith in our fight so it doesn’t make it easier for him. As an organization we must all have faith in ourselves and each other that we will win this fight.