1 Tenant’s Action Led to Rent Strike by 300

Alfredo Torres had put up with leaky faucets, a faulty stove and rats so noisy that they kept his wife and four children awake at night, he said. But after six months without hot water he put his foot down. In November, he quit paying the $350 monthly rent on his one-bedroom Santa Ana apartment.

“I had my back against the wall. What could I have done? I have my family to consider. We deserve better,” said Torres, who works as a $4.50-an-hour television cabinet assembler.

And so what began as a protest by Torres and a few fellow tenants has grown into a rent strike by more than 300 tenants in buildings owned by Torres’ landlord.

Remarkably, community organizers say, most of the protesters are illegal aliens, a group long considered too timid to stand up against abuses because of fear of deportation. Latino community organizers optimistically view the current strike as a breakthrough.

Put Roots Down

“You can’t discount these people as transitory residents anymore, because they’re rooted,” said Nativo Lopez of Hermandad Mexicana Nacional (National Mexican Brotherhood), an immigrant rights group that helped organize the rent strike.

Still, Lopez is fearful that an angry landlord might notify immigration authorities demanding action. Because of those fears, he is reluctant to say how many residents taking part in the rent strike are illegals.

At the moment, the strikers seem to winning.

Since they announced their strike Feb. 4, Santa Ana has filed two lawsuits against landlord Carmine Esposito to force him to fix the buildings. A task force of city inspectors had previously found the building in which the Torres family lives, and five others owned by Esposito, to be substandard.

Rita Hardin, in charge of Santa Ana’s housing code enforcement program, said that before Esposito’s tenants decided to withhold rents, he had ignored the city’s warnings to fix up the properties.

“After they announced the strike, though, he came in the the very next day, well almost the next day, and filed plans to fix up four of the six buildings out there,” Hardin said.

Meaningful Action

“I don’t believe that my words (warnings) were meaningful to him until the city posted a notice to vacate on his property and the tenants organized to withhold rent.”

Esposito, who has said he could lose $28,000 a month from withheld rents, could not be reached for comment. But his attorney, Terence L. Calder, said Esposito is trying to borrow $80,000 to $100,000 to pay for repairs.

This week, Esposito gave striking tenants three days to pay their rent or face eviction. Calder said he will wait at least two weeks, however, to file unlawful detainers.

As for the strikers, Calder said, “We want to meet and negotiate with any legal representative the tenants have.”

The action by Esposito’s tenants dovetails with a drive by Santa Ana to rid the city of blighted housing.

Wilson Hart, a Santa Ana city councilman, said he is gratified to see the residents assert their rights despite a “mortal” fear of eviction or, worse yet, deportation.

“I don’t view the tenants as different than any other segment of our community,” Hart said. “Whether we like it or not those folks are Santa Ana residents. They’re going to be with us for as long as one can imagine. I think the sooner we understand that, the better we’ll be.”

Illegal Alien Residents

Almost half of Santa Ana’s 200,000-plus residents are Latino. Illegal aliens are estimated at 20,000 to 50,000, according to police, immigration officials and other sources. Hart and his colleagues support a policy announced in 1983 by Police Chief Raymond Davis of refusing to assist immigration officers, except in a peacekeeping capacity, during sweeps of illegal immigrants.

A city program to give up to $1,500 in relocation assistance to each family forced to move because of condemnations has been approved. The usual requirement that aid go to “U.S. citizens” has been amended to read, “city residents.”

In addition, Orange County Legal Aid has decided to use about $250,000 from a special fund for legal services for “any low-incomed resident” affected by Santa Ana’s housing crackdown, said Legal Aid director Robert Cohen.

“We will no longer ask questions about legal or immigration status,” Cohen said.