Organizer Expects Rent Strike to Widen

The organizer of a rally in support of rent-striking families in Santa Ana and Anaheim that drew about 2,000 people to Madison Park in Santa Ana Saturday said the movement could spread to Garden Grove’s Buena-Clinton area next month.

Several families from Buena-Clinton, considered Orange County’s worst slum, attended the rally after strikers went door to door in the area last week distributing flyers, said Nativo Lopez, a member of the recently formed Alliance for Fair Redevelopment in Santa Ana, which organized the event.

The group is suing the city and the developer of a luxury downtown condominium project, in what it says is an effort to spur Santa Ana to offer more housing for low-income residents. City officials say that Santa Ana does more to provide affordable housing than any other city in Orange County and that a tentative housing report released last week offers a plan to provide up to 1,000 housing units for low-income people in the next five years.

“I expect by October there will be a strike in Buena-Clinton,” Lopez said.

Those attending the rally were treated to free tortillas with chicken, rice and beans, and balloons provided by local merchants. A color television was raffled off. Workers also distributed the red and black flags used by strikers.

Lopez said he expects an increase in the number of families striking, now about 500.