Conversation Piece - Saturday, June 6, 2026

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1. website to send your gift today because while ignorance can be costly, speaking truth to power
2. is priceless. You're listening to KPFK 90.7 FM in Los Angeles and on the web at kpfk.org
3. Pacifica Radio for all of Southern California and beyond.
4. What it is, good morning.
5. I am Angela Birdsong, your Conversation Peace host, coming from KPFK Studios with the real day-to-day happenings of urban living locally and worldwide.
6. Today on Conversation Peace, from 838 East 6th Street in the apartheid state, the center of downtown Los Angeles, known as Skid Row.
7. Meet Jay Arellano, housing organizer with Los Angeles Community Action Network, LACAN, where the Tenant Rights Committee are building a slumlord campaign.
8. Welcome to Conversation Peace.
9. What you doing to dark will soon come to light.
10. You won't get far, even if you hide.
11. Yeah.
12. Dog motive, stockbroker, smoke-blowing cockroaches.
13. They gonna shout equality, but demonize the block on us.
14. Treat us like a squad of tourists.
15. Switch up the plot on us.
16. Made jails for wrongdoers, but boxed in the law on us.
17. Put the intestines of a hog on us.
18. Blast us with the fire hose and stick the dog on us.
19. They'll rather see us dead than try and talk to us
20. Then got the nerve to pretend like they out-true us
21. Fool me once, it's shame on ya
22. Fool me twice, it's game over
23. They tryna piss on our leg as they had rained on us
24. Still major slave on us, bust down, chain on us
25. Lamborghini, SUVs, Hellcats, and Range Rovers
26. New war, same soldiers, new forest, same poachers
27. Same Arkham, same Joker, same way enterprise to provoke em
28. We been playing checkers this whole time, they playing poker
29. What you doing to die?
30. I'm Angela Birdsong and I am at Los Angeles Community Action Network, L.A. CAN, and I am sitting here with Jade Aliano, who is one of the housing organizers here at L.A. CAN, project lead at L.A. CAN, and been doing organizing since the age of 19.
31. But we want to hear your story directly from you.
32. So tell me, what is organizing and how did you get involved?
33. Okay, big question.
34. Thank you, Angie.
35. My name is Jade.
36. I use they, them pronouns.
37. Yeah, housing organizer at LACAN.
38. What is organizing?
39. I mean, some people would say, I feel the answer is changing hearts and minds.
40. But essentially, you know, bringing together people who are impacted by an issue or passionate about that issue to create change.
41. And, you know, in order to do that, you need to have strategy.
42. You need to have a theory of change.
43. So it's not so simple, but in a sense it is because if you get enough people together who care about something, you're bound to be able to make some change.
44. And the next question was?
45. Well you know before we get to the next question because the next question is your organizing journey However you know with everything that happening in the current political climate people always say organize and mobilize organize and mobilize So I think the majority of people don understand what that means
46. Some people think, oh, let me go to a protest.
47. I'm organizing.
48. Oh, let me go and vote.
49. I'm organizing.
50. Let me go and do whatever those things are like.
51. But is that organizing or not?
52. Right.
53. I think there is definitely a difference between organizing and mobilizing. When I think about mobilizing, I'm thinking about it doesn't have to be a long term investment. It can be something short, something one time, like you said, attending an action, attending a rapid response kind of event.
54. and typically when you're mobilizing people you're reaching out to people who already agree with the
55. things that you believe so you know if you have a network of people for example that care about
56. housing and there's something sensitive coming up at city hall you can call those people say hey
57. we're mobilizing we're going to city hall we need to give public comment but when i think about
58. organizing i think it really entails a long-term investment in community because you're talking to
59. people who don't already agree with what you believe or don't even know about the issues that
60. you're organizing. They may be impacted by those issues, but might not even fully identify. For
61. example, like when we talk to people living in the residential hotels here in Skid Row about
62. tenants' rights, there are some folks who don't even necessarily off the top of their head think
63. that their rights are being violated. You say, are your rights being violated? They say, well,
64. no, not really. But then they'll go on to talk about how their landlord hasn't done repairs on
65. these really sensitive things for a long time or how, you know, they're all of a sudden management's
66. refusing their rent because they changed it to an app and that's the only way you can pay. So,
67. you know, they have a sense that that's not right, but don't necessarily immediately say,
68. well, my rights are being violated and there's something I need to do about it.
69. Um, so organizing really is bringing those people in to a certain framework, right?
70. Of like, there is an issue, I'm being impacted by it, I care about it, and then I want to
71. do something about it.
72. And it's with this group of folks who are doing things about it, right?
73. Um, it's situated in like a larger analysis about like, why are the people in Skid Row,
74. for example, like, why are their rights being violated?
75. Like, why do we know, what do we know about the history of, you know, organized abandonment in Skid Row, of systemic racism in Skid Row and what that looks like? So yeah, kind of a long answer. But organizing to me is a long term commitment that requires like persistence. You may talk to people and they may slam the door in your face the first couple times, but then something changes, they want to come in, they might be one of your most dedicated members. Mobilizing is like, hey, what's up? I need you to come to City Hall. Great. See you at this time.
76. Okay, so I think we have somewhat of a good understanding about organizing. It's the long game, and mobilization is a short-term action.
77. Right. Whereas right now, when people show up to these protests, whether it's for March for for women's rights and what have you,
78. are showing up because someone has been an armed person killed by the police or even if they're armed,
79. but just killed unjustifiably by by law enforcement showing up to those types of things is mobilization.
80. but organizing is something that you get involved in for the long term.
81. And so before we get into your story right what are some of the key things in organizing Like are you building strategies and goals
82. What does that look like when you first get into an organization?
83. And I guess right now, this is a good time to really go into your organizing story.
84. So let's go into that.
85. And yeah, I want the long story.
86. The long story.
87. Yes.
88. Yeah.
89. Yeah. Well, I guess one more thing about the mobilization piece I wanted to say is that it's not that those things are disconnected.
90. Like mobilizations can be part of a broader organizing strategy, you know, is a great way to bring in more people.
91. So thinking about kind of the relationship between those two things, it really is just like a great way to bring folks in.
92. like what you're thinking of like these big rallies that draw a lot of folks who maybe
93. are lit up around a certain issue that can then be brought into the organizing around like the
94. systemic issues um so yeah my organizing story um it's kind of like a roundabout story i guess i
95. grew up in the inland empire i'm from hemet um and i have like some of my earlier memories of
96. my childhood were around the 08 mortgage crisis. So Hemet, for folks who have not been, is a very
97. small town vibe. It has grown actually substantially with a lot of like housing tracks were built
98. around that time, unfortunately. A lot of like young families moving in, but it still has this
99. very small town vibe. It's very much like agricultural warehouses now, actually. So
100. we're seeing also like Amazon and other large companies kind of moving in on the Inland Empire.
101. But yeah, when I was growing up, there was very small. And then the mortgage crisis hit.
102. And suddenly, a lot of people in our community were unhoused in a way that we had never seen
103. before. You know, it wasn't that we didn't have unhoused folks in our community, but it was more
104. so like a smaller number. A lot of people kind of knew those people were in community with those
105. people. The like very limited services that we did have, you know, seemed to be somewhat serving
106. the need. Although I later learned that they were like very high barrier services that, you know,
107. anyway, but then it seemed overnight, a lot of our neighbors were unhoused. And as a young person,
108. I think I could really clearly see the cause and effect of that. I like, you know, was hearing from
109. my friends that they were having to move away. You know, behind that people were losing their
110. homes, we lost our home, and ended up having to move into, you know, a rental, luckily, right.
111. But then the folks who were already renting who are impacted by just the general recession,
112. a lot of them ended up on the street. And then the story that people were telling in the community
113. around what had happened, around why so many people were unhoused, didn't line up with the
114. thing that we all knew was happening. Like we all saw the recession, were impacted by the rising
115. prices. Many people were impacted by the mortgage crisis. And yet the story that was being told was
116. about criminality and laziness that all these people there on the street because they've made
117. bad decisions. And so to me, I was just really blown away by that because again, it just
118. didn't really make sense. And I didn't understand why that story of criminality was so powerful,
119. was so potent for people that it was the first thing that we wanted to turn to when we needed to describe something difficult that was happening in our community So I in college did my research on different kind of models of services that were
120. going to like address the actual like systemic reasons that folks lose their housing. Like,
121. I got really interested in Housing First as a model, did some research as an undergrad with
122. LA Family Housing and just really like wanted to understand this relationship between like the
123. cultural life of capitalism and like the very material impacts that it has on the way that we
124. structure services and really like the way that that it yeah the material impact it has on people's
125. lives people who are living outside and we know again like research will tell you very easily
126. that like the reason that people are without housing is because of deep housing and affordability
127. is because of poverty. But then again, you know, we are also seeing rampant criminalization of
128. unhoused people, right by ordinances like LA Municipal Code 4118, Gavin Newsom's care courts,
129. Okay, so what is LA Municipal Code 4118?
130. 4118 is essentially the law that allows police sanitation to sweep unhoused people and steal and throw away their possessions.
131. So it says that they can't, you know.
132. it's basically like a combination of laws criminalizing property and laws criminalizing
133. like outdoor camping or loitering um but yeah it functionally it's used to sweep people um
134. and there are different zones that it applies to but it's not legal for la to have like a blanket
135. ban on camping or property in the same way so instead it's all of these zones that have been
136. established. 4118 zones where in those places, you know, however many feet from a loading dock,
137. this many feet from a school, this many feet from a curb cut, this wide of a sidewalk that limits
138. how people can be in public space. But again, the way that they have it structured is it
139. functionally is everywhere. So even though it's not technically a blanket ban, it is a blanket ban.
140. um but yeah that's 41 18 and yeah so laws like that exist across the u.s um i think every major
141. city has at least one but it's more like i don't even know the rap has a lot of data on like how
142. many there are but they did a map of like how many major cities have them and what kinds of
143. cities have them and between the police and the business improvement districts like it's really
144. really difficult if you're an unhoused person to be anywhere in public space right so it's like
145. we're seeing like what the data is telling us oh homelessness is because of poverty and then we're
146. also seeing like rampant criminalization i'm trying to understand the relationship between
147. those things um led me to study housing first um but what i found when i was there in my sophomore
148. year of college um just from my experience doing outreach in the la river helping run the out
149. Wait a minute, you did outreach in the LA River.
150. What is that like?
151. And what is that?
152. I mean, the LA River.
153. Did you guys know that Los Angeles has a river?
154. Right.
155. Well, yeah, there's the river.
156. So, you know, we were in North Hollywood.
157. And for folks who have not seen the LA River, you know, it's concrete.
158. It's a concrete river in a sense.
159. There's a lot of folks, you know, generally the water's low, a lot of folks living in there, living underneath kind of the overpasses there.
160. And actually it was because of the Olympics way back when that people initially got pushed into the L.A. River.
161. Because, you know, with the Olympics, which is happening again, L.A. 28, they're constantly trying to disappear any visible signs of poverty.
162. So, but folks, you know, live there in the river and we were doing outreach to kind of get people into.
163. The idea was to get people to fill out this survey, which is called the Vulnerability Index, which is essentially a survey that will indicate how likely you are to die on the street tomorrow on a scale of 1 to 10.
164. And then using that information puts you into kind of a system that ranks, you know, how quickly you can get services.
165. But it's like a very invasive survey.
166. a lot of people do not want to fill it out especially from like somebody that you don't
167. know like it asks you sensitive questions about like such as um such as you know if you have
168. experienced sexual assault or if you use drugs or um if you've experienced domestic violence those
169. kind of things so you know typically it would be that we would go out and you know build rapport
170. with folks and try to identify what their needs were what they really wanted and then if they did
171. want to go into like a bridge shelter then we would work with them to fill out that survey
172. um what's interesting about that survey is it actually is modeled after a disaster relief
173. um survey that was developed i think in canada it's a long time ago that i did this research
174. um but uh that that was actually intended for the allocation of like supplies during a massive
175. like natural disaster um so even just thinking of that right that our services are modeled after
176. this form of like disaster relief, like homelessness as disaster. But really, when we
177. look at what we know about the affordability crisis, about gentrification, like it isn't in
178. the sense of a natural disaster. It's something that just happens without explanation. We have a
179. really good explanation for what's happening. But yeah, so we would do that. We had an outreach
180. hotline that people could call. I would help monitor that hotline and then I would manage,
181. also not manage, oversee, like, not oversee, shadow, that is the word I'm looking for,
182. intakes at the bridge shelter. So after some of that, I, you know, essentially
183. realized that even through, like, the good intentioned work of, like, the caseworkers,
184. that the system that we were referring people into is just like fundamentally broken.
185. It just felt that like we were trying to like manage this crisis at a level that was like,
186. if we are still existing in a system that criminalizes people for existing,
187. that criminalizes people for being poor, like we really are just doing that like maintenance work
188. that criminalizes people for using drugs, like all of these things that make it really impossible
189. for people to accept services as they are. And so with that kind of led me into thinking about,
190. okay, well, then how do we change the system? How do we get rid of these things?
191. Good question, because that's what I, you know, so you're at this early stage
192. of your organizing career.
193. And what do you see that missing at that point Not the jade right now but the jade back then working at the L River at the bridge shelter seeing the lack of solid competent services to actually put people in permanent housing
194. What was missing?
195. What was the missing link or links?
196. I mean, it was just what I felt like an inability to talk about the social forces at play.
197. I mean, so when I was an undergrad, I was doing anthropology, which is like social science work,
198. but thinking about the culture of capitalism and how we couldn't talk about the ways in which this whole bootstrap theory
199. And even thinking about like neoliberalism, the ways that that was impacting even the stories that we were telling ourselves about the work that we were doing, right?
200. This whole thing of, oh, well, you can't save them all and sort of shifting a lot of the responsibility onto the people that were dealing with these very like intense, very oppressive structural barriers and issues.
201. but the way that we were encouraged to think about it was really like well you know some people
202. they're not ready to be inside when we knew that also a lot of the referrals that we were trying
203. to give like there isn't a lot of housing or there's these very long lists or it's a very
204. complicated process that is not accessible for a lot of people like we're seeing the real barriers
205. but then again similarly to how it was when I was growing up the stories that we're telling
206. ourselves don't necessarily match. And it's kind of trying to soothe that, that guilt of like,
207. for me anyway, that was my experience was trying to soothe that guilt with, with just kind of lies
208. about neoliberal lies about, um, oh, well, you can't save them all. You know, you can only do
209. what you can, but, but, you know, if people are going to, going to do that, that's what they're
210. going to do. And it really shifting, yeah, the responsibility onto the individual. And we forget
211. that, you know, the U.S. government has completely dismantled the social safety net, has completely
212. dismantled public housing as we know it, that it used to be that people who are homeless, like,
213. they're like, oh, they're homeless because they don't have a house, you know? It was after we
214. start seeing the shift from housing as a solution to homelessness as to shelters as a solution to
215. homelessness, and we also start to see the laws criminalizing unhoused people for just being
216. outside and for, you know, quote, refusing shelter for being service resistant. A lot of these
217. other things that also rose up chronically homeless, all of these new terms to describe
218. something that, you know, that it's, it's hard to say if those things have been helpful. I don't,
219. I think that, yeah, I'm getting off topic a little bit. No, no, you know, you're not getting
220. off topic at all because you're bringing us behind the scenes on what's happening with this housing
221. disaster, just starting with the vulnerability evaluation. That right there already tells you
222. that, okay, well, we're not going to be able to house everybody. So if you are at this extreme
223. point of being unhoused then then we can put you in a system to hopefully get you
224. house but if you not as vulnerable we gonna keep you on house because you should be able to manage it some kind of way But whatever the spectrum is people are unhoused and they need housing for whatever the reasons are that keeping them there a little longer than maybe somebody who able to navigate the system or somebody who needs help navigating the system
225. And so now tell me this. You mentioned shelters are becoming the holding spot instead of permanent housing. And we all know why shelters is not a good stop. But for the listening audience, shelters, that's temporary. We're talking about permanent housing.
226. So what's up with the temporary housing solutions here in Los Angeles?
227. Or let's go back to Hemet, right?
228. When you first experienced seeing people becoming unhoused in a huge mass, right?
229. What were the housing options for people then?
230. Shelters or temporary?
231. I mean, so we really only had one shelter in town and it was the Hemet Valley Research Center.
232. Probably still exists, but it was like super high barrier.
233. I think you had to have a form of ID. I think you had to be sober.
234. There might have even been a religious requirement.
235. I don't fully remember, honestly, but it was the only option.
236. and so you know again for people who don't have an ID for example like if you don't have an ID
237. you have to be able to go to the DMV you have to be able to pay the fee to get the ID you have to
238. have a mailing address that then it can be sent to there is a lot of barriers to even getting an ID
239. so if you don't have an ID you can't get into the shelter that's that you know curfew was another
240. thing so yeah there's a lot of reasons that like that shelter didn't work for a lot of people
241. And I'm also assuming it wasn't big enough. Again, like, that was in 2000. And it was really in like 2010 that we started to see like the full effect of what had happened. But yeah, shelters, typically, like a lot of them are high barrier people, you know, you can only have one 10 gallon trash bag full of your all your possessions.
242. You know, people have also reported like, you know, shelters feeling really unsafe, like having, you know, bad interactions, unsafe interactions with shelter workers, like a lot of folks who are just not equipped to like handle that level, like of what's happening in the shelters, you know, like the workers.
243. Yeah, the staffing is another issue.
244. Right, right. Yeah. So there's a whole lot of stuff that surrounds the lack of support and care for our unhoused population.
245. OK, so I'm Angela Birdsong. You listen to Conversation Peace and we will be back with more on Jade Arellano's housing journey with organizing.
246. On Tuesday, the home of Aurora Luz was raided in the early morning hours.
247. Aurora, a nurse from the Philippines, was supplying free healthcare to undocumented workers in
248. Central California.
249. She attacked the agents and managed to escape.
250. So she essentially giving free healthcare to undocumented migrant workers And so you know they had her they surrounded her they got her pinned against the wall and they like you know give us that contact list we want your contact list you know
251. and they got the shotgun with the red beanbag one, and she's like,
252. Tangina mo, I ain't say this, she went like this, he went like this, and she was out there.
253. Look at these out of shape ICE agents, bulletproof vest to go arrest a dying cancer patient,
254. lining up for signing bonuses and weapons, in hopes that you can live more respected,
255. Let's break it down.
256. You gon' have to tell your kids, kids, what you did
257. when they see the Disney movie of what we currently in.
258. You gon' have to tell them that the bad guy in the plot,
259. well, that was your grandpa.
260. That was you chasing down your own people for a check.
261. If you go with racism, homie, say it with your chest.
262. Oh, the value's on the right and the left,
263. long as value is controlled by a salary net.
264. Cause the value that's attached to a reward's not real.
265. If I told you ain't no heaven, would you do right still?
266. And go, what, what, what, what, one, two, one, two.
267. They made you afraid of what brown people are doing.
268. Well, I hope you smarter than they think you are.
269. They think you'll ignore it and go back and swipe and debit cards.
270. Welcome back to Conversation Peace.
271. I'm with Jade Arellano, housing organizer with Los Angeles Community Action Network.
272. Okay, so Jade, just take us through this part real quick.
273. L.A. River, so it started with Hemet as far as your organizing career.
274. Hemet, you saw what's happening.
275. You started to study housing first.
276. then you you're in college you're doing the river how did you end up at rap what does rap stand for
277. western regional you could tell me what the other two letters and acronym is then you went to rights
278. to the city then you found yourself here at la can give it to us so i actually started at the
279. coalition on homelessness in san francisco is how i found rap so after you know my experience in la
280. I was like, yes, okay, we need to be addressing these systemic issues. We need organizing. If
281. we're going to get our way out of this housing crisis, we need to organize. And so then I started
282. looking into different places that that was happening, found the SF Coalition on Homelessness,
283. did some volunteer work with them in college. And then when I graduated college, I was really
284. looking for, yeah, somewhere to land, somewhere to do organizing. And it was actually the coalition
285. that connected me with RAP. I said I talked to Jenny Friedenbach at the Coalition on Homelessness
286. and you know it was just kind of going on my usual rant about neoliberalism. She was like you know
287. you really should talk to Paul. You gotta talk to Paul. So yeah I reached out to Paul Bowden at RAP
288. and it was just yeah an immediate fit really just thinking about RAP. The Western Regional Advocacy
289. Project mission is to eradicate and expose the root causes of homelessness and just has this
290. really sharp analysis of neoliberalism, of how we got here, you know, the destruction of and
291. divestment from public housing, the sort of shift to shelters and the shift to criminalization,
292. tracking criminalization, you know, nationwide being really part of these policy conversations.
293. So yeah, I was the organizing director at RAP for a couple years. And Ellie Kan is the founding
294. member of RAP. So that's also how I met LACAN. We were doing a project about legal defense clinics
295. rooted in organizing bases and came to LACAN to see the legal clinic in action. And so I knew,
296. you know, right away that LACAN was an organization that I wanted to be at and I was going to get
297. there. So while I was in the Bay, though, still, I did work sometime with Right to the City,
298. which is like a national organization,
299. growing kind of an organizing base of renters
300. across the country really
301. Focusing in on tenants' rights, but also thinking about alternative models for housing, community land trusts, those kind of things.
302. But I knew that whole time I really wanted to get back to the local work.
303. So as soon as I came back to L.A. from the Bay Area, coming back home, because I do think that, you know, even the connection between the Inland Empire and L.A. is so close.
304. I feel like it's almost like an excerpt of L.A. just knowing, like, my dad used to commute like three hours to work in L.A. because there just wasn't work.
305. in the IE. And that's the story for a lot of folks. So in a way, it's coming home. But in a way,
306. it's also new. As soon as I got here, you know, started connecting with Pete started volunteering
307. out of the Human and Civil Rights Committee. And yeah, I, you know, I'm working at a like,
308. and now it's a dream. Excellent. Okay, so we went through your, your housing, your housing journey.
309. And the reason why I want people to know, you know, what your housing organizing journey is, is that somebody out there listening may want to get involved some kind of way in organizing in their own community.
310. They're seeing some maybe some different injustices or things that's piquing their curiosity.
311. And they're like, how, you know, and they feel in this this boiling, churning in their in their soul and their spirit like I need to get involved.
312. I need to do something. And here you are. Right.
313. started with seeing people getting displaced because of the housing, the mortgage subprime
314. crisis that was happening in 2008. I remember that very clearly going to the Apple Valley.
315. I'm not sure how far that is from Hemet, but going to the Apple Valley and seeing neighborhoods just
316. empty, which was, you know, was trippy just to go and, you know, neighborhoods that, you know,
317. nice size homes, pools in the backyard and just entire ghost towns. So I can only imagine how
318. that would affect you living in that situation and finding you and your family having to
319. land someplace else. And, you know, thankfully you guys didn't have to experience homelessness,
320. but you had the compassion to see your fellow man and woman to say, hey, I want to get involved in this.
321. So thank you for sharing that part of your organizing journey.
322. So now you're at LA CAN, you're in Skid Row, and you talked about that a little bit at the beginning with LA Municipal Code 4118.
323. and slumlords and what have you.
324. So now here you are.
325. What from your arsenal, from your organizing career,
326. are you bringing to L.A. Can and getting things kick-started here?
327. What's going on?
328. Yeah, I think, I don't know, Angie B.
329. I got to think about it.
330. um well i mean i think it's hard because so much of the dna of rap which is really my you know my
331. first political home i'm still really involved with rap on the board um is being deeply accountable
332. to the community that you're organizing in and having this kind of inverted triangle
333. leadership structure in which you know it really is the community leading um and rap members are are all directly accountable to poor and unhoused people through outreach Outreach is at the core of everything
334. And so, I don't know, I'm not bringing that to L.A. Can because RAP got that from L.A. Can, you know,
335. and so I got it from RAP coming back to L.A. Can and seeing it in action, you know,
336. because RAP is the regional national, so we were not on the doors in the way that we are here at
337. LACAN. But like, having seen that from the national perspective, you know, coordinating the RAP
338. members, coordinating these face-to-face convenings where we can share strategy and we can share
339. kind of the different issues that are affecting us all, and seeing that through line, and then
340. coming to LA Can on the local level, doing the outreach, I think, has only really affirmed the
341. belief and understanding that I have of outreach really as the core to organizing that is
342. accountable and organizing that is effective, because I actually don't think there's a separation
343. between those two things. Accountability isn't something that we just do because it's good to do
344. or because we should do it, but we do it because it's the people that are impacted the most who
345. know the most, who are the experts in their own experience and are going to be the ones to inform
346. the strategy that's going to win. So I don't know if that answers the question, but yeah,
347. I think it's really just that value of outreach and what it does for our organizing. And then,
348. you know, I have some like infrastructural experience, you know, in my time as a,
349. what was my title? National Organizer Infrastructure at Right to the City. Just
350. thinking about this data, the system that we use to track, you know, the work that we're doing,
351. how are we measuring, you know, structurally our organizing container? Like, is it effective? Are
352. we mobilizing people? Are we reaching people? You know, is the political education that we have,
353. is it getting through? How are we seeing that? But a lot of that is also, there's so much a
354. wealth of that here. Even just thinking about the work the Human and Civil Rights Committee is doing
355. right now about around Revive Downtown LA, showing those, you know, decades of experience and
356. knowledge coming out of the LA Can Community Watch model. So, you know, I think I'm bringing
357. things that I'm also like really, really learning and like really advancing here at LA Can.
358. And so what's the current campaign that you're working on as a housing organizer and project lead at LACAN?
359. Yeah. So our big campaign right now is the Slumlord campaign. Essentially, there were a lot of the residential hotels in this community that are, you know, for people who don't know about the residential hotels, they're like deeply affordable housing in Skid Row.
360. A lot of folks there are, you know, paying maybe like a couple hundred dollars or even zero dollars sometimes in rent or maybe only on GR, only on, you know.
361. And there are also people paying market rate in those units.
362. It just kind of depends.
363. But like it is kind of, you know, it's very affordable housing here.
364. Historically, it exists because we fought for it to continue to exist because we won the residential hotel ordinance that protects those buildings.
365. 55 year covenants on those buildings.
366. Right.
367. But a lot of them were owned by the Skid Row Housing Trust, which was a nonprofit owner that kind of went belly up.
368. Then all the properties went into receivership.
369. The conditions got really, really terrible.
370. They were bought by a slumlord, Leo Pistilnikov.
371. He owns 21 of them.
372. 17 are currently occupied.
373. And we just seen really horrible habitability issues complete lack of security no safety Those are separate things but no access to mail which for folks who don know is a major major issue when it comes to
374. preserving your housing when you need to recertify under a voucher program once a year.
375. and yeah so tenants came to LA Can and told us about these conditions we started doing outreach
376. in all of the buildings that he owns to you know even more deeply identify the issues bring more
377. people in and that's when we built our campaign you know we our three demands are to immediately
378. restore, you know, security, but in a sense, security that hasn't existed before, because
379. what we're looking for is security that protects tenants, not property, you know, to have immediate
380. and lawful mail delivery and to address all of these habitability concerns with seeing just like
381. major structural issues, leaks, mold, infestations, literal ceilings falling in. So those kind of
382. major things need to be addressed immediately. Those are the demands of our Sun Lord campaign.
383. And we've been seeing some real progress. You know, we brought Isabel Jurado from CD14 here
384. to LACAN to hear from the tenants what their experiences were. And she's pledged to, among
385. other things, create a task force with LACAN members to help us address the issues in the
386. residential hotels. We got an elevator fix that was broken for two years. Wait a minute, two years.
387. Well, okay, so let's just slow up a little bit. So the organizing that's been happening at L.A. CAN, you guys were able to bring in Council Member Isabel Jurado, the tenants, you and the tenants worked together to make that happen.
388. And you also got a elevator repaired that was broken for two years.
389. Tell me about that.
390. And look, Conversation Peace family, KPFK listeners, you should be leaning in hard to the radio.
391. because I know that you can't even imagine if the elevator in your building or even in your office was down for two years.
392. How do people survive?
393. Yeah, so the elevator was down for two years starting, you know, when the building was still owned by Skid Row Housing Trust and even into the receivership.
394. I think we talked to the tenants there at the Rossmoor Hotel.
395. the building um and they had said maybe it was working for like one day or two days in that
396. period um leo still nakav purchased the building i think october of 2025 and at that time it was
397. still broken we immediately brought it to his attention uh continued to be broken until
398. i think the first week of april it was like a week before we had our town hall with cd14
399. but yeah the tenants on the third floor and the second floor who are using who use mobility aids
400. or who just have difficulty climbing like three flights of stairs you know really struggled
401. especially like I said people who are using wheelchairs one of our tenants just hadn't been
402. outside in two years and people who were in his community he was like very avid bingo player
403. they thought he had passed away. They actually started just turning up to the building to see
404. if he had died because he just disappeared from his own life And he survived by you know his IHSS worker his daughter his neighbors bringing him groceries Luckily he was able to take some
405. medical appointments at home, but others he would just have to miss. And yeah, we were able to get
406. the elevator back working through a combination of direct action. We had an action at the Rossmore,
407. the Lincoln and the produce, you know, demanding all of our demands, but especially in front of
408. the Rossmore that the elevator be fixed. We were reaching out to LHD, LADBS, Congressman Jimmy
409. Gomez, CD14. Oh my gosh, we reached out to the Accessible Housing Program. We talked to Disability
410. Rights California. We were really talking to anybody who would listen about this elevator
411. with the knowledge that, you know, the Rossmore case is extreme, but all of these buildings have
412. major issues related to accessibility. And whether it's elevators, whether it's the ADA lift,
413. even just really unsafe, uneven stairs, we're seeing at a lot of the buildings too. So,
414. you know, lifting up the issue at the Rossmoor, but across the campaign, you know, accessibility,
415. especially for disabled folks and for folks who are seniors, it's a major issue. So a flashpoint
416. of our campaign and a huge victory. That tenant that lived on the third floor, who still lives
417. there, he's lived there for 23 years, got to come to our town hall and tell the council member
418. face to face, you know, that these are the issues that I'm dealing with. You know, this,
419. this was my life. I was trapped in my unit. And for folks who've seen these units in the
420. single room occupancy hotels, they are not that big. You know, so yeah, that was a huge victory.
421. What's next? How can people find LACAN who may find themselves similarly situated, not knowing what their rights are, or maybe needing help with evictions and what have you? What can they do?
422. um yeah so what i will always say um for folks who are concerned about an eviction absolutely
423. reach out to us if we can't address it at the legal clinic which we have on the first and third
424. wednesdays um we definitely through stay housed la can figure out some resources for folks um yeah
425. who are dealing with evictions. And we have seen just so many unjust and illegal evictions,
426. especially with this landlord, Leo Pasilnikov. You know, we have a member who has now had three
427. evictions, who has fought and won three evictions in one year only, right? And so that's just
428. incredibly draining to have to deal with that many evictions. I mean, you got to go to court,
429. You have to spend all this time. And if you mess up or if you miss a date, then, you know, the court will rule default in favor of the landlord. Right. So really what we're also talking about when we're talking about these evictions is we're talking about tenant harassment.
430. So another thing that we have here at LA Cannons, we have our workshops on the tenant anti-harassment ordinance.
431. So definitely reach out to us about those.
432. Essentially, this ordinance is something that we and other community-based organizations fought for.
433. And one is a very strong definition of what it means when landlords harass tenants.
434. Anything from, you know, thinking about reduction of services, failure to make timely repairs, outright intimidation, you know, and bad faith, really, on behalf of the landlord.
435. So we're fighting the event.
436. evictions on the one hand, but then we're also keeping the documentation of all of these different
437. actions from the landlord to think about how can we understand this truly as harassment, right? It's
438. not an unjust eviction a lot of times because, oh, the landlord doesn't know what you can evict
439. someone for. I don't think that's the case. I mean, you have three unjust evictions in one year.
440. You know, I mean, hey, I'll let you go to the workshop and hear about the law about whether
441. or not that's harassment. But, you know, the tenant anti-harassment ordinance is something
442. that we are really working to educate people about because landlords are counting on the
443. fact that tenants do not know that they have these rights. And, you know, knowing your rights
444. is one thing. What we always say is, you know, know your rights, know your fight, right? We
445. have these rights. We need to also fight for the enforcement of the law. And we also need to fight
446. beyond the law, right? And that's where we come into our organizing fight, right? We're not,
447. Even when it comes down to our legal clinic, right?
448. We, of course, are fighting to stop people from getting unjustly evicted.
449. But we're also fighting for our vision for housing, which is so much bigger than just
450. stopping people from getting evicted, right?
451. Some part of our vision, when we're thinking with our, you know, members and with tenants
452. about what is it that we want, things like tenant ownership come up, right?
453. Like we're thinking bigger than just preventing somebody from getting evicted, but then they
454. still have to live in these conditions.
455. So, yeah, I think the legal clinic is huge. Stay House LA is a great resource for anyone, especially folks not in our immediate area. The tenant anti-harassment ordinance is something we absolutely all should know about. But really, we should all also be tapped in with organizing, right, with building power in community such that we don't have to fight, you know, however many unjust evictions come through our legal clinic, I couldn't even say, every first and third Wednesday.
456. with the legal clinics
457. who can come to legal clinic
458. so anyone in LA County
459. can come to the legal clinic
460. and you can also always give us a call
461. at our front desk if you're not sure
462. that it's something you should come into the legal clinic for
463. our phone number is
464. 213-228-0024
465. you should also check out
466. the Stay House LA website
467. they have a lot of resources that you can read
468. but again there's a lot of resources
469. in LA if you're dealing with an eviction
470. There's also the Eviction Defense Network, who to this day has not turned anyone away for, you know, eviction services if you go through their TEP program. So there's a lot of tenant empowerment program. Yes. So I guess TEP program is redundant. But if you go through TEP, then they can help you out as well.
471. So really, yeah, there's a lot of services, but really emphasizing the point around to that we are organizing to get to a point where we don't need to have these services.
472. And we're organizing even thinking about my role as a housing organizer.
473. Like I'd like to dream of organizing myself out of a job, like, you know, to a point where we have achieved our vision of housing justice and go off and do something else.
474. I don't know. I mean, right. So earlier, you know, just a few minutes ago, you were saying that the tenants share their vision of what housing looks like and what the community will look like.
475. What are some of the other things that they shared with you? Yeah. I mean, when we think about housing, too, we think about a broad vision of housing.
476. It not just the structural the house or the building that we live in but we really thinking about the community as well So like people have shared visions of a community garden you know green spaces of public safety
477. infrastructure, like how our, you know, disabled community members are a lot of times not able to
478. access parks. There's nowhere for them to like park near these parks if they drive or like even
479. thinking about curb cuts, like crosswalks, light, like street lights, you know, just things that
480. would make the community feel more like a community are also part of our housing vision.
481. But, you know, yeah, collective ownership has come up. Thinking about, too, like co-governance,
482. you know, how can tenants really be meaningfully brought into the places that they live? Because
483. they have such a great stake in how these places are, you know, deeper than the management,
484. most definitely, who will be there from 9-5, if that, right? A lot of these buildings that
485. Leo, the stillman co-owns also have very spotty management practices. Maybe the manager is there one day a week, two or three hours. Right. So tenants are really feeling that the buildings are abandoned. People are also feeling, you know, that in the community, you know, when we're seeing services like the refresh spot or even the bathrooms, you know, the threat of those being taken away.
486. is it's the organized abandonment of our community.
487. And so our vision for housing is the opposite of that.
488. It's investment in our community.
489. Okay, well, you know, we're almost out of time.
490. I think we only have a few minutes left.
491. But, you know, thank you so much for taking this time with me today
492. and just, you know, sharing what organizing is compared to mobilization
493. and what your organizing journey has been and what's happening in downtown Los Angeles with the housed population down here.
494. You know, I always understand that there's more housed people in Skid Row than there are unhoused.
495. And whenever I tell people that they're always shocked because you don't know that unless you're down here every day.
496. I do want to ask you one more real quick question.
497. And that means a quick answer if you can.
498. What do you like about Skid Row?
499. What's some of the joys down here?
500. I think for me the joys are walking around and just seeing neighbors that you know and like
501. you know just staples of the community I'm thinking of like Stephanie who like lives in
502. in this large white tent we call the White House and she's just like such a vibrant like center
503. for people people come to her who are new to the neighborhood and you know asking for help and
504. she comes to LA Can and kind of carries news between here and there she's one of the members
505. of our downtown women's action coalition um thinking about like cake man who you know is
506. famous i think there's a documentary about cake man but he has just the most incredible cake
507. and his wife makes it and he goes around sells it and you just see him and seeing like folks from
508. the rossmore like walking down to the hippie kitchen which is across the street and just
509. saying good morning like just seeing people and like i think what we think about a lot we think
510. about Skid Row here at LA Can is that Skid Row is a permanent place It is a place that will always be here It is defined by our community members who want to be here who have lived here for you know we have tenants who lived in their units not in their building in their units you know for 30 plus years Right
511. And so we refuse to be banished. We refuse to be erased. And seeing the vibrant community that is here just is such a huge, to me, it's a huge cue to these people. I'm sorry, I can't say that.
512. No, you can't say that, but that's okay.
513. Well, to me, it's resistance to these people like the CCA
514. and they have this plan, revive downtown LA to get rid of the community.
515. You're never going to get rid of the community.
516. The community is here every day on the block saying good morning.
517. Jade, thank you so much for your time today.
518. I'm Angela Birdsong, and you're listening to Conversation Peace.
519. Wait, wait, wait, wait.
520. Hold up.
521. We are not getting out of here without saying happy birthday to a real one.
522. On this day, May 2nd, 19...
523. Made you jump, huh?
524. Nah, I'm not going to do that to you, my sister.
525. Our host, Angela Birdsong, was born into this world, and we want to take a second today on her birthday to celebrate her.
526. Angie spends all day, every day, not just on the radio, giving back and serving the people of Los Angeles.
527. So we figured we'd let some of them pop on and tell her a little bit of what she means to them.
528. Happy birthday, Birdsong. I just want to take a minute to lift you up and give you your flowers.
529. on this special day and on your Earth Day.
530. And I want to let you know that we love you and we appreciate you.
531. We appreciate the way you move through the world,
532. the intention that you carry, the care, the love, the wisdom you give,
533. all the work that you're doing on the radio and at LACAN.
534. You know, you're really creating space.
535. You're creating a platform for issues that are so important to our well-being
536. and the way you organize and the whole people down here.
537. We feel you, we see you, we love you.
538. In a world that feels upside down and feels so heavy, you really bring a calmness and an elegance that just bolsters everything around you.
539. You are truly a gift, sis.
540. So I want to thank God and your parents for you.
541. And I hope that this year hands you all of the things that you've been given out.
542. Peace, joy, love, laughter, all the abundance that your spirit deserves.
543. So keep shining, have a blessed birthday and many, many more.
544. Love you, Angie B.
545. Happy birthday, Angie.
546. Happy birthday, Angie.
547. We love you.
548. Love you.
549. Happy birthday, Angie.
550. I love you.
551. This is Charlie Muhammad calling for Angela Birdsong.
552. Angela, happy birth anniversary.
553. I pray you're having a blessed day.
554. Thank God for your mother and your father for committing you by God's grace.
555. I love you, Angie.
556. And keep being the beautiful, great, light, shiny that you are.
557. you are a blessing and I so honored to be considered your sister Happy birthday NGV Happy birthday NGV
558. Happy birthday NGV
559. Happy Birthday to you
560. Happy Birthday NGV
561. NGV what up
562. We love you out here
563. It's your birthday, NGV
564. Got a little thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump for you, my sister.
565. And again.
566. Happy birthday to you.
567. Happy birthday to you.
568. Happy birthday.
569. Happy birthday to you.
570. Happy birthday to you.
571. Love you, Auntie B.
572. Peace out.
573. One love.
574. Happy birthday, my sister.
575. And now, back to your regularly scheduled outro.
576. Thank you to my Conversation Peace guest, Jade Arellano,
577. housing organizer with the Los Angeles Community Action Network, LACAN.
578. Thank you to our KPFK audio engineer, Adam Rice for editing the show,
579. and Michael Washington of M. Wash Soul for the opening and closing theme song.
580. And always you, our listening audience.
581. I'm Angela Birdsong.
582. Once again, thank you for allowing me to share this special experience
583. of Conversation Peace with you.
584. Remember to be on guard, stand firm in the faith,
585. be brave, be courageous,
586. and let all that you do be done with love.
587. Next, Freedom Now.
588. René Goiffon, a man deeply immersed in music,
589. came to the U.S. from France to give birth to his vision,
590. the critically acclaimed and award-winning label Harmonia Mundi USA
591. and its subsidiaries World Village and World Jazz.
592. Over the years, this led to many artists making notable entries into the international music scene.
593. I'm Yatrika Shahraiz.
594. Join me on Wednesday, June 10th for an exceptional three-hour program
595. of widely eclectic and gorgeous music on the Global Village,
596. celebrating the important legacy of René Goiffon,
597. who left us on April 18, 2026.
598. That's Wednesday, June 10, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
599. on the Global Village on 90.7 FM KPFK Los Angeles
600. and streaming online at kpfk.org.
601. And all the strength the ship has been.
602. Hello, beautiful souls and cosmic travelers.
603. Support for KPFK comes in part from the band Definitely Dead,
604. a Grateful Dead tribute band performing Friday, June 12th at Del Mar Social,
605. located at 3444 Trip Court in San Diego, California,
606. and Saturday, June 13th at the El Rey Theater in Los Angeles.
607. Open at 7pm and both shows begin at 8pm.