Tacoma Tenants Launch Fourth Union
In the face of decaying homes and increasing rents, Tacoma tenants have started to build the power to fight back against absentee landlords.
Kenny is a self-proclaimed “hot head.” Living with mold, leaking windows and holes in the walls of his Newcastle Apartment haven’t done much to calm him down — then his landlord banned his cat, and he’s not the only one. “Everybody’s pissed, but I’ve got a certain righteous fury that’s downright biblical, man,” he said when speaking with the Seattle Worker. Kenny and the residents of the Newcastle Apartment Tenant Union (NTU) are banding together and demanding satisfaction. They are but one of four tenant unions that have launched in the last several months in Tacoma.
Unionized Tacoma tenants are following in the footsteps of New York Apartments Tenant Union (NYTU), Tacoma’s first tenant union, which launched December of last year. Newcastle Tenant Union, New York Apartments Tenant Union, and recently launched North Slope Tenant Union (NSTU) are a part of the same portfolio owned by absentee landlords Ann Linborn, Rob Hoover, and Candy Hoover. All together, these unions make up roughly 75% of tenants in Hoover-Linborn owned properties, and control $50,000 in monthly income to their landlords. For reference, the Hoovers own over $22 million dollars worth of property in Pierce County, a yacht, an art gallery, and a permanent residence in Huntington Beach, California. The cost of repairs is not beyond them.
“My neighbors have gone entire winters without heat. We’ve gone weeks without hot water. We’ve been forced to pay, sometimes more than half our monthly income on apartments with caved-in ceilings, mold-infested walls, rotted floors, and windows that do little to deter weather and pests,” said NYTU member Francis Faye. The aforementioned unions, as well as The McIlvaine Apartment Tenant Union (MTU) have all submitted demands to negotiate with the landlords directly, remedy the violations, and advocate for better conditions.
Only the NYTU demand letter has received a response from the then-serving (but since fired) management company, Elevate Property Management. The response explained that as the law does not require them to fulfill many of the demands they will not. These demands include, among other things: standardizing rental rates, allowing current and future tenants to keep pets in their units, and their right to organize. Additionally, Elevate said communication would exist through management and individual tenants, and not through the landlords.
Hoover and Linborn fired Elevate shortly after the NYTU launched. According to Union residents, an Elevate employee told them the company was dismissed from managing the properties following their fulfillment of multiple maintenance requests resulting in “overspending” on maintenance for buildings. Many of the maintenance requests have been left unresolved.
While the NYTU did not receive a response to their demands, they did receive a cease and desist letter claiming they were doxing the Hoovers and Linborn, and that ANTIFA groups were sharing their address online. The closest thing to evidence of this is that their Huntington Beach work address was released to the press to exemplify them being absentee landlords. They also claimed that the renters were already on a rent strike. They are not.
The fate of Elevate and their initial response echoes the sentiments of Hoover, Linborn, and other absentee landlords. They do not recognize the authority of the union, and they will hold the line on providing substandard minimum care to their properties and tenants, even if it means getting rid of people to do it.
Another case took place in the St. James Apartments also in Tacoma. After paying for a mold inspection, Kathryn Foster’s primary doctor advised her to throw out her belongings and leave her apartment because of the high levels of mold. Foster moved, but was too late however, and she is now permanently disabled. “My life is nowhere near what it was …I’m on welfare. I’m sitting here trying to find out how to get food stamps. I now can’t drive myself because I [have] these seizures where my body tightens up. I’m now cheering that I can walk 10 minutes on a treadmill,” Foster told The Tacoma News Tribune. Foster subsequently sued The Neiders Company, who owns the molded apartment on 821 South Yakima along with another 15 properties in Tacoma for damages. The case was settled out of court in favor of Foster.
Foster is lucky to have gotten any money from her former landlord who allegedly caused irreparable damage to her body and life. The advocacy group Tacoma for All, who helped to organize the NYTU, has door knocked units across Tacoma and heard from countless tenants experiencing problems similar to those in the unionized apartments and Foster’s former building. One such unit, rampant with mold, houses a family of four children and a dog. The family has had to rent a storage unit for their children’s belongings so they don’t lose them to mold exposure. The children have no choice but to sleep surrounded by mold. One child has developed a cough from it.
Renters are often threatened with rent increases when they file maintenance requests so that landlords can foist the cost of repairs. However, monthly rent already includes all needed repairs. Increasing rent to pay for repairs is just a way for landlords to extract more wealth from their tenants. It is indignifying at best and legal theft at worst. “When you buy these old buildings, fixing them is a responsibility. It is something you keep up,” said NCTU member Isaac Galvon.
A part of the organizing committee for his building, Galvon believes every apartment complex in Tacoma should be unionized. “We don’t want that to be the end of it. If we have negotiations with the landlord and get what we want, we aren’t going to stop there. Because that doesn’t help Tacoma. We are trying to set a precedent throughout Tacoma.” With nearly half of Tacoma being renters, Galvon continued, “we want Tacoma to be a tenant union town so that everyone is respected as a tenant. The more tenant unions that pop up in Tacoma, or Olympia and Seattle, the better because there’s less places for landlords to go out and abuse people.”
If you were to ask any of Tacoma’s tenant union members, they’d tell you starting a tenant union doesn’t take much. “It’s just neighbors helping neighbors,” NTU members Maggie and Scott told the Seattle Worker. “That’s what union is all about and what solidarity is all about. And it inspired people to work together, and that’s what I like about it. That’s what we need.”