Cosmic Water
Exploring the history, mythology, and future of the sacred land called San Antonio
Cosmic Water
Tenant Union Organizing in San Antonio's Public Housing w/ James Hamilton
When the homes we treasure become battlegrounds for survival, where do we turn? Hear from James Hamilton, a tenant organizer with an intimate grasp of San Antonio's public housing struggles, who joins us on Cosmic Water Podcast to unveil the stories etched into the walls of Opportunity Home Public Housing. His compelling narrative reveals the challenges faced by residents fighting for dignity and justice. Together, we trace the lineage of public housing, from its segregated inception to the modern-day battles against evictions and systemic indifference.
Tensions rise as our conversation shifts to the front lines of tenant advocacy, a realm where victories are hard-fought and every triumph is a testament to the relentless spirit of those who call these projects home. Discover how assembling United can shake the seats of power and lead to the ousting of authority figures entrenched in the housing system. James’s experience brings to light the undercurrents of politics and policy that shape the fabric of San Antonio's communities.
The final chord of our discussion strikes a note of empowerment, highlighting the transformation that blooms from grassroots efforts and neighborly dialogues. We illuminate the path to change, from the simple act of reaching out to a neighbor to standing at the podium of "Citizens to be Heard," where every voice weaves into the collective narrative of San Antonio's future. As we conclude, we extend an open invitation to you, our listeners, to join the chorus of citizens championing the cause, because every story, including yours, has the power to rewrite the next chapter in our city's history.
As the cosmos connects the universe, water connects life. At the Cosmic Water Podcast, we're exploring the history, mythology and future of the sacred land known as San Antonio. Alright, welcome to Cosmic Water Podcast. I'm Maureen, I'm Angela and today we have James Hamilton with us, the notorious SAHA slash opportunity home tenant organizer.
Speaker 3:James, if you want to start off with just kind of giving us your history with San Antonio, yes, my name is James Hamilton, stringer reporter, slash, podcaster, and I was born and raised here in San Antonio, and I currently live in Opportunity Home, San Antonio, a place that's notorious for lies, genocide and all kinds of wrongdoing across the city.
Speaker 1:Opportunity Home is the new name for San Antonio's public housing authority, which was formerly SAHA, San Antonio Housing Authority. They changed it when they got a new CEO. And tell me, James, how do you feel about that name change?
Speaker 3:Well, you know, opportunity Home is supposed to be the renaming and rebranding of the San Antonio Housing Authority. They say it's a new beginning, a new chance for opportunities for everyone, but the only opportunities that's being offered is opportunities to discriminate, opportunities to allow people to die in their homes, opportunities to evict people without reason.
Speaker 1:I have a long history of oppression, which I guess becomes easy to do when you put all of the city's most vulnerable people into particular localities. I don't know. What do you think about that?
Speaker 3:Well, you know one thing I do notice that segregation still exists in San Antonio, and Opportunity Home is notorious for placing people in red light districts in order for them to not have the opportunities they normally would have and to put their residents in danger.
Speaker 1:James, your grandmother lived at Victoria Courts right.
Speaker 3:That's correct.
Speaker 1:And you were just on the phone before this with a reporter from the San Antonio Observer, just like an East Side newspaper right, yes. Could you kind of explain what you were just saying, that that reporter was telling you? James and I organized together with the San Antonio Tenants Union specifically for public housing tenants, and so James was on the phone with a reporter talking about that and the reporter gave you some information. I was wondering if you could.
Speaker 3:So the San Antonio Housing Authority, aka Opportunity Home, san Antonio has a history of locking up black and brown people through drug rates. This was things that was happening since the 1980s and probably even before that. They were raid these homes and there's usually family units, mothers with children, and they would drag people out and hog time out in the yard and they would cut furniture open with razors and if they find a rock of crack, cocaine or fentanyl or any other type of drug, these children would get lengthy sentences. There were children that was arrested in the 1980s that are still in prison today.
Speaker 1:And you witnessed.
Speaker 3:I witnessed this myself. I think I was like eight or nine years old, sitting on my grandmother's porch and watching these people being dragged out of their house. Unfortunately, at the time, I heard my mother and my grandmother say these are the bad people, right? And in actuality, sometimes it's a living boyfriend or a child led astray that brought a little bit of drugs in the house, and sometimes it's just a suspicion of a person having drugs and they lost their lives. And this is all the product of the San Antonio Housing Authority.
Speaker 4:I thought I remember because my mom she they had a house on Divine Street. They grew up right there on Divine and I thought I remember my aunt saying that there was like a national news coverage that did like they featured the Victoria courts as being like a bad place and how bad it was. Do you remember that?
Speaker 3:I don't remember that.
Speaker 4:Okay, yeah, and that they like were pointing out how, like I don't know, I think maybe like a teenage girl or a young girl possibly like had her baby in the bathtub there and that was part of the episode just really like demonizing the families that live there. You know, but yeah, but when I asked my mom and my aunts about it, you know that's where all their friends lived and you know it was just children playing and that was like the noise that you would hear from Victoria courts as kids you know just families and kids living their lives or whatever. But there was this national coverage of making it an example of you know a bad place.
Speaker 4:Do you know what year that was. That must have been either in the 80s or the 70s for them to talk about it. And you know you got to remember the crack epidemic. That was our own government and police putting that on the streets on purpose, like purposely doing that. I grew up I mean I was born in 1981, but my brother is 10 years older than me and he got caught up into it Like how could you not, like it was everywhere, like crack, yeah, so like it was purposely put in the neighborhoods.
Speaker 1:I was going to ask do you know how your family felt or I guess they might have mostly been gone, but when the Victoria courts got demolished, yeah, there was like it was.
Speaker 4:It was like half and half, like they were really broken hearted because of all the families being displaced. You know, the Victoria courts I believe historically was started. As for military family, back in, back in the day it was mostly military families that lived there. So it didn't have that, you know, association with the bad place of housing, public housing. And then there was, like I don't know, neighbors that were. I don't know if it came out on the news, but they were like complaining like there were rats everywhere, like in the La Vaca neighborhood, like, like like good riddance type of thing, you know. And so I don't know, I think there's always going to be that mix.
Speaker 4:Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my understanding is that all of the courts, or several of them anyway Victoria courts downtown was built. This was all during the 30s, Like San Antonio got one of like the biggest public housing grants from the federal government, like in the 30s or something, and it was Victoria courts downtown for white people exclusively. Wheatley courts on the east side for black people and Alessandro Apache and the West Side.
Speaker 4:What is Alessandro and what I don't know, but that sounds right the Alessandro courts.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's another one to you, though right next to it, and those were for the Mexican families. And then, in starting in 2000, they just started getting rid of everybody and demolishing them and building these mixed income communities, which is actually, I discovered, is a method that came from China. So China started that in the late 80s, going to slum neighborhoods, as they called them, demolishing them and then building mixed income. So we got that concept directly from China. But because, like, I couldn't find any good information on what happened to those families in China, because you know like the state runs the media there, so nobody really knows but they supposedly got good relocation packages which, historically, if you, look at the facts was not true.
Speaker 1:It's always, you know they try to say to the state in China but slums don't exist, but there's zero slums, zero Like okay, you guys just hide them all, but there's like constant, literally, concentration camps there, but whatever. Anyway, my point being what happened to all of the tenants, all of the families at Victoria and Wheatley courts, and have any other ones gotten demolished?
Speaker 3:I believe the sudden, homes got demolished and rebuilt right into mixed income properties. What happened to a lot of those families is we live in the aging community right and those families that are originally there they probably in the 50s and 60s there. Now the parents and the children have grown up and moved away to different places, so none of those people went back to the properties that they previously lived. I mean with the notable exceptions.
Speaker 1:I was just at a board meeting a couple, probably two months ago. No, no, no, I listened to it. You had sent a video and I listened to the public comments, because that's the only part I care about really. And there was this public housing complex, I guess, over on the west side, where the local neighborhood association brought several of the tenants there, or a few of them elderly, who were like, well, we want new buildings, like we want better conditions for our kids. So, yes, go through with this plan of demolishing it.
Speaker 1:And I just was so appalled that this neighborhood association right, of course they want the public housing out, it diminishes their home values and stuff that they brought people and didn't give them a heads up. And I think it's totally fair to want better conditions, like, obviously nobody wants to live in these so-called slum conditions, but they are not telling them that once they demolish those like Sahas likely not going to take care of you, they're not going to relocate you, we don't know where you go. Like, academically, when you research displacement and specifically with gentrification, it's really hard to get research on that because once people are displaced they disappear and there's not really ways to talk to them. James, you do such an incredible job of bringing people's stories of housing insecurity and housing problems to the public and I don't know how I want to phrase this, except that, like our tenant union, our tiny tenant union, as unorganized as we are, are so powerful in this city. How do you approach that tenant organizing?
Speaker 3:Well, the way I approach it is, I start to think what would happen if I was in this horrible situation, if I was threatened with eviction or displacement or crime. That happened and suddenly it's knocking on my doorstep. That's how I visualize before I go out and act. Currently, I don't know how long I'll be able to organize because the Opportunity Helm has a new tactic of eliminating organizers here in San Antonio Housing Organized. They used their attorney now and they write a letter saying that everything that you're organizing against is a lie and Opportunity Home residents are happy and I'm spreading misinformation. So every time a politician or a concerned citizen would contact Opportunity Home hey, what's going on? They would send that letter and the end result is that the person would say I could no longer help you because they got a letter from an attorney saying that there will be consequences from spreading misinformation. And that's the tactic that they're using for anybody that decided they're going to organize against Opportunity Home.
Speaker 1:Does that make you feel defeated?
Speaker 3:No, I just love when that happens.
Speaker 1:James, don't say you're not going to organize. We just got to show up to the board meeting and call them out.
Speaker 3:Obviously they still afraid because they said that. Well, we're going to send you a copy of the letter that never, happened yet. And. I guess because they don't want me to walk in the city council meeting with something physical in hand and say, hey, this is what they're doing.
Speaker 1:When has there been a moment where you felt the most like wow, my voice makes change.
Speaker 3:Well, the most powerful moment that I've seen since I started organizing is the protest on Nisi Voch's loft, in which the man was hiding in his restroom as protesters lurked around outside. Somebody told me that he was afraid, and I'm sure he was visualizing all the wrongs he did to those people, and folks that he was trying to relocate would just feet outside his door. I can imagine the feeling that he had, and it was so much of a powerful experience that the opportunity board decided that they hey, you know this has to stop right now. We're going to send you on your way.
Speaker 1:Do you think it was because they felt bad and recognized that he was an awful evil person? He looked evil, his look was just so evil. Or do you think they were just scared of media?
Speaker 3:I think they were scared of media, but I thought that also, that they were scared of the people. Hell yeah, yeah, because they have to live in the community too right, and after they turned their at opportunity, home is over. Sometimes that's when the reality said in that hey, you did some very ugly things to us.
Speaker 1:Do you think that we had any impact on Chagusman who? Chagusman was the board president. Is that what they call it?
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:Board president right, so she's in charge. She's basically literally in charge of everything, like everyone's supposed to. The CEO. Everybody in Sahaja is supposed to do what she says. The board has to do what she says. She was Mayor Nirenberg's campaign manager's wife. She was so out of touch. I like the anger I feel when I think about Niso Visha. When I is the same, I feel about Chagusman and Timothy Alcott, who is also gone now, and that's what I was going to ask Do you think that we had influence over Chagusman and Timothy Alcott being gone?
Speaker 3:Well, I believe we had right. There was nobody else other than us that actually mentioned that. Hey, you know it's an nepotism going on here.
Speaker 1:How many years was she on there? And nobody would call that out. I started saying it every when I went to the Sahaja board meetings, the city council meetings. I'm like, oh, and the Mayor's campaign manager's wife getting the goods for what this woman was, so she would just sit there and eat the entire time during the board meetings. It was bizarre and like and to talk down to us. She started kind of getting better towards the end. I think she was just so scared of what we were would say publicly. But but she was awful and it's like one of those type of people have that much power, it's, it's. It creates really awful impacts.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so during that time after Lisa Voce left, Mayor Newmanberg was playing a little bit of chess when they came to who he would select on the public boards. The people that were considered activists, the people that actually cared about the community, was removed and there was placed by former city council members and and there were, and their families, and it got to a point that anything that Mayor Newmanberg wanted he got right. It was so awful.
Speaker 1:That was so awful. How has, how can anybody ever forgive him for that?
Speaker 3:Well, it's just a last term in office, right? So when a person's only last term, they tend to have a less empathy for the public than they were normally with.
Speaker 1:I think that was his second to last, but nonetheless he was. He's such a like he's. He was going to win and win, and win. No matter what, and wherever he goes next, he's going to win, because all he is is a robot. For whoever is telling him what to do Ever? Google him his pictures, you Google images and all they are just like about his guns.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:All his muscles, yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, currently, there was a talk that the Biden administration is going to take them on. I saw that. And in some type of position, and I kind of believe that rumor because the White House has a habit of tapping into San Antonio when it comes to the HUS secretaries.
Speaker 1:Yeah For housing, which is ironic because we have such a backwards and awful and discriminatory history with housing. What would you do? What would you do, what would we do, james, if Mayor Nirenberg became HUD secretary?
Speaker 3:Well, I don't know what to do, but personally I think things would get worse as time goes on, because this man in power with HUD right it's going to be a disaster.
Speaker 4:I like that, showing up to their apartments or whatever y'all did.
Speaker 1:But everyone's so scared. Think about, like Jolyon Castro, who was secretary of HUD, and before that was it Henry Cisneros, I don't know Clinton, I don't know. Probably, yeah, probably, yeah. And then Jolyon Castro was under Obama. Yeah, they have such an obsession with San Antonio, people in housing. What was I thinking with that? Oh, that everyone said Nobody. What did Jolyon Castro do for San Antonio Except lead the way towards gentrification and praise him?
Speaker 3:They're developers, love him.
Speaker 1:Yes, right. So why is he this like a savior? I don't understand it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, savior. For whom?
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's what Terry was talking about, right Like he's on the SAISD board now.
Speaker 1:I meant to ask that. I wasn't quite following that. Is he really I?
Speaker 4:guess so, so he's participating in closing of all these schools, which affects housing.
Speaker 1:But that's just such an evil thing already.
Speaker 4:It's not people, it's just numbers on a piece of paper, you know.
Speaker 1:So it's easy to do. I used to know somebody who, um, knew what they're, knew them when they were little babies, julianne and Joaquin Castro, and actually got their mom a job, like at one of the um, on those little gas station, um, picnics, picnic, um, when they were like, yeah, little babies, and she was like this radical communist right, and I'm just like what happens, like what happens when and I guess I can see it now that I'm raising kids at some point you kind of like you can't, you can't control a kid and what they think right, you have to guide through values. And it just makes me wonder, like what happened that these two you know smart boys from the, you know from the hood, from the west side, end up at Harvard, right, that's where they? Went.
Speaker 1:And just becoming so bougie and out of touch.
Speaker 4:Do y'all remember when one of them tried to show up to an event to pretend to be the other?
Speaker 1:I've heard of it.
Speaker 4:I think it might have been like a fiesta event or something.
Speaker 1:It's a parade.
Speaker 4:Right, Cause they're twins. Like you can just send the other brother.
Speaker 1:Uh-huh, I heard that everyone was pissed. Hell yeah.
Speaker 4:Like we can't tell the difference.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's frustrating. Um well, what's next, james? How do we um adjust this? Oh, let me say, let me say that um cause this is important, and this is we've been doing tenant organizing work, for how did you get into it?
Speaker 3:Well, I met a man named Poncho by this. Yeah, he has a um. He has a way with him that if he sees somebody struggling, he would take them under their wing and teach them and nourish them and send them back out. Yeah, that's what he done with me. Yeah, he was a incredible uh tenant organizer, the man that built me into the person I am today.
Speaker 1:Love that.
Speaker 1:Um, if you had to put like roles to what like, um, all of the success that we've had as say, too, as San Antonio tenants union, what would you say is like Poncho's role for our success? What's your role for our success Like, how have we been as this small organization, very unorganized, which I'm personally okay with, cause I think that gives us the autonomy and sort of like. I was talking to a friend and explaining it and he said he calls it gorilla organizing, right, like gorilla warfare, where it's just sort of like we're just like how does it like? As issues arise, we just like show up, everyone just take action with whatever. Um, but yeah, what do you see Like where you are all of your success has come from and where Poncho's has, like what has created? What has created such an incredible and impactful tenant union?
Speaker 3:We're a group of people with numerous skill sets and experiences and, um, there ain't no roadblocks on what we can do.
Speaker 3:If we feel that our presence is needed somewhere and we needed to speak without asking for permission, we can do that, right, uh, poncho, about this, uh, he's been organizing for over 50 plus years, right, and uh, that type of experience you just don't find everywhere. You know, uh, he's been doing it with most of us was in diapers, right, so, uh, having uh that man as a motivator and, uh, hopefully, uh, we have him for many more years, because, uh, the city of San Antonio have grew into a mindset of if you don't have money, you're not important. You're not important. A man, newberg, uh, his way of thinking is we always had the poor with us and uh, and, and it seems like, uh, that he don't care much about us, only the rich developers and stuff. So, I tell you, I tell you realize that you won't know what's going on in the city. So, uh, being an organizer, you have to have a the the open mind, you have to be able to see what's going on and read between the lines.
Speaker 1:And continue saying it. Like you, I always admire that about Poncho, where he repeats over and over again you don't care about poor people. And it's like so obvious, right, but it, but it's such a simple uh sentiment that is absolutely 100% true. That's what all of this poly political shit comes down to, is that, like, you don't care about poor people. And so I always appreciate that Poncho was constantly just saying that over and over again, because it puts it into my mind too to like, yeah, like that is what all of this comes down to. And so how do we fight for that Cause? That's the root cause. That's the root cause of all of this oppression. So how do we keep fighting against that? What I also appreciate about Poncho is all his emails. He just, he will just relentlessly right, send out emails to all of our political leaders until CC, all of us, a bunch of us. And it keeps me going.
Speaker 1:I've said that, like some people cause I don't really do a lot of organizing work with organizations anymore except with them say to, and it's when I see people and they're like oh, I didn't know you were still doing stuff, I'm like I wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't for Poncho, just like continuing to send the emails out, make meetings, you know, send his texts out like we're being oppressed. Who's with me? Like probably like bi-weekly text messages, and just like who wants to me, and so we, just we just keep on going and meeting and hearing from tenants and that, just like I feel like it keeps on motivating us to just keep on doing stuff because these are issues that, like they would not hear otherwise. Right, like if we were not going to these board meetings or to a city council and saying them on the microphone, they wouldn't know that it was happening. I mean, how often do you talk to politicians where they there's, just they're, they can't believe what you're telling them.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, definitely. What a lot of politicians are saying is well, I talked to several residents and they say everything's fine. The CEO has said you know, but they never go to these properties and talk to these people face to face, right, and with the lack of availability that personally go to places, they find themselves just listening to what other people say, right. And when they hear, otherwise they in a state of disbelief.
Speaker 1:Truly, they are in absolute shock and it's to us it's like, oh my God, we see this every single time we talk to a new tenant. How can they be so out of touch?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and there's a fear factor as well. Right, the people are afraid of talking, right, because of the fact that they can be evicted so easy, or they could find something To evict them for housekeeping inspection. Yeah, somebody staying a little bit longer in the apartment than they should have. You know, those are the realities of Opportunity. Home, san Antonio. Yeah.
Speaker 1:When you control the roof over somebody's head, they're most like vital lifeline right To survival and it's like you really control their entire world.
Speaker 4:The wealthy are the most segregated group of people, I think, which is why they're so out of touch. San.
Speaker 1:Antonio has the highest economic segregation in the entire country, meaning that the richest people live farthest like geologic, geographically, live farthest away from poor people, and so there's just like no interact or very little interaction. They're the most segregated, mm-hmm, and in San Antonio specifically, and then those are the people who get put on the board. That's who the mayor chooses to be on the board of Saha.
Speaker 4:Make decisions for everyone else.
Speaker 1:Make that make sense.
Speaker 3:They're richest among us.
Speaker 1:I don't understand it. And people just go along with it Like, oh yeah, they're rich, so they should be on the board because they're probably educated and therefore they have expertise. It's like the tenants I'm about to like start banning. I don't want to hear some of my.
Speaker 4:They keep us distracted, you know with the spurs and fiesta or whatever.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm, yeah, beyonce, taylor Swift, all that stuff yeah, it really drives me crazy. Oh, what are all the getting at? What I want to say is what has been our biggest issue in tenant organizing? What is the biggest issue for tenants in Opportunity Home and Saha Properties is safety. The world needs to know that people tenants in public housing do not feel safe, and this is like from multiple angles. It's from their neighbors, it's from outsiders coming on. It's because the police don't protect public housing Like we've seen that as a theme pretty consistently that the police don't really respond to public housing buildings and so tenants don't even feel comfortable calling the police.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so definitely, what's happening on Opportunity Home Properties is a lack of safety. I say and this is my personal opinion, but I believe it's the truth that genocide happens on Opportunity Home Properties. The reason why I say that is the San Antonio Police Department and the Serif Department believes that Opportunity Home is responsible for the safety of their residents. Opportunity Home believes that you should call 911 and the police should handle it. The response times are 30 minutes to an hour to arrive on the property. If somebody's going to harm you, they already got you in less right and you can't get a different response from Opportunity Home because they claim they don't have enough money. I walk into a board meeting or face-to-face meeting and say, hey, director, somebody was murdered yesterday. Well, do you have any evidence that that happened? I was like no.
Speaker 1:Oh, is that what they go back to?
Speaker 3:You're the evidence. You telling me that you don't know that person died and got shot and killed on your property. Most of the time, when talking to Opportunity Home people, about safety, you have to deal with semantics, games. Well, I didn't know about that when that happened. I said you telling me you don't know that that person was murdered.
Speaker 1:It's so offensive. Yeah, people always think that I'm really difficult to work with, and it's funny to me, because when people don't BS with me, we get good work done. The people who I've done work with inside of the government will say that we get good ass grounded, grass-rooted solutions in place. Just don't BS with me. Yes, that will make me difficult because that is so insulting. It's such a waste of my time, it's a waste of your time. Why are you sitting here doing your job, just BSing? That's a waste of your energy too.
Speaker 1:So we've been having face-to-face meetings, I guess with the CEO, which we had to fight really hard for a while, but now they seem to be a little more Open to it. They're at least trying, and at the last one, james, you couldn't go to. But we're always asking about safety. What are you doing about safety? And for almost two years now, they just give us BS responses like, oh, we don't have any money for that, which is like, okay, well then let's talk about it. It's like my same response every single time, like okay, you keep saying that and we need to figure it out. So let's have these conversations not just in this room with tenants, but with the board etc. And Then their other excuse is that they don't have the data. They don't have the data to say that there's not, that there's the need for safety. I'm like just go to the tenants and figure it out.
Speaker 1:But anyway, this last meeting, of course we brought up safety and I must say that Brandy Joel was just be he, just completely BS. The entire thing. Everything was an excuse, really frustrating. But then Brandy was like trying. At least she was like well, what do you think about? Like a? Like a car just pretending to be security, like I'm just trying to think of ideas, like off the wall or whatever. And I have to say I at least appreciated the Solutions focused orientation of that. Like an empty car, yeah, but just because, like they don't have any money. So she's like what can we do? Right, and she's this I don't have a lot of good things to say about my past experiences with her, but I have to say that I at least appreciated that.
Speaker 4:You know, I must say, when I was a teenager, we we went and visited the East Coast and driving through Rhode Island, they had a life-size, cutout, realistic-looking police car on the side of the highway and that thing worked. But, yeah, like you know, I don't, I don't live in public housing, but we live in Highland Park and and we hear shots all the time and we don't, you don't, you don't see it on the, the news unless it's good for headlines, but like that's, that's the regular. Like we hear shots all the time, like Every night. So like, yeah, if you spent one night Chilling and you would hear, like that safety is a concern, and the only time we do see police is when they're like I Don't know, wanting to flex, I guess, because they'll just cruise through our little neighborhood streets super fast or whatever, but no sirens or anything, and you definitely don't see them when you hear the shots.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I would say that that's another issue that we constantly have with with Sahaa is that we will bring issues to them. For example, brandy, she a couple months ago got in front of the board before public comment, I guess, to like Say, make their narrative, create their narrative, before we could speak, and she was like, just so you guys know what, the CEO is meeting with the tenants union regularly, which I kept. That point wasn't even true and we are working on the issues at Lewis. Is it okay if I say, at the properties that our tenant union members reside at, we're working there on the issues there. But it's like they have like 30, if maybe a hundred, out like properties and so we're constantly having to tell them like, look, we're bringing these issues to you because we need them to be resolved and because these are issues that are happening with tenants all across the board, at all of your properties, and you guys, as a public funded agency, have the Responsibility to deal with this, not just for your tenants but for all of San Antonio, and that, like when you say that that this is Happening inside of your neighborhood too, it's like this is indicative of what's happening all over San Antonio.
Speaker 1:The safety issues are concentrated at public housing, and then that is should be exposing to you what's happening all around there too. And they cannot see past the one, two, three cases that we bring them up tenants. They're like, okay, as long as we take care of those ones there, this will all go away and we can tell the politicians when they come to us that, oh no, we took care of that case. And then even the politicians usually even the most well-intentioned ones, won't move past that. They'll be like, okay, all right, yeah, that's taken care of, I can go back to whatever else, when they're not even seeing that like, no, this is an issue, this is a systemic issue that I need to be addressing. Does that sound accurate to you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it sounds accurate to me now, since the opportunity home knows how the politicians operate, mm-hmm that a form letter from the attorney takes care of everything they receive a complaint. Cinema letters are already taken care of. These are the steps we did. We're not talking about it anymore, so you ain't gonna get any response. Joel Tobar, the director of federal public housing, which I call as a BS expert, right, absolutely yes, you play semantic games with you all the time.
Speaker 3:I had it, and you know this man Any problem that comes up, he could have found a solution in 15 minutes based on the little fancy words he used, thinking about it. Yeah, and I believe that's why he was placed in that job, right Generally for trying to Extinguish fires. That that comes along. Yeah, somebody said somebody was murdered. Well, how do you know they were murdered?
Speaker 1:Don't listen to the news. They told them. They've literally said that Before don't listen to the news. I even tell my staff, don't listen to the news.
Speaker 3:I will you telling me that San Antonio police vehicle got shot up with a hundred rounds of ammunition from a AK-47 and and you don't know that that happened don't listen. Don't listen to the news those AKs are really popular.
Speaker 4:That's what? Because that's what I hear really yeah. Super popular.
Speaker 1:I've been. I've been watching too much in DC universe stuff. Green arrow, have you guys seen? Get those guns off Off the streets. Yeah, yeah. That also brings up other things for me about the Government having too many guns to vote. But be on moving, moving forward With. Saw how stuff. James, what do we do moving forward?
Speaker 3:Well, we keep on fighting. No matter how many threatening letters we get from attorneys, we keep on fighting.
Speaker 1:What do you want to do about that?
Speaker 3:I keep on fighting, you know, for the simple reason is okay, they could threaten me with an attorney, but I really doubt they're gonna go for any further reason, because they're gonna expose themselves, using public money to intimidate and try to scare the public right. You know one thing I learned a long time ago with opportunity home when it's up to a fight, and Under public fight, they tend to back right back down and try to negotiate. I Really do doubt that we're gonna get what we asked for right under the current administration opportunity home. They need to be replaced with people that has more empathy For the people living on the properties, right? Only thing they have to do is admit that they have a problem. Hey, there's a crime wave at opportunity home properties and we don't have the money to fix it. That puts the politicians in the place that they have the incentive to fix these problems, but they refuse to admit that there is a problem.
Speaker 4:And just keep talking to your neighbors and organizing like y'all are right, cuz, like, in our neighborhood, the displacement happens through court code enforcement with the houses, and so now, like anytime we see Developmentals, development services truck or whatever like pulling up, we're texting each other and Keep your gates closed because they can't open your gate and go on to your property but, like, if it's open, they will go in there and start taking pictures and then leaving pink slips on your, on your door with the citations and so yeah, so Like there were two today and so I was right away I texted my neighbor because they were getting hit big time, because they were improving their house, they were fixing it up, they were building a shed in the back and they kept coding them for having materials or whatever, but they're doing it themselves.
Speaker 4:And he would just like and it was always like the same, a lot of times the same person he would just come in taking pictures in their backyard when they weren't home. So now we're like texting each other like they're here, go close your gates, everybody, you know.
Speaker 1:So how wild is that that we have to protect ourselves from our own government?
Speaker 4:I know I mean it's, and they were improving their house. They were improving it, you know.
Speaker 3:Yes, I was at a family members house just recently and they were doing home improvements and city officials was flying a drone over their house.
Speaker 4:Seriously, yes, I believe it. Yeah, how they do it. And so like, yeah, there's, there's like three vacant homes across the street from us and then two on the other side of our neighbor next door. So like, so then finally, the neighbor or the owners you know a couple of them are local owners or whatever and he's trying to fix it up on his own. He's not a developer, you know, he's not one of these gentrifiers that come in or whatever and flip it really quick, like it takes time. When you're doing it on your own, when you're not a developer, it takes time and they're just out there putting in citations, you know, trying to get them out, and they're just trying to improve their home.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I remember probably about five years ago or so, when on Fredericksburg it was right in between district one and district seven, and so it was Roberto Trevino and Anna Sandoval who were the council members at the time and them putting on like their Facebook or whatever their social media that there was a new code enforcement office being opens up right there to get all of that like kind of wood lawn area and everybody like, oh, like you guys are so wonderful.
Speaker 1:And these were like people who talked about helping housing or tried to champion affordable housing and it was like nobody at that point saw that that is going to displace people. I know Terri talked about that when she was on here. That that's how she got into housing.
Speaker 4:organizing was because all of her neighbors were getting code enforcement getting them displaced and they straight up lie too, Cause, like they were one summer, they didn't have anything on us, so they were doing the grass being cut. You know, we're getting citations for that and we got a citation for the grass not being cut in the back alleyway when it literally was cut like two days before. They just didn't bother to go. Look, they're just handing out those pink slips and putting them on the doors of everybody. And so I saw it, I took a picture and then when he came back again cause it said, you know, we're going to return on this day to see if we've done it I showed him the picture with the date stamp on it and then he like kind of like backtracked and he's like, oh, we just do those to everybody, or like like umbrella citate people you know, admitting that like he didn't even look because I was showing him proof that it was a complete lie and it's to intimidate people you know, it's totally to intimidate.
Speaker 1:We need to go to city council about that.
Speaker 4:It was a couple of years ago, but it's still.
Speaker 1:That kind of stuff is still happening.
Speaker 4:I mean, yeah, because they were here today. They were here today there was a van and a truck, and so I always go out there and make myself seen taking a picture of their license plate, taking a picture of their face, Like I see you, you know like I'm keeping track and now we need to go to city council to make sure they know that you're like really overseeing them and what they do, cause like their jobs are at risk too.
Speaker 1:Right, if you're not doing, if you're scaring and intimidating the mayor's constituents or Viagran's constituents, then your job is on the line too and like you may just be doing your job, but you're putting people's entire security and safety at risk by jeopardizing their housing. Do they not realize that?
Speaker 4:That's the purpose. I guess you know.
Speaker 1:But these are just like right, Like our neighbors who are also working these jobs, that's true, right. Yeah, so we gotta go to the like director of development. I'm trying to like like see how we attack this right now. Like brainstorming out loud. Let's just turn this into an organizing meeting guys he wants to go to city council with me next week.
Speaker 1:All right, wednesday nights guys. For San Antonio people every Wednesday evening is citizens to be heard. James, how do you feel about citizens to be heard? You know so many people are like, ah, they don't listen, all that stuff.
Speaker 3:Well, this is my experience with citizens to be heard. Sometimes they hear you, sometimes they don't. And if you saying something that's really embarrassing that particular city council member, as soon as you sit down, there's a person from that that their staff coming over there giving you an email address or what we rewrite on it, right, if it has to do with security.
Speaker 3:they come to you and there's an officer there you know well, we're gonna take care of it. Here's my personal phone number and email address. Do we get taken care of? Probably not, but they can say that they spoke with you.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah that is exactly what happens. And even if they're not listening, somebody is you know somebody in that room is paying attention and writing that down right, like there's so many, like I don't know whether it's a journalist or you know somebody's staff member, somebody's paying attention.
Speaker 1:I've met people there before, other people, right, cause when other anybody who's there to speak, it's pretty terrifying, right, you have three minutes to say whatever you want in front of the mayor, who's actually only there like half the time, as our like. It's usually like half the city council members too, but I actually like, when that happens, I'm like, oh, the mayor. One time I did that, I like went a couple of weeks in a row and the mayor wasn't there the first time and I like the first thing I said was well, you weren't here last week to hear this mayor, but not showing up to citizens to be heard. Come on, like that should be. At least that's your opportunity to hear directly from your citizens. Where was I going with that? That's it. There's only a few people there. Oh, I've met people, and so other people who are there to speak up to are usually very eager to talk to somebody who also is eager to speak up, and so I've made a lot of connections.
Speaker 4:So what are your tips for people who might be new to citizens to be heard?
Speaker 1:Well, you know what you got free parking first off.
Speaker 3:Do you get?
Speaker 1:a via pass.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you get via passes and free parking. So you, just when you go 15 minutes early to that guy at the desk in the back, he'll give you a.
Speaker 3:He'll give you a via pass.
Speaker 1:And does it make up for the way over there?
Speaker 3:Well, the way over there how that works is you tell the driver that you're going to citizens to be heard at the downtown, at the city council chambers, and they should let you on free.
Speaker 1:Oh really.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so you just let the bus driver know. Yes.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's great information to have. Okay, yeah, and so you can do that if you're taking public transportation or park in the what was the Frost Tower, now the city building across the streets. What is it on Flores?
Speaker 3:No, no, no, yeah, it's on Flores, yeah.
Speaker 1:Flores. Okay, yeah, right there. And then you get your parking pass and go to the back and the guy will stamp it so that it's free when you leave. You need to sign up 15 minutes before. And so you got to go to that same guy in the back of the city council chambers, right next to the cathedral. These are all the basic logistical stuff. Anyway, right, it's not in city hall, it's in the council chambers right next to the cathedral.
Speaker 1:Or you can sign up online, and online you can even type out. So you don't even have to show up, you don't even have to speak it, you just type your comment and then they'll read it out loud. So then you don't even like, it's just your name and a comment and it gets read out loud and they have to listen to it. And then, yeah, you just there's usually not many people. I always try to tell my kids I'm like we'll be there for like 15 minutes, like just bear with me, and then you get your three minutes and I love it. I love it so much. Personally, I always say I hail Mary before I go up, you know, for like words of inspiration, and you just get up there and you can either. How do you do it, james?
Speaker 3:Well, when I hear it as a citizens to be heard, you know I usually write down what I'm gonna have with my phone and review it like 15 minutes before I step up there.
Speaker 1:And then you just kind of like say whatever.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I have a talking point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like I've done it multiple different ways. I've like written down out the whole speech and like sat there and read it word for word. I've just kind of like gone up there and said whatever, or like that I'll just have a couple points and I'm like, okay, how do I make the connections from this point to this point to this point? And then just kind of like flow with it. But I feel like I've found my best times have been one when I'm like really passionate about whatever it is and just kind of like say whatever's on my mind, and when I get to like stare the mayor in the eyes because you know what he does the same thing every single time. Can you do the mayor face? What does the mayor look like?
Speaker 1:And then he just stares at you with that look.
Speaker 4:I think I'm paying attention.
Speaker 1:I don't know whatever they're coding inside of his robot brain to like look at you and he just like, he just stares.
Speaker 3:To me, the look he gives is the look when a person needs to go to the restroom but he can't leave his desk at that particular time.
Speaker 1:That is kind of what it looks like. That is actually kind of exactly what it looks like, and so he'll stare at you. So if you want three minutes of a blinking game with the mayor, stare back and kind of cross your eyes a little. Oh, you want to play games. Who can laugh first? Who makes the mayor laugh first, chris, I wonder, like God. I'm just like thinking of more organizing actions, like if we go and do that and then how he'll act the next time. We should try it.
Speaker 4:We should try it. Oh right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, bring media, be like, oh, we have something really big going on, and then, just like, we're just having staring contests with the mayor and trying to make silly faces, and if you just do that for three minutes straight, right, he can't kick you out.
Speaker 4:Right, if you go up there and not say anything, yeah, legally, or you can speak very Well.
Speaker 3:I've seen the mayor throw some people out, but they have to be real radical to get to that point.
Speaker 1:Were you there when we all like planned on getting kicked out.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's just. Unfortunately the Texas Organizing Project did it before we did. It's like oh, I don't want to get stuck. The disruption.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, they just didn't follow what we were supposed to do.
Speaker 1:What is like me and me and Jake went first. We started like yelling and screaming and so they kicked us out, and then it was supposed to wait like a few minutes until the next group next two people did it, and so that way it would like keep it all going for like an hour or so. Right, they wouldn't know who was gonna go next, so they couldn't just kick out everybody. That would have stopped the whole meeting. But instead everybody like once me and Jake started getting kicked out. Everybody just started getting rowdy, so they all just kicked us out at once. So I was like that defeated the whole point. Mm-hmm, yeah, I'm canceling this meeting.
Speaker 4:I tried to get the black people to do that. Nobody was down.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what? Manifesting more radical peoples.
Speaker 4:Yeah, one person just went up and held the sign.
Speaker 3:You know, one of the biggest moments, I believe, when it comes to organizing and doing some what they call disobedience right. That's right. It's that time when the mayor was sitting at his desk and somebody dropped the sign right behind him, right.
Speaker 4:Jolie.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was for Page Sixleave, I think.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that was the best moment right there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we need more of those. There was this really radical organization that came in and then left. It was so weird, they came from another city.
Speaker 4:For Page.
Speaker 1:Sixleave yeah, it was like immigrant rights. I believe it was in like 2018. Yeah it was 2018. And they did an action where there was like a river parade, and so the mayor was like on his little river float going down this parade and they put a bunch of signs on the bridges like dropped them.
Speaker 4:Oh nice. Yeah, it was really cool. Yeah, we need to utilize the bridges a little more. Huh yeah.
Speaker 1:And then there was this sign. You know what? That's another, I feel like tactic, underlooked tactic that has been highly successful. It's just signs. If you can get the right words on a sign and then get a couple media pictures or whatever it's like, it's really powerful.
Speaker 3:I was told that the mayor hates those signs, that has a picture of his face on it.
Speaker 4:Gotta get more of those then.
Speaker 1:James knows all the chisme all the time. I don't understand it, James. James knows everything about all this background information about all the most powerful people. I'm not going to ask you how, because I kind of like that. It's a mystery.
Speaker 4:It's a big city with a small town vibe, I guess, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's really helpful, intel. They're organizing. Is there any other tips you have for anybody before we sign off?
Speaker 3:Well, let's keep the fight going, Make contacts and friends along the way and do collaborations. I mean a large majority of change that we have in the city of San Antonio is something that you cannot do alone. So if you collaborate with other agencies or other organizations or people, do it. There's power in numbers.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:I would say.
Speaker 1:That's where a lot of say to his power comes from too is that you have all of your network. Poncho has all of his network, I have all of my network right. So when we do have to come together to get something done, then it becomes easy to just kind of get all of that information spread out throughout all the networks. Love it. Any closing thoughts, anybody. Keep talking to your neighbors. Oh yeah, build community. That's where it's at. Thank you, james.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 1:We're coming on and, yeah, hopefully giving tips on how to do this grassroots organizing stuff and how it's accessible, like anybody can just talk to your neighbor and do it. You could even just like bring one neighbor to a city council meeting and talk about what's happening there and like it makes an impact. You don't know the impact it's going to make, but it does. It matters. Your voice matters.
Speaker 4:Somebody's always listening even if it's not you know the mayor or the council people? Somebody is. Alrighty, that's wrap y'all, see y'all next.
Speaker 3:Wednesday, so provide me on.
Speaker 1:I was like what's next Wednesday? Citizens to be heard, y'all. See you there. Bye.
Speaker 4:That was super informative. Thank you, James. Yeah, Victoria courts.