Since 2020, no tenant living in a rent-controlled building in LA is safe from the pressures of management, coercive Cash for Keys offers, and rent increases validated underneath the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act. The K3 Holdings tenants were confronted with this reality particularly rough, many of the renters in these buildings are monolingual Spanish speaking immigrants, but after constant harassment and coercion from the buildings’ “retenanters”, who threaten to deport them, evict them, and scare them to turn in their keys for blackmail money, many have now settled on the periphery of LA in an effort to escape the violent campaign of the corporate landlords and their lackies in the inner city. Still the rest of the veteran immigrant residents that remained behind have begun to form a counter measure to stop the landlord incursions, with the support of their new gentrifier neighbors dedicated to solidarity and the guidance of the local tenant organizers of the LATU network, these once vulnerable and divided tenants have transformed into one of the most consolidated tenant alliances with the power to organize and leverage their necessities onto their slumlords and lackies. This formation is called: The K3 Tenant Councils.
Initiated as a LATU committee effort, the two-year strong campaign started in late 2020 has now organized tenants in 17 different K3 holdings (primarily in Koreatown), with currently one established tenant association in the 727 Mariposa building. After painstaking demonstrations, legal litigation, eviction defenses, and counter agitation onto the K3 coordinating landlords, particularly Nathan and Michael Kadisha who represent the interest of 20+ anonymous stake owners are starting to concede to councils demands.
Sam Trinh an active organizer of the campaign wrote in their article accounting the experience of the K3 organizing struggle, “K3’s social standing was obliterated, and our material wins were immediate. Soon after the demonstration, our building got weekly cleaning services for the first time in almost a year, and in another building, they started replacing refrigerators on the requests of long-term tenants (unheard of).” The struggle continues and to this day the K3 Tenant Councils meet and plan to advance their campaigns, recruiting in more tenants, forming more tenant associations, supporting tenants on rent strike, and defending tenants regardless of their affiliation to the council from attempted evictions.
Read about the details of their campaign in these articles, an insider perspective written by Sam Trinh, RECLAIMING SPACE FOR TENANT POWER: The War With K3 Holdings, the K3 official website accounting their history, K3 Council Tenant Council: Origins, and a report written by City Watch writers, Corps and Landlords Try to Destroy Rent Control, Tenants Unite.
If you attend a tenant meeting in Seoul Park or went to the recent Labor Day picnic in Mid-city you would feel the power and enthusiasm in the air. The fearlessness of people united in solidarity together is a impactful experience, during the picnic at the park the organizers in a symbolic gesture set up a custom-made pinata of Michael Kadisha for the children of the tenants to beat down, in an effort to exploit the sweets tucked into the form of this caricature (just like they leverage Kadisha to give up the goods). In meaningful ways the tenants demonstrate they are not scared of their exploiters anymore, in full display they confirm the leftist proverb and chant, “El Pueblo Unido, Jamás Será Vencido”.