On Friday, Nov 28, tenants at the 520 Mariposa building organized a day-long protest to stop the renovations and apartment viewings of vacant units, in an effort to leverage the landlords, Alpine/K3 Management to follow through with their demands, one of which is repairing the damages to occupied units. These tenants are members of the K3 Tenant Councils, who for the past year have been filing RSO complaints and health violation requests to the city agencies and Alpine, but no follow-ups or acknowledgments have been made. Despite living in the ‘renters district’ of LA the political structure has done nothing to intervene to support renters in Mariposa. As Sam Trinh, one of the tenant organizers says during an interview with local KTLA reporter, “we [the tenants] live in the ‘renters district’, as Nury Martinez said [on the infamous recording]. The politicians are not doing anything, they are instead laughing at us.”

Standing alongside the tenants were other local organizations like LA MAS and LATU unions, members from East Hollywood, Boyle Heights, South Central, etc., came show solidarity and support the demonstration.

So together with local groups, tenant organizers, and the organized tenants themselves they stopped the construction process, even some construction workers demonstrated support for the demonstration. LATU organizers offered to employ the workers to do repairs on the active units, instead of working for the landlord neglecting their tenants’ safety and homes.

They shared coffee and conversations with one another, and chanted in unison, “NO MORE BUSINESS AS USUAL!”

The details of the situation and their campaign is found on their website and Instagram.

Here is a brief synopsis of the situation laid out by the Mariposa Tenants and organizers themselves

In response to the landlord’s comment on the news about the situation at Mariposa -

“If it wasn't obvious, K3's rapid-fire PR response to the incidents at 520 Mariposa was a whole lotta nothing. Let's examine the lies.

The flooding was reported to management on October 15, not 16.

To this day, the cardboard is still in place in 209's ceiling and remediation has not started. The tenant's emails requesting immediate action have been ignored.

After 408 rejected the rent increase in order to move into a vacant unit, K3 rescinded that offer and is now offering a hotel reservation.

K3 has a history of offering impacted tenants hotel reservations under their own unilateral control, ending the reservation prematurely, and then forcing tenants to move back into units that are not thoroughly remediated. K3 does not want to relocate tenants (whose apartments they destroyed) to other vacant units, because they want to show and rent those out to market-rate tenants. K3 is already advertising and showing those apartments.

On top of that, 408 has a disability which makes a hotel stay impossible, yet K3 is pressuring the tenant to accept the hotel stay. K3 is discriminating against the tenant in violation of the federal Fair Housing Amendments Act, and California's Fair Employment and Housing Act & Disabled Persons Act.

In a written letter to 408, K3 downplayed their responsibility for the flooding (they describe it as a "leak"), attributing it to "faulty toilet hose put in place by the previous owner" and claiming it was "unrelated to any legal construction occurring at the property."

K3 is currently pressuring the tenant to move out of 408 and accept the hotel reservation, where K3 would have total control over the tenant's housing.

The 520 Mariposa Tenants Association categorically REJECTS these pressure tactics to displace tenants."