A group of tenant rights activists attempted to disrupt a Contra Costa County virtual courtroom Friday to protest ongoing evictions during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The group of 70 or so joined in the protest where they attempted to gain entry, via Zoom, to Superior Court Judge Rebecca Hardie’s proceedings.
By signing on to the teleconferencing platform using hashtags such as #StopEvictionsSaveLives, #CloseTheCourt and #AltoALosDesalojos or using aliases close to the names of real people on the docket rather than their own names in order to confuse the judge, the protesters hoped to gain entry to the court’s 1:30 p.m. video call.
Once inside, the plan was to read statements calling for an end to the court’s eviction proceedings during the pandemic, for Contra Costa County Sheriff David Livingston to stop eviction lock-outs, to close loopholes in state law and for the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors to enact stronger tenant protections.
A few people were able to briefly get into the meeting by calling in on their phones and at least one gained access using video chat, said Katie Martin Selcraig, an organizer with Concord-based nonprofit Monument Impact.
“We had one person who was able to gain entry and read at least once sentence from the statement calling for evictions to be halted before they were kicked out and permanently banned from the meeting,” Selcraig said.
“I think it’s a win for us that we were able to cause some level of chaos, make their jobs a little bit harder and not make it business as usual,” she said.
After a year of pandemic-related economic body blows that have led to high unemployment rates, and despite local and statewide eviction moratoriums, activists say Contra Costa County continues to process evictions at an unacceptable pace.
Landlords are using loopholes in the law, like owner-move-in evictions and taking properties off the rental market, in order to force people from their homes, according to activists.
Selcraig said 135 evections took place in the county between March and December of 2020, compared to just eight in Alameda County and 17 in San Francisco.
In Santa Clara County, which had roughly 145 evictions, the same group of tenant-rights groups, coordinating through the Regional Tenant Organizing network, held an in-person rally to temporarily block access to a courthouse hearing evictions cases in January.
A call to Judge Hardie seeking comment wasn’t immediately returned.
Stuff like this is part of why owners are taking their rentals off the market.
Protesters are encouraged to buy properties and then to rent them out. 70 protesters should be able to pool enough to buy at least one property outright.
Oh my. People using their voices. Whatever shall we do? Don’t they know what The Mask represents? You are slaves on the human plantation. You always have been. No wonder the first amendment was the first. The very first thing they thought to protect was YOUR voice. They are now scared of your voice.
As for the issue of evictions during the COVID HOAX, This is the game. Stop playing or play. You have to live somewhere. You must pay someone to live in this reality. There are millions of empty acres in the world BUT you must pay someone to use them. Everything is owned. Pay the rent or live somewhere you can afford. You will never change the game.
So what are the people who worked hard all their lives and own said properties supposed to do with their income they get from these people? Seems like people just want free things and are using COVID as an excuse not to pay rent.
if the economy was opened up again, most of these people could return to the jobs and lives
What do you mean go back to work? The NON-PROFIT” that Monument Impact this is their job, the executive officer makes over 100K doing this kind of junk. Here is Monument Impact’s IRS Tax filings for 2018. You better believe the director makes a lot more now. They made 1 million dollars in 2018 and have average about a 1 million dollars for at least a decade. Not to mention if you look at their balance sheet the have more expenses for admin than anything else…how are they really helping?
They are doing it to line their own pockets!
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/943370919
I don’t see how taking over the courtrooms of already-liberal judges helps the cause. People are getting vaccinated, restrictions are being lifted, many states are fully re-opening and schools are going back into session. We have to deal with reality at some point that the force of the pandemic is coming to an end.
It’s meant to intimidate them. All of a sudden the judges think they’re not safe here, are they safe at home? Is there family safe? If they vote this down, is someone desperate gonna do something crazy?
Once the economy opens up those that have not been paying rent will have all the months they did not pay rent due. The owner then has the option to make them pay or to prosecute them. I hope the choice is to prosecute them and ruin their credit and ability to rob another owner/rental.
Interested to see what will happen along the Monument corridor. I’ve been seeing opening signs at several apartment complexes. Will people from the city move this way and displace others?
This is just one reason why I’m glad we didn’t go ahead and purchase some rental property. It’s not like we’re wealthy and can absorb months and maybe a year of tenants not paying rent. Owners still have to pay the taxes and upkeep, and if they don’t own the property outright, there’s the mortgage. What do landlords do in such a case? If they can’t pay the taxes, then it goes on the auction block. How does that help the tenant? And the owner loses out, too.
This kind of thing will just reduce the amount of rentals available in the future.
Katie Martin Selcraig, an organizer with Concord-based nonprofit Monument Impact Said:
“I think it’s a win for us that we were able to cause some level of chaos, make their jobs a little bit harder and not make it business as usual,” she said.
I thought Monument Impact was a respected member of the Concord Community. When did they go crazy-left and start illegally disrupting court hearings? She is lucky the judge didn’t hold her in contempt and put out a warrant.
You thought wrong and recently woke up. They have always been communists you just never payed attention…until now. Welcome. Thanks to Trump millions of Americans are finally seeing what has happened. Some of us have been here for years trying to tell you. That’s why we voted for Trump to begin with. Keep watching, it gets worse.
@Sam. You are so right! People though preferred to listen to the news false narratives about Trump instead. (Backed by pelosi shift and Swalwell). And the same people are going to refuse to see what’s going on now, that is until it gets so bad they will have to be awake. Has anyone seen the price of gas lately?!!? 50 cents more since Biden Harris took office.
#AltoALosDesalojos. These people have the ability to disrupt a County courtroom via Zoom in order to continue to demand but they don’t have the voice, ability or strength to demand their country’s government. They should demand the rich people in their country give up what they have worked hard for so those who can’t afford can have. I imagine lots of those people don’t love this country but are always demanding something out of it while waving their country flag. They say they come here to do the jobs others don’t want so that means they should have enough money to pay rent.
Tenets Rights Group aka:
Give us our free stuff rights group
Freeloaders rights group
Clear out the squatters. No one has the right to squat illegally without payment on someone else’s property.
If you cannot afford to live in California then you need to move to a more affordable, likely more free state.
Entitlement culture and victimhood culture is so rampant now that people see blatant immorality and theft as reparations if they’re brainwashed enough to blame an appropriate race or economic group. “The Asians are always being racist to us blacks, why should I pay them rent!?” “Mr. Jenkins has so much money, look at his new Cadillac, why should I pay that rich MFer a dime?”
The landlord tenant laws in CA are atrocious. They are why I don’t and never will hold rental property in this state. They are also why I would encourage anyone holding property to dump it here and do a 1031 exchange in another state. There are plenty states out there that not paying rent is non-negotiable. Rental property is a business, and a small business for most. These small businesses are not in a place to subsidize the lives of Californians. Not paying rent ultimately hurts the tenants just as much as the small business landlords.