Activism

As Oakland Rent Strike at 3rd Avenue Building Continues, Management Hires Armed Guards

No one from FPA Multifamily or Trinity Property Consultants has responded to multiple calls and emails requesting comments for this article. But the site’s management, which works for Trinity Property Consultants, wrote emails to the buildings’ residents in late September saying that they intended to address some of the buildings’ issues, that they had faced “threats to our team members’ safety,” and that they had “hired an armed service” to “protect our staff.” The email also stated a resident had been arrested on Sepember 21 in the building.

Published

3 years ago

November 7, 2022

Oakland Post

By Zack Haber

Since tenants living in the ReNew on Merritt building on 1130 3rd Ave. in Oakland started collectively withholding rent, management has hired armed guards. Rent-striking tenants say they are facing “harassment,” while management has said they hired the armed guards due to “threats” from tenants.

Alexandra ‘Ali’ Uro-May and Cassandra Chavez, who both live in the 18-floor complex, see management’s decision to hire armed guards as unnecessary retaliation.

“They’ve started treating us like we’re criminals,” said Uro-May.

“They are trying to use an intimidation tactic,” said Chavez. “All they want is rent and they aren’t worried about the problems here.”

Uro-May and Chavez are part of the ReNew on Merritt Tenant Council, a group of tenants living in over 40 of the buildings’ 178 apartments who started a rent strike on September 1. They’re seeking to collectively pressure FPA Multifamily, the building’s owner, and Trinity Property Consultants, the building’s property management company, to resolve habitability and safety issues at the site.

The issues, which are documented in over a dozen complaints to the City of Oakland since May 31, include black mold, backed up sewage, broken down elevators, and electrical problems. Tenants also complain of fire alarms going off erratically, problems with mail including stolen packages, and widespread rat and mice infestation. In June, Alameda County Vector Control released a report confirming “evidence of rodent activity” at the building. (Chavez said she recently found a dead mouse outside her door.)

According to Oakland Police Department Public Information Officer Candace Keas, “an individual was detained” on September 21 at 1130 3rd Ave. after a manager called the police on a resident, but records “do not note…what the individual was arrested for.”

Chavez said her partner did not want to comment for this article. According to Chavez, a manager accused her partner of making threats during an argument between him and staff members about an incident where Chavez says a manager was bothering her about unpaid rent in the entryway of the building and in front of her children, which left her feeling “embarrassed, shocked and disrespected.”

“[My partner] was very upset,” said Chavez. “So, he went to have a conversation to say ‘please, don’t harass.’”

Shortly after the argument, armed guards showed up in the building. Chavez denies that her partner was making threats and said he was arrested hours after the argument had ended.

Then the next day, Chavez and her partner were served with a three-day eviction notice which accused them of violating their lease due to the altercation and arrest.

“Our hearts just dropped,” Chavez said about receiving the notice. “We have kids, and we didn’t have anywhere to go.”

Chavez and her family have been challenging the eviction, and at this point, they are still living in their apartment.

On September 23, the ReNew on Merritt Tenant Council sent a cease-and-desist letter to FPA Multifamily and Trinity Property Consultants “to demand an immediate end to retaliatory harassment of tenants and the retraction of the notice of eviction” for Chavez and her family’s apartment.

The council criticized the companies for “silence” and “denial” about tenant requests for them to resolve “ongoing safety and maintenance issues” and hiring “armed guards in tactical gear” who they accused of “aggressively” knocking on tenants’ doors “demanding entry to their units.”

A video Uro-May sent this reporter showed a security guard onsite identifying himself as working for Off-Duty Officers, Inc. The company’s director of operations and marketing manager did not respond to calls and emails requesting comments for this article.

Many of the habitability and safety issues that tenants are concerned with arose before FPA Multifamily bought the building, and brought in Trinity Property Consultants to manage it, in late August.

In an email to residents from late September, management said they were working on an “elevator modernization project that will be scheduled in the near future,” attempting to fix fire alarm issues, and had attempted to do unit inspections to look for “rodents, water intrusion and other deficiencies.”

Armed guards accompanied staff during these onsite inspections, which made some tenants uncomfortable.

Joie Seldon, who’s lived in the building for nine years and is a member of the council, called the presence of armed guards during the inspections “completely ridiculous, aggressive, and inappropriate on so many levels.”

In their email, management also wrote that the “tenant council” had “blocked and harassed our team in the hallway” while they were trying to do unit inspections, which prevented them from addressing some of the issues tenants are requesting that they resolve.

Uro-May said the tenants were witnessing and documenting staff and an armed guard as they inspected units but were not blocking entry. The video Uro-May sent this reporter showed tenants questioning the guard about the notice they were given about mandatory inspections and objecting to staff entering certain units that had signs reading “do not enter” displayed on doors.

The recording shows the guard admitting staff had entered despite the signs but saying that doing so was legal.

California state law allows a landlord to enter a unit during normal business hours for such inspections if they give at least a 24-hour notice, except in the case of an emergency. An email shows management contacted tenants on September 20 around 4:00 p.m. and announced “mandatory inspections” related to “pest control” and “maintenance” would start the next day at 9:00 a.m., leaving about 17 hours of notice.

Seldon said she wanted the inspections to happen but objected to how management scheduled and enforced them.

“That they wanted to do it was appropriate,” she said. “But how they did it was inappropriate. The fact that they said you could not reschedule made some people anxious.”

Uro-May said problems are persisting in the building. During a visit to the building, this reporter heard the fire alarm go off when there was no fire, which Uro-May said happens several times a day.

Chavez said mail problems persist and that “nobody can get into the mailroom now,” as management cut off access to it on October 10. This reporter found the door to the mailroom bolted shut on October 18. A note from management stated that “the mailroom was vandalized” and instructed tenants to “pick up your mail directly at the post office until our new mailboxes have been received and installed.” Amazon packages sat on the floor of the building’s entryway.

In an email from September 21 to residents, management wrote that “due to the ongoing threats to our team members’ personal safety, our office staff will work from an alternate location.” Uro-May and Chavez said that while management is gone, they still are occasionally seeing armed guards in and near the building.

ReNew on Merritt Tenant Council members are still withholding their rent, and asking to meet collectively with FPA Multifamily, and Trinity Property Consultants, to discuss how their demands can be met so the rent strike can end.

“Now more than ever we feel like we have to keep pushing because they cannot treat us like this,” said Uro-May.

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Oakland Post: Week of November 5 – 11, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of November 5 – 11, 2025

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17 hours ago

November 7, 2025

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Oakland Post: Week of October 29 – November 4, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of October 29 – November 4, 2025

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5 days ago

November 3, 2025

Oakland Post

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Past, Present, Possible! Oakland Residents Invited to Reimagine the 980 Freeway

Organizers ask attendees coming to 1233 Preservation Park Way to think of the event as a “time portal”—a walkable journey through the Past (harm and flourishing), Present (community conditions and resilience), and Future (collective visioning).

Published

2 weeks ago

October 27, 2025

Oakland Post

Hundreds of residents in West Oakland were forced out by eminent domain before construction began on the 980 freeway in 1968. Courtesy photo.

By Randolph Belle
Special to The Post

Join EVOAK!, a nonprofit addressing the historical harm to West Oakland since construction of the 980 freeway began in 1968, will hold a block party on Oct. 25 at Preservation Park for a day of imagination and community-building from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Organizers ask attendees coming to 1233 Preservation Park Way to think of the event as a “time portal”—a walkable journey through the Past (harm and flourishing), Present (community conditions and resilience), and Future (collective visioning).

Activities include:

Interactive Visioning: Site mapping, 3-D/digital modeling, and design activities to reimagine housing, parks, culture, enterprise, and mobility.
Story & Memory: Oral history circles capturing life before the freeway, the rupture it caused, and visions for repair.
Data & Policy: Exhibits on health, environment, wealth impacts, and policy discussions.
Culture & Reflection: Films, installations, and performances honoring Oakland’s creativity and civic power.

The site of the party – Preservation Park – itself tells part of the story of the impact on the community. Its stately Victorians were uprooted and relocated to the site decades ago to make way for the I-980 freeway, which displaced hundreds of Black families and severed the heart of West Oakland. Now, in that same space, attendees will gather to reckon with past harms, honor the resilience that carried the community forward, and co-create an equitable and inclusive future.

A Legacy of Resistance

In 1979, Paul Cobb, publisher of the Post News Group and then a 36-year-old civil-rights organizer, defiantly planted himself in front of a bulldozer on Brush Street to prevent another historic Victorian home from being flattened for the long-delayed I-980 Freeway. Refusing to move, Cobb was arrested and hauled off in handcuffs—a moment that landed him on the front page of the Oakland Tribune.

Cobb and his family had a long history of fighting for their community, particularly around infrastructure projects in West Oakland. In 1954, his family was part of an NAACP lawsuit challenging the U.S. Post Office’s decision to place its main facility in the neighborhood, which wiped out an entire community of Black residents.

In 1964, they opposed the BART line down Seventh Street—the “Harlem of the West.” Later, Cobb was deeply involved in successfully rerouting the Cypress Freeway out of the neighborhood after the Loma Prieta earthquake.

The 980 Freeway, a 1.6-mile stretch, created an ominous barrier severing West Oakland from Downtown. Opposition stemmed from its very existence and the national practice of plowing freeways through Black communities with little input from residents and no regard for health, economic, or social impacts. By the time Cobb stood before the bulldozer, construction was inevitable, and his fight shifted toward jobs and economic opportunity.

Fast-forward 45 years: Cobb recalled the story at a convening of “Super OGs” organized to gather input from legacy residents on reimagining the corridor. He quickly retrieved his framed Tribune front page, adding a new dimension to the conversation about the dedication required to make change. Themes of harm repair and restoration surfaced again and again, grounded in memories of a thriving, cohesive Black neighborhood before the freeway.

The Lasting Scar

The 980 Freeway was touted as a road to prosperity—funneling economic opportunity into the City Center, igniting downtown commerce, and creating jobs. Instead, it cut a gash through the city, erasing 503 homes, four churches, 22 businesses, and hundreds of dreams. A promised second approach to the Bay Bridge never materialized.

Planning began in the late 1940s, bulldozers arrived in 1968, and after years of delays and opposition, the freeway opened in 1985. By then, Oakland’s economic engines had shifted, leaving behind a 600-foot-wide wound that resulted in fewer jobs, poorer health outcomes, and a divided neighborhood. The harm of displacement and loss of generational wealth was compounded through redlining, disinvestment, drugs, and the police state. Many residents fled to outlying cities, while those who stayed carried forward the spirit of perseverance.

The Big Picture

At stake now is up to 67 acres of new, buildable land in Downtown West Oakland. This time, we must not repeat the institutional wrongs of the past. Instead, we must be as deliberate in building a collective, equitable vision as planners once were in destroying communities.

EVOAK!’s strategy is rooted in four pillars: health, housing, economic development, and cultural preservation. These were the very foundations stripped away, and they are what they aim to reclaim. West Oakland continues to suffer among the worst social determinants of health in the region, much of it linked to the three freeways cutting through the neighborhood.

The harms of urban planning also decimated cultural life, reinforced oppressive public safety policies, underfunded education, and fueled poverty and blight.

Healing the Wound

West Oakland was once the center of Black culture during the Great Migration—the birthplace of the Black Panther Party and home to the “School of Champions,” the mighty Warriors of McClymonds High. Drawing on that legacy, we must channel the community’s proud past into a bold, community-led future that restores connection, sparks innovation, and uplifts every resident.

Two years ago, Caltrans won a federal Reconnecting Communities grant to fund Vision 980, a community-driven study co-led by local partners. Phase 1 launched in Spring 2024 with surveys and outreach; Phase 2, a feasibility study, begins in 2026. Over 4,000 surveys have already been completed. This once-in-a-lifetime opportunity could transform the corridor into a blank slate—making way for accessible housing, open space, cultural facilities, and economic opportunity for West Oakland and the entire region.

Leading with Community

In parallel, EVOAK! is advancing a community-led process to complement Caltrans’ work. EVOAK! is developing a framework for community power-building, quantifying harm, exploring policy and legislative repair strategies, structuring community governance, and hosting arts activations to spark collective imagination. The goal: a spirit of co-creation and true collaboration.

What EVOAK! Learned So Far

Through surveys, interviews, and gatherings, residents have voiced their priorities: a healthy environment, stable housing, and opportunities to thrive. Elders with decades in the neighborhood shared stories of resilience, community bonds, and visions of what repair should look like.

They heard from folks like Ezra Payton, whose family home was destroyed at Eighth and Brush streets; Ernestine Nettles, still a pillar of civic life and activism; Tom Bowden, a blues man who performed on Seventh Street as a child 70 years ago; Queen Thurston, whose family moved to West Oakland in 1942; Leo Bazille who served on the Oakland City Council from 1983 to 1993; Herman Brown, still organizing in the community today; Greg Bridges, whose family’s home was picked up and moved in the construction process; Martha Carpenter Peterson, who has a vivid memory of better times in West Oakland; Sharon Graves, who experienced both the challenges and the triumphs of the neighborhood; Lionel Wilson, Jr., whose family were anchors of pre-freeway North Oakland; Dorothy Lazard, a resident of 13th Street in the ’60s and font of historical knowledge; Bishop Henry Williams, whose simple request is to “tell the truth,” James Moree, affectionately known as “Jimmy”; the Flippin twins, still anchored in the community; and Maxine Ussery, whose father was a business and land owner before redlining.

EVOAK! will continue to capture these stories and invites the public to share theirs as well.

Beyond the Block Party

The 980 Block Party is just the beginning. Beyond this one-day event, EVOAK! Is building a long-term process to ensure West Oakland’s future is shaped by those who lived its past. To succeed, EVOAK! Is seeking partners across the community—residents, neighborhood associations, faith groups, and organizations—to help connect with legacy residents and host conversations.

980 Block Party Event Details
Saturday, Oct. 25
10 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Preservation Park, 1233 Preservation Park Way, Oakland, CA 94612
980BlockParty.org
info@evoak.org