The housing and affordability crisis is getting worse, and more people around the country are facing the grim reality of homelessness. Rather than treating housing as a human right and committing to large-scale construction of accessible housing, states like California are responding with police raids of homeless encampments and imprisonment for unhoused people. On this episode of Rattling the Bars, host Mansa Musa discusses non-carceral solutions to the housing crisis with Zachary Murray and Estuardo Mazariegos of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE).

Studio / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Mansa Musa:

Welcome to this edition of Rattling The Bars. I’m your host, Mansa Musa. Joining me today are two men that are very active in advocating, educating, and enlightening people about the state of people that are homeless, among other things. Here today to talk about the state of California are two extraordinary gentlemen.

Introduce y’allselves to Rattling The Bars. Zach?

Zachary Murray:

Yeah, I’m Zach Murray. I’m a statewide campaign coordinator with the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment based in Los Angeles.

Mansa Musa:

Estuardo?

Estuardo Mazariegos:

Yeah, good morning. My name is Estuardo Mazariegos. I’m co-director of Los Angeles ACCE.

Mansa Musa:

And what do ACCE stand for?

Estuardo Mazariegos:

The Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment.

Mansa Musa:

OK, thank you.

OK, let’s unpack this. A recent article came out, I neglected to identify the source, but a recent article came out in a newspaper in California that was highlighting the situation in California. And the tagline on it was, if California doesn’t back affordable housing, then you get what you pay for.

All right, so now what is the state of housing in California as it relates to low-income people or people that can’t afford housing? I know California got a serious homeless population, but what is the state as y’all identified in California, state of homelessness in California?

Zachary Murray:

Well that article that you mentioned, it was an editorial that was authored by one of our LA-based members, Maria Briones, and what she was calling out was the state’s underinvestment in solving the housing and homelessness crisis.

Right now, the state of California has over 180,000 homeless people. There’s only 70,000 shelter beds. So that means for over half of the homeless population, there is insufficient shelter. So when folks are being displaced or driven to homelessness, they have nowhere to go. And so, right now we have encampments, we have folks who are living in RVs and cars, and there is no place to go.

Most recently, our governor, Governor Gavin Newsom, following the grant’s past Supreme Court decision, ordered that the state of California would sweep encampments on state property. And he suggested that county and city governments do the same thing.

And so, what Maria Briones was specifically calling out was that the governor knows what it takes to solve the housing affordability and homelessness crisis. It takes more housing, it takes an investment in the creation of affordable housing.

Specifically, in 2022, Governor Newsom made a promise that he would build 1 million affordable homes by 2030. And unfortunately we’ve only made, since that time, about 12% of the investments necessary to get there. In fact, and as is called out in that editorial, last year, alone and over the past several years, the state of California has only spent 1% of its budget on affordable housing and homelessness.

And so, for most people, voters in California, housing and homelessness is an issue that they are concerned about because we all see it, and many of us are experiencing it, either homelessness or being at risk of homelessness because of increasing rents. And so, if the state is going to take this seriously, there needs to be more investment from the state of resources to address the housing crisis.

Mansa Musa:

OK. All right, so Estuardo, Zach laid out something about saying that Governor Newsom said that he was investing in. But now, isn’t the Olympics coming to California, the next Olympics, which would be, what? What year is that?

Estuardo Mazariegos:

2028.

Mansa Musa:

OK so in 2028. He was talking about building 1 million affordable housing by 2030. But now, from what I’m gathering, what is their reaction to the fact that now they have this worldwide, nationwide event coming? Just suppose to add to what Zach just outlined, so do you think this has anything to do with that or is this just the general attitude of California as well as in the nation?

Estuardo Mazariegos:

I think a lot of the issues will be front and center during this world event, if not taken care of before then. And when I mean taken care of, I mean providing folks affordable housing, access to shelter, making sure that people have a place to go, not just sweeping up.

One of the things the governor also did a couple weeks ago was he had an executive order, or a directive, and they were able to use the grant’s passing to say, hey, sweep up, city by city, every homeless encampment that is in your city.

I live in south central Los Angeles, right down the street from Expo Center, which is one of the mega centers that would host the Olympics. The LA Live area with Crypto Arena, LA Convention Center, The Coliseum, BMO Stadium, the Galen Center. A lot of different facilities here will be hosting hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people. And, at the same time, around these venues you have dozens and dozens of encampments that surround probably thousands of people living on the street, with a concentration of racialized poverty around these places as well.

So you start seeing a lot of pressure from corporations like Airbnb coming in, taking over units and turning them into short-term rentals where there’s already a lot of pressure happening. So it goes hand in hand.

You see the need for housing here in our community is high. We have about 17,000 children living in poverty around these stadiums. And 49,000 people, very low-income folks in that entire community around all of these venues. On top of thousands and thousands not counted for because a lot of the methodology behind the count, the homeless count in Los Angeles, is wrong. So there’s thousands of homeless folks.

So putting the pressure of an event where it’s going to cost about $7 billion to build up in the City of Los Angeles from both private investment. And at the same time you have the city of Los Angeles, which only has invested $61 million for affordable housing production and preservation in 2022. So something’s got to give.

And unfortunately, it’s always the other way where it hurts people instead of helping people. So what we want to see is an event, or we want to uplift our community, and we see this as an opportunity to uplift our community and not displace it, not uproot it.

So the 2028 Olympics and Gavin Newsom is really tied into together. And, as a community, we’re fighting to define the issue. We’re fighting to make sure that we bring resources, but it really does take having the type of political leadership to listen. Right now, we’re seeing that Gavin Newsom just isn’t listening.

So what we do as a community is we organize and we build pressure on the decision makers. So that’s what we’ll start doing from now on out until 2028 to try to really use that as an issue to build up affordable housing in our communities.

Mansa Musa:

And me and Zach was talking off camera about [how] the article reflected that the most vulnerable population, in addition to our children, is seniors. And the article highlighted the seniors, and the senior was saying that, I never thought I’d be in this situation where I’d be homeless. But that the reason why this person found themselves in that state was because the slumlord refused to make repairs in the housing. And the city, as opposed to having oversight and enforcement, chose to remove the person and put them in a shelter.

Is this something that’s going on throughout the state of California? That seems like the slumlords and the city, or the slumlords and the state are in cahoots with each other in terms of displacing people, Zach?

Zachary Murray:

Absolutely. We see, all across the state, a lot of pressure because of the desire of corporate landlords, and landlords in general, to run up the rents. California has very limited rent control protections, very limited tenant protections in so many corners of the state.

And so, in Oakland, where the city government has been struggling to fund its services, our ACCE office there is fighting for proactive rental inspections that aren’t punitive towards the tenants, but really help to force the landlords into a situation where they have to improve the habitability. Because part of the cost of living in a market as expensive as the cities are in California is that people are putting up with living in uninhabitable conditions.

And this particularly affects seniors because of the extent to which seniors live on limited income, Social Security income. And so, the pressure is on for people. And in the event that seniors get displaced, there is no housing that’s truly affordable to them in so many of our markets.

And so, we see this pressure because seniors and, as you pointed out, families with children are vulnerable populations. They don’t have the extra income that’s required to afford housing. And there’s a lot of pressure.

And I know here in the Los Angeles area, ACCE has been fighting to protect tenants from landlord harassment, which is an increasingly really insidious strategy that landlords have taken on to displace people.

Mansa Musa:

Hey Estuardo, what is Sacramento doing then? We’re talking about a number of initiatives that have been taken, a number of initiatives that are being proposed. We know Newsom’s attitude as you outlined, but what about the remaining body of the legislative body of California? What are their positions? Because a lot of them come out these districts where people are being displaced or are living in squalor. Talk about that.

Estuardo Mazariegos:

They’re doing too little, and it’s honestly coming too late. They’re just taking their sweet time to really think about deep and real rooted community solutions for the issue.

That answers a lot of language year in and year out. Our organizations and our movements come to Sacramento with packages of bills where we’re like, hey, make it harder for landlords to harass tenants. Make it harder for landlords to do these ridiculous rental increases of 10%. Or make it harder for corporate landlords to take over our communities. And year in and year out, we find that, even with representatives coming from areas that are directly impacted by the housing crisis, by price gouging, by corporate landlords, have the corporate landlords in their ears.

And it’s harder and harder every year to get anything passed that makes any common sense. And every time we show up with a policy and we say, hey, this could really keep thousands of families in their homes, by the time that we’re done with the political and policy process in Sacramento, it is so watered down that it makes small differences, it improves some people’s lives, but the original idea behind it always gets watered down.

So right now, Sacramento needs to really develop a bench of leaders that are willing to buck the traditional political powers in Sacramento, meaning money, [inaudible] interest, and listen to its community.

So as of right now, I would say at best, Sacramento is doing small, minor changes. What we need is big changes. We need to make housing a human right in California and spend more than 1% on affordable housing. 1% is insane in the middle of the housing crisis. You know where they’re spending the most money though? In prisons. So who have a housing policy? And guess what it is? It’s prisons. Inhumane.

Mansa Musa:

Talk about going forward where y’all strategy as far as mobilizing the state around this issue. Because as it stands now with Corporate America being involved and California being slated for this Olympics, I know they’re going to invest a lot of money into the infrastructure to accommodate world athletes. I know they’re going to invest a lot of money into the police to police the population that’s disenfranchised and dissatisfied with the state.

So talk about, going forward, what’s y’all strategy going forward? Because, as it stands now, y’all saying in the article, if you don’t invest in housing, then you get what’s coming down the pipe. So what’s coming down the pipe?

Zachary Murray:

I can talk about the state level work, and Estuardo can talk about the local work that’s happening. Well, I’ll just say this: the governor threatened $3 billion in cuts, and ACCE along with our coalition partners turned out over 600 people to Sacramento back in April to protest that and to demand very specific action. And that resulted in $2 billion of funding being restored.

But the reality is that in order to solve this crisis, the state needs to invest $18 billion annually. Now, we know we just sent a $20 billion check to Israel to conduct the actions that they’re doing in Gaza. So the money’s there. We’re calling on the State of California to invest, to step up the revenue and the money that goes into affordable housing so that we can get to $18 billion in affordable housing investments annually so that we can build a million homes by [2030].

And we’re working to build a large coalition of housing advocates, homeless advocates, folks who are focused on the climate to help address this crisis because even though, as Estuardo pointed out, our prison population in California has actually declined, the amount of money that we’re investing in prisons continues to increase every year.

And so, we know that the funding is there. What’s not there is the political will. And so, we’re organizing our members and organizing with member-based organizations across the state to make this demand. And we have a month of action that’s going to be taking place in September where, in communities across California, there are going to be town halls, candidate forums to call in these elected officials and folks who are running for office to commit to this million homes campaign.

And we’re also going to do some direct actions, including some direct action at the state Capitol to bring this issue right to the governor’s backyard because right in Sacramento today, the City of Sacramento is displacing an encampment of elders. And so, we want to bring this right to the governor and say, we need solutions right now.

Mansa Musa:

OK. Estuardo?

Estuardo Mazariegos:

At the local level in Los Angeles, we have some bright spots. We have one of the most progressive taxes,, or transfer taxes called ULA, which is essentially a transfer tax on property that is being sold that’s worth $5 million or more. And this, it’s really infusing hundreds of millions in dollars into LAHD, the LA Housing Department, which is in charge of staffing and planning a task force that will go out and inspect any tenant harassment, or any slum housing conditions, or just keep up code with apartments. And also rent control. They’re the ones in control of rent control.

And one of the most exciting parts of ULA is that it’s bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars to build affordable housing and alternative housing, alternative model housing. Meaning housing that isn’t on the market, basically, that’s community controlled, and it stays affordable and community controlled forever. So common sense housing, or a lot of people would like to call this social housing. So community controlled housing, alternative models of housing.

So it’s really awesome that we have that in place already. We passed it last year and then… Well, we’re one year and a half in now, and we’ve already raised about $380 million, close to $400 million I believe, on that transfer going into LHD. And this is no sunset, meaning that it’s going to go on forever. So we potentially could see billions of dollars coming into the city of LA to build affordable housing and to staff the programs that help our community and tenants in the areas that we organize in have dignified living conditions.

And it’s still not enough. We still have to look for more buckets of resources. And look, to be honest, the state of California is what, the fifth-largest economy in the world? There isn’t a reason why we have so many folks living in the street. There isn’t a reason why we have so many children living in slum housing conditions. We can afford it. It’s just about asking who isn’t paying up.

And we all know who it is. It’s the big corporations, it’s those big landlords, the folks that are buying up our communities, displacing our people, and profiting from our people suffering.

Mansa Musa:

Monetizing poverty.

Estuardo Mazariegos:

Yep, yep, yep.

Mansa Musa:

Okay. And you know what? How can our listeners and viewers support or get more information on what y’all are doing going forward? Either one of y’all or both of y’all.

Zachary Murray:

The campaign that we’re doing statewide has a website, which is one, it’s the number one spelled out, onemillionhomesca.org. And folks can find out about the statewide organizing to get 1 million homes, to get the state to invest in affordable housing there. And like I said, there’s a calendar of events for folks who are in California that is available on that website. ACCE is hosting a number of events including a statewide town hall that’ll be virtual if folks are interested in plugging into the work that we’re doing. It’s on Sept. 7 at 10:00 AM Pacific Time.

Mansa Musa:

Okay.

Estuardo Mazariegos:

And locally in Los Angeles, if you’re listening in LA or have family or friends in LA, we constantly have organizing. So if you look for us at calorganize.org, go to the Los Angeles page and you’ll find our information. If you know you need some housing rights clinics, we will hook you up.

And we’re always out in the street. So whenever we hear tenant harassment, we’re out there making sure that we bring attention to that. And we are also mobilizing all the time to create that political will.

So our next big mobilization is Sept. the 28. We’re calling it the Raise the Wages Lower the Rent March. So if you’ll be in LA that Saturday, join us 10:00 AM at Pershing Square.

Mansa Musa:

There you have it. The real news, Rattling the Bars. I recall somewhere in my history of this country, it said that we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people are created equal and have an unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But we’re finding now in this day and age that corporate America has deprived people of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness by pre-meditatively displacing people and putting them into a homeless situation where they’re either going to die off or go in prison.

But however, we have some people that’s organizing to prevent this from happening. And we applaud y’all for y’all work, and thank you for joining us because y’all definitely rattled the bars today. Thank you very much.

Zachary Murray:

Thank you for having us.

Estuardo Mazariegos:

Thank you.

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