#CancelRent Movement Escalates Amid Growing National Unrest

Posted By Lynda Carson:

Anya Svanoe

Bcc:tenantsrule [at] yahoo.com

Mon, Jun 1 at 4:30 PM

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Media Contact: Anya Svanoe, (510) 423-2452

“We’re at a Breaking Point:” #CancelRent Movement Escalates Amid Growing National Unrest, and Warns that Police Enforcement of Evictions Will Destroy More Black Lives

California – #CancelRent groups are undertaking another wave of rent strikes today and escalating their movement amid growing national unrest. Leaders of the #CancelRent movement are also calling for #NoEvictions for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic, warning that police enforcement of evictions will endanger and destroy more black lives.

In California, at least 30,000 low-income Black residents and other residents of color across the state are expected to join rent strikes beginning today, a significant increase from May, according to the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE).

In low-income Black communities and other communities of color across the country, anger is building among tenants who worry about getting evicted by police, and not surviving through the summer, while the richest Americans enjoy Congressional bail outs.

This morning, members of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment’s (ACCE) Black Housing Union woke up members of the Alameda Board of Supervisors with protests outside of their homes calling on them to #CancelRent, stop evictions, and to move unsheltered people into hotels immediately.

“The violence that is taking the lives from black people's bodies, with knees and boots on our necks, is the same violence that is evicting us, locking us out of shelter, strangling us with sky-high rents. This moment is also about housing. Because housing is health. Housing is life. We need rent cancelled, we need evictions cancelled, and we need to house unsheltered people now!” - Carroll Fife, ACCE Oakland Director.

The June rent strikes undertaken by the #CancelRent movement will kick off a summer of action and agitation targeting those who are getting wealthier as suffering worsens, especially in low-income Black communities, where the highest rates of COVID-19 infection, death, police violence, homelessness and job loss continue to be seen and felt.

A recent report from the Action Center on Race and the Economy (ACRE) shows that corporations dominating the real-estate industry are sitting on $470 billion. A number of corporate landlords should not have received federal bailout funds in recent stimulus packages but did anyway. Earlier research and analysis from ACRE reveals how Wall Street firms profit from police violence through police brutality bonds.

Those who can’t afford to pay for housing in June likely won’t be able to afford it for the whole summer and are vulnerable to harm and murder if police are given free reign to enforce evictions. The world witnessed the violent, militarized eviction of mothers involved in the Moms 4 Housing occupation in Oakland, CA earlier this year in a gross, over-exaggeration of how law enforcement is used excessively to police black bodies and protect property over people.

That’s why we will continue to assert housing as a human right. The full cancellation of housing-related expenses will continue to be the key demand from the #CancelRent movement as part of an effort to prevent mass evictions and protect Black lives this summer. Tenants will take that demand directly to the homes, offices, and watering holes of corporate landlords and wall street hedge fund managers who have profited from the suffering of black people and who have the money to pay to #CancelRent.

###

--
Anya Svanoe
Communications Director
Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE)
510-423-2452
she/her/hers

>>>>>>
>>>>>>