Updated: Press conference will be via Zoom
For Immediate Release
April 2, 2021
Media Contacts: Duc Luu, dluu@publicadvocates.org
*Tenants available for interviews in Spanish*
Tenants at breaking point over inhumane living conditions in Fruitvale apartments to announce major development in ongoing conflict with landlord
OAKLAND – Nearly 20 Latinx monolingual Spanish-speaking tenants, including families with children and seniors have organized their 6-unit building in the Fruitvale neighborhood to complain against egregious habitability issues in their homes that threaten health and safety. Cockroaches running out of the faucet, rats, stoves broken for years, structures collapsing, a water pressure so low tenants are forced to shower with buckets— these are just some of the squalid, untenable conditions the tenants have been forced to endure — some for decades.
Who: Tenant leaders of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) and their attorneys, including David M. Levin, Public Advocates Inc., and the ACCE Legal Team.
What: Zoom Press Conference by tenants of 1821 28th Ave. apartment building, and their attorneys, to make major announcement
When: Monday, April 5th, 10 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
Where: Zoom press conference
Angelica Rivas, one of the tenants who has lived in the building for 15 years, says “I’m tired of landlords thinking that because we’re immigrants and speak Spanish, that we don’t deserve to live in safe, healthy and dignified homes. It’s racism, and we’re done with it.”
The pandemic has heightened the health and safety threats posed by the conditions tenants face. Loss of jobs has left many, if not most of the tenants fearing displacement. Even worse, tenants have been unlawfully threatened with eviction, and forced to live in apartments the landlord refuses to maintain– or leave. The tenants have shown that they know their rights, and will not bend to pressure and intimidation.
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