Tenant Union to Picket Berkeley Landlords’ Eviction Party Today

Berkeley, California — The Bay Area-wide tenant union, Tenant And Neighborhood Councils (TANC), is taking a stand against the Berkeley Property Owners Association (BPOA) and their “celebration” for the end of the eviction moratorium. TANC believes that BPOA's celebration of the resumption of evictions is not only out of touch with the realities of the housing crisis in the Bay Area, but deeply cruel.

TANC members from across the Bay Area will be celebrating the power of our union outside BPOA’s gathering. There will be signs, banners, music, chants, and speeches about landlords’ responsibility for the housing crisis. We invite other tenants who are fed up with high rents, habitability issues, and evictions to join us!

In a time when rents are already sky-high and the cost of living is soaring, BPOA’s decision to celebrate regaining the power to evict people sends a violent message to struggling working-class tenants. TANC firmly believes that evictions should never be allowed to take place–and the last few years of their moratorium prove that a world without evictions is possible. The housing crisis has reached alarming levels in the Bay Area, and BPOA’s “celebration” of its inevitable worsening is barbaric.

The explosion of homelessness in our communities is a direct consequence of the actions of real estate capitalists, including BPOA’s landlord members, who prioritize rent-profiteering over people. TANC, as a tenant union, emphasizes that landlords are largely responsible for gentrification, displacement, and homelessness. Far from celebrating, they should be held accountable for their actions.

Furthermore, TANC objects to the notion that landlords have an inherent right to a return on their investment. In a time when affordable housing is scarce and many tenants are one paycheck away from homelessness, it is time to reassess the idea that property rights trump our human right to housing.

Tenant and Neighborhood Councils calls on tenants everywhere to organize against the landlord class. We demand that BPOA—and all landlords— prioritize the well-being of tenants over profit margins. As union members picket the BPOA event, the union aims to build our union’s locals and support tenant councils to demand not only additional tenant protections but social housing for all working-class tenants in the Bay Area. The strength of an organized, mass tenant unionist movement is how we will secure these demands. The tenants will win.

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The Tenant and Neighborhood Councils (TANC) is an autonomous tenant union with hundreds of members, dozens of affiliated councils and several neighborhood-based locals. The member-run organization stands against the capitalist housing system and aims to stop landlords, developers and police from continuing to loot and exploit our communities.