Activism

Striking Tenants Negotiate to Purchase Building

Published

5 years ago

March 5, 2020

Tenant strikers and ACCE supporters gather on Thursday, Feb. 27 in the driveway of a 29th Avenue apartment building to announce the owner’s agreement to discuss selling to the Oakland Community Land Trust. Photo by Michelle Snider.

After four months of not paying rent in a unified strike, tenants at a Fruitvale district apartment building in Oakland celebrated on Thursday, Feb. 27, 2020, after receiving notice the landlord was ready to negotiate a sale.

Oakland Community Land Trust will negotiate the purchase of the building. If an agreement is reached and the building is sold the tenants wish to become owners of the property.

Due to what the tenants expressed as poor maintenance of the building and regular rent increases, some of the tenants stopped paying rent in November 2019 in a unified attempt to get the owner to sell the building.

Seeking to build a statewide and national movement, Director of Alliance of California for Community Empowerment (ACCE) Carroll Fife spoke with the residents on February 27 to give a formal update.

“We are starting a renaissance of housing resistance in the state of California right here in Oakland,” Fife said, “That began on November 18 (2019) with our housing week of action where a group of unsheltered mothers and housing insecure mothers reclaimed a vacant home so their children would not be on the streets.”

Referencing Moms4Housing, Fife said, “One of the main reasons for that action was to show housing should be a human right for everyone.”

Fife said Moms4Housing and the land trust are still in negotiations to purchase the property from owner Wedgewood Inc.

One victory that came from Moms4Housing was people starting to recognize how corporate real estate speculators affect housing, Fife said. According to her, an offer for the purchase of the home will come on Friday.

Despite Wedgewood adding $90,000 to the cost of the home, it would not sell for $800,000 as Wedgewood wanted — which Fife said was another victory. She would not disclose the exact price of the sale.

Fife described the purchasing process with the Oakland Community Land Trust as the trust putting in an offer to buy and negotiating the price. If the owner agrees and contracts are drawn for the purchase, the land trust will own the land.

The land trust will then move into a relationship with the tenants to either become the landlord or transition the tenants into owning the property. They can rent the apartment from the land trust, but the strikers at the 29th Avenue apartment building in Fruitvale want to become owners of the property.

According to The Mercury News, the building’s owner, Calvin Wong, and the land trust are set to meet Wednesday to discuss the potential sale.

Fife made a final announcement about a new Assembly bill (AB-2563) that ACCE will push this year to make housing a human right.

Michelle Snider

Associate Editor for The Post News Group. Writer, Photographer, Videographer, Copy Editor, and website editor documenting local events in the Oakland-Bay Area California area.

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Michelle Snider

Associate Editor for The Post News Group. Writer, Photographer, Videographer, Copy Editor, and website editor documenting local events in the Oakland-Bay Area California area.

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Activism

Remembering George Floyd

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — Minnesota State Attorney General Keith Ellison acknowledges that the Floyd case five years ago involved a situation in which due process was denied, and five years later, the president is currently dismissing “due process. “The Minnesota Atty General also says, “Trump is trying to attack constitutional rule, attacking congressional authority and judicial decision-making.” George Floyd was an African American man killed by police who knocked on his neck and on his back, preventing him from breathing.

Published

7 days ago

June 2, 2025

Oakland Post

Mural showing the portrait of George Floyd in Mauerpark in Berlin. To the left of the portrait the lettering "I can't Breathe" was added, on the right side the three hashtags #GeorgeFloyd, #Icantbreathe and #Sayhisname. The mural was completed by Eme Street Art (facebook name) / Eme Free Thinker (signature) on 29 May 2020. (Wikimedia Commons)

By April Ryan
BlackPressUSA Newswire

“The president’s been very clear he has no intentions of pardoning Derek Chauvin, and it’s not a request that we’re looking at,” confirms a senior staffer at the Trump White House. That White House response results from public hope, including from a close Trump ally, Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. The timing of Greene’s hopes coincides with the Justice Department’s recent decision to end oversight of local police accused of abuse. It also falls on the fifth anniversary of the police-involved death of George Floyd on May 25th. The death sparked national and worldwide outrage and became a transitional moment politically and culturally, although the outcry for laws on police accountability failed.

The death forced then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden to focus on deadly police force and accountability. His efforts while president to pass the George Floyd Justice in policing act failed. The death of George Floyd also put a spotlight on the Black community, forcing then-candidate Biden to choose a Black woman running mate. Kamala Harris ultimately became vice president of the United States alongside Joe Biden. Minnesota State Attorney General Keith Ellison prosecuted the cases against the officers involved in the death of Floyd. He remembers,” Trump was in office when George Floyd was killed, and I would blame Trump for creating a negative environment for police-community relations. Remember, it was him who said when the looting starts, the shooting starts, it was him who got rid of all the consent decrees that were in place by the Obama administration.”

In 2025, Police-involved civilian deaths are up by “about 100 to about 11 hundred,” according to Ellison. Ellison acknowledges that the Floyd case five years ago involved a situation in which due process was denied, and five years later, the president is currently dismissing “due process. “The Minnesota Atty General also says, “Trump is trying to attack constitutional rule, attacking congressional authority and judicial decision-making.” George Floyd was an African-American man killed by police who knocked on his neck and on his back, preventing him from breathing. During those minutes on the ground, Floyd cried out for his late mother several times. Police subdued Floyd for an alleged counterfeit $20 bill.