In Los Angeles, ACCE Action has an Education Chapter and a Home Defenders Chapter! We have are also organizing on the neighborhood level with chapters in City Council Districts 8, 9, 10 and 15. From taking action to get the city to invest in our neighborhoods to fighting for fair housing policies and services across the city, LA ACCE Action members are making their voices heard!
3655 S Grand Ave, Suite 250
Los Angeles, CA 90007
213-863-4548 ext. 107
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We've long been leading the fight to save homes from foreclosures and now are deeply engaged in the fight to stop rent gouging and eviction of the long-term residents in our communities - especially tenants of corporate Wall Street landlords like Blackstone's Invitation Homes. 2020 saw the beginning of two new movements in L.A. and several important victories. Inspired by the Bay Area’s Moms 4 Housing movement, families left homeless from the COVID pandemic launched Reclaiming Our Homes in El Sereno, aimed at occupying homes Caltrans purchased and left vacant after the demise of the 710 freeway project. ACCE Los Angeles has racked up several significant housing wins. Since becoming part of the Keep LA Housed coalition, ACCE leaders successfully helped push the Los Angeles City Council to agree to establish a Right to Counsel - the legal right for tenants to be represented by an attorney in eviction court. ACCE leaders won tenants permanent rent control in unincorporated LA County and successfully fought to get the county to end its controversial Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) financing program that had victimized thousands of LA homeowners. In a victory for LA County tenants, ACCE led a coalition to successfully get the Board of Supervisors to extend a countywide eviction moratorium through the end of 2022. As part of the United to House LA coalition, ACCE and partners campaigned for Measure ULA - a tax on property transfers in LA City of over $5 million to fund affordable housing and homeless services - that passed by nearly 58% of the vote in November 2022. And in a huge victory for tenants in LA City, we won permanent near-universal just cause protections and relocation assistance for tenants displaced by rent increases. We also successfully pushed the LA City Council to establish a Tenant Anti-Harassment Ordinance (TAHO) that we’re working on strengthening by demanding funding for enforcement and that landlords pay attorney’s fees. We’re working to end LA’s speculative housing system by fighting for a vacancy tax on the thousands of luxury units left empty and used as second homes or pure investments. ACCE’s District 10 chapter and the residents of south LA’s Chesapeake Apartments are fighting against one of southern California’s most notorious slumlords, billionaire Mike Nijjar. For years, Chesapeake residents have been living with dilapidated and unsafe conditions at the complex owned by Nijjar and his company, PAMA Properties. The residents and ACCE leaders are fighting back by suing Nijjar and confronting local housing officials who continue to drag their feet in holding Nijjar accountable.
At Maya Angelou community school, a public high school that we fought to win, we are organizing to implement a set of important community-based policies, including a strong restorative justice discipline program. We continue to organize with parents and teachers, as well as neighbors around the school, to make sure our children are getting a strong, quality education. We are also organizing with our Reclaim Our Schools Coalition to stop the forces of school privatization and improve access to a quality education for all of our children. ROSLA is fighting to increase spending to $20K per student in LA County, divestment from school policing to end the criminalization of Black and Brown pupils, increase teacher pay, and for the cancellation of rent and mortgages. In 2022, our coalition stopped the shutdown of one of south LA’s oldest schools, Trinity Elementary, and we continue fighting to keep Trinity a Community School and end its co-location with a charter. We successfully stopped the co-location of another school, 28th Street Elementary. In early 2023, ACCE leaders marched on the picket line with UTLA and SEIU during a three-day strike of teachers and school workers, the largest school strike in history. In a huge victory, the unions won all of their demands in their contract with LAUSD, including protections for housing insecure students. Throughout the COVID-19 emergency and now , our coalition is advocating for a racially just and equitable recovery that ensures all LAUSD students learn in a safe, healthy environment.
We’re working with USC Forward, a project of Service Employees International Union (SEIU), to demand University of Southern California administrators address their role in the gentrification and displacement of low-income communities following the university’s rapid expansion. In July 2020, ACCE leaders joined USC Forward for an action calling for the abolition of campus police, an end to restrictive security measures, and the university to recruit 1,000 LAUSD students annually with full scholarships. In August 2020, USC Forward, ACCE leaders, clergy, labor allies and South L.A. residents rallied to demand the L.A. City Council stop the building of a Marriott Hotel on the former Bethune Library site, and prioritize affordable housing instead. In February 2023, ACCE members rallied in support of USC shuttle bus drivers campaigning to unionize with SEIU Local 721, and the drivers eventually won that fight. ACCE and USC Forward are now on the verge of winning crucial tenant protections in the update to South Los Angeles’ Community Plan Implementation Overlay (CPIO), which regulates how landlords redevelop the area for housing. We are continuing to pressure and demand accountability from a city that too often takes care of wealthy neighborhoods and neglects our communities.
LA ACCE members celebrated a win in the spring of 2015 and continue to roll out victories: workers in both the city and unincorporated county areas won a raise in the minimum wage to $15, which was implemented in 2020. Our bank worker members also organized across LA in Summer 2018 to win the Responsible Banking Ordinance which requires banks to disclose any quotas of their bank-workers before contracting with the city of LA! ACCE Los Angeles just recently joined forces with UNITEHERE! Local 11 to campaign for a $25/hour minimum wage for workers in LA’s travel industry.
ACCE Los Angeles’ Home Defenders chapter is organizing to help homeowners at risk of foreclosure stay in their homes. In 2020, ACCE leaders from the Home Defenders successfully fought to get the county to end its controversial Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) financing program that had victimized thousands of LA homeowners. PACE programs are enabled by state legislation that permits municipalities to offer financing for qualifying “green energy” improvements, which homeowners repay through an increase in their property taxes. But the programs are riddled with fraud, forgery, identity theft, price gouging, undisclosed costs and fees, and unpermitted and uncompleted work. And in a significant victory for approximately 100 PACE victims, then City Attorney Mike Feuer announced in July 2022 a $6 million settlement to be distributed to Los Angeles homeowners harmed by the unfair deceptive and unlawful practices by Eco Solar, a company connected to the PACE program. Many PACE victims remain uncompensated however, and ACCE is working hard to lobby state legislators to provide a restitution fund. ACCE is now partnering with Public Counsel to provide free quarterly online clinics for homeowners seeking help.
ACCE LA hosts tenant clinics in Spanish every Tuesday from 6-8PM and in English every Thursday from 5 - 7PM (holidays excluded.)
Every Tuesday, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM, Conducted in Spanish, translated into English
Zoom Link: https://calorganize-org.zoom.us/j/88324434157
Call: +1(669)900-6833
Zoom Meeting ID: 883 2443 4157
Every Thursday, 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM, Conducted in English, translated into Spanish
Zoom link: https://calorganize-org.zoom.us/j/84489313723
Call:+1(669)900-6833
Meeting ID: 844 8931 3723