Protesters hold signs during a rally across the street from Twin Creeks Apartments in Antioch before a “Tour of Shame” at the complex on Wednesday, March 30, 2022. Photos by Allen D. Payton
On eve of March 31st deadline for state’s rental assistance program and as Antioch City Council considers stronger tenant protections; new ordinances would require more city employees to enforce
About 30 people gathered for a rally before the “Tour of Shame”.
As the California Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP) is set to expire today, Thursday, March 31 and housing organizations warn of pending evictions, the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) Action-Contra Costa in cooperation with the East County Regional Group (ECRG) hosted a “Tour of Shame” at the Twin Creek Apartments on James Donlon Blvd. in Antioch on Wednesday. The effort highlighted calls for rent stabilization, tenant anti-harassment and just-cause for eviction ordinances in the city, along with the extension to ERAP.
A rally attended by about 30 people, held in the dirt lot across the street from the apartment complex, and tour follows the Antioch City Council vote on January 25, 2022 directing City staff to begin drafting ordinances, which will be brought back for votes at a future meeting.
The event began with a brief presentation from ECRG of the preliminary findings from a recent housing needs assessment of over 1,000 renters in Antioch, bringing attention to rising rents, evictions, and claims of harassment in the city. Several people spoke including District 1 Councilwoman Tamisha Torres-Walker, District 4 Councilwoman Monica Wilson and Leah Simon-Weisberg, Legal Counsel for ACCE. (See video)
The event offered preliminary findings from ECRG’s housing assessment, entitled “Antioch CHANGE – Community Housing Assessment of Needs, Gaps, and Equity”, on rising rents, evictions, and harassment concerns in the city. The report collected the housing needs and concerns of over 1,000 Antioch renters between April and June 2021. Although the survey did not ask about harassment, surveyors report hearing many stories of tenant harassment. http://www.first5coco.org/antioch-housing
Among other results, the report finds that the biggest concern of Antioch renters is housing affordability, where approximately 50% of those surveyed are concerned about the possibility of being evicted from their homes. The report also highlights that low-income Black, indigenous and other people of color families, especially single-mothers with young children, continue to face higher levels of housing insecurity and harassment.
To drive home ECRG’s report and their findings, ACCE-Contra Costa led the tour to highlight the conditions that some Antioch renters are facing such as at Twin Creek Apartments. During the rally those in attendance held signs and chanted “Fists up don’t give up”.
“FPI Management is not doing repairs,” said David Sharples, Director of ACCE-Contra Costa. “We’re doing a walk of shame to bring attention to the bad conditions.”
After gathering for a group photo, they marched with their signs across James Donlon Blvd. to the Twin Creeks Apartments where they tried to enter the rental office, but the door was locked.
Protesters in the “Tour of Shame” shouted chants outside the Twin Creeks Apartments office.
Tenant Complaints, Compliment
Before the event, tenants of the Twin Creek Apartments shared about their experiences with their building manager FPI Management, who has a history of harassment and negligence, and gave a tour of their apartments.
ACCE-member Lisa Omorowa is one of the many tenants who claim they’re facing negligence and harassment under FPI Management for the past three years. She has lived in complex with her husband and five children since 2019, and shares that most appliances and fixtures in their apartment are either outdated or are no longer working.
Many issues that Omorowa and her family face, such as both shower faucet handles in her bathrooms being so rusted that she has to turn the water on and off for her children, are considered by FPI to not be an “emergency” and are left unresolved. Their maintenance requests are met with the same level of inaction from FPI Management – issues like their oven needing replacement due to rust and nonfunctional burners, the cabinets and other fixtures falling apart, and the living room light not working since July 2021.
“This is my third year here and they have increased my rent over five times, even though everything here is old and broken down” said Omorowa, who pays $2,540 a month. “There needs to be a change of management because they make it difficult for us Black people to live here. This new management is not human, they don’t have empathy.”
Lanae Jackson is another ACCE member and a current college student living in the Twin Creek Apartments. She, like many others in the building, has experienced harassment, in which her landlord has refused to address urgent safety and habitability issues – including cockroaches, mold, and faulty electrical wiring. For example, several weeks ago a wall socket in Jackson’s apartment needed replacing and a handyman came to repair it. But instead of fixing the mistake, the handyman nailed a board over the socket to cover the hole.
Jackson is also severely rent burdened, earning $600 a month as a student advisor but paying approximately $990 for a two-bedroom apartment.
“It’s awful to not feel safe being in your own home” Jackson said about her apartment’s conditions. She hopes the city council passes stronger tenant protections for renters like her. “Passing ordinances in Antioch would finally bring peace of mind.”
A man who lives with his family in one of the Twin Creeks apartments, but who chose to not be identified, shared his experience, which is improving.
“When we first moved in, it got pushed back two weeks so they could get the placed fixed up and ready. But then we moved in and all it was, was the new carpet,” said the resident. “The mirror in the master bathroom is falling off the wall because the counter is broken and sagging. The dishwasher wasn’t fixed for six months.”
“The demo they showed us, my fiancé was star struck and fell in love instantly,” he stated. “But the apartment we moved into smelled and had calcium build up in the shower. Had they actually cleaned it, they would have seen it.”
For their two-bedroom, two-bath unit with one single assigned parking slot he said he pays $2,160 per month on a 14-month lease.
He did point out something positive currently occurring at Twin Creeks.
“The new maintenance guy they have is good. But he’s getting overworked. He’s at my apartment but has to leave for an emergency to another apartment,” the tenant stated.
FPI owns other complexes, he shared, including the one where his daughter lives, in Davis and is experiencing the same challenges.
As the group stood near the front of the rental office, they were led in chanting, “FPI, you’re no good. Make repairs like you should,” and “FPI, you can’t hide. We can see your greedy side,” and “What do we want? Repairs, now!”
Protesters march on the “Tour of Shame” inside the Twin Creeks Apartment complex.
“FPI is known for buying properties, pushing tenants out and jacking up the rent,” said Simon-Weisberg.
Asked who should tenants turn to for help, she said, “There’s no enforcement in Contra Costa County. That’s why it has to happen at the city level.”
Asked who would enforce the proposed ordinances in the city, police or Code Enforcement, Simon-Weisberg explained, “it will have to be city employees, part of an enforcement team.”
“Fight, fight, fight. Housing is a human right,” the group was also led in chanting.
“Aqui estamos. Y no nos vamos,” they chanted in Spanish, meaning we are her and we aren’t leaving.
Sharples placed a demand letter through the mail slot in the door to the office. Addressed to FPI Management, the list of demands included, hire professional maintenance staff, fix the plumbing, eradicate the mold, repair the lighting fixtures, fix all non-emergency work orders right away and give adequate notice before water shut-offs.
He then led the group of protesters on a walk through the complex.
FPI Management Does Not Respond
The Folsom-based FPI Management’s slogan on their company website of “Culture Grounded in H.E.A.R.T.”, refers to Humility, Excellence, Accountability, Respect and Teamwork. Several efforts to reach someone at the company for comment about the rally and tour, and a response to the complaints from their tenants at Twin Creeks were unsuccessful. In addition, a message was left on the voicemail for Twin Creeks Apartments on Thursday, but no response was received as of publication time at 4:25 p.m.
Antioch Has High Eviction Rate
The city of Antioch has been the ground for the largest number of evictions within the Bay Area according to a March 2021 KQED investigative report which found Antioch’s eviction rate to be 207.2 per 100,000 renter households. That’s nearly double that of Richmond and approximately 50 times the rate of Oakland. Moreover, 60 percent of Antioch renters, who make up 40% of all Antioch residents, report paying more than 30 percent of their income on rent in 2021.
More video of the day’s action can be viewed on ACCE’s Facebook page.
Allen D. Payton contributed to this report.
