TCSD organizer delivers a speech to a crowd of supporters and tenant unionists at the Nov. 11th vigil held outside the San Diego Housing Commission office in Downtown San Diego.
On November 11th, 2026, the Tenant Councils of San Diego held a vigil outside of the San Diego Housing Commission at the City College Trolley Station to honor the lives of countless tenants who have been killed by the housing system that values profit over life - including the 87 year old Maricarmen Abascal of Madrid - and to show our support for the world historic General Strike in Spain that took place that same day. A beautiful ofrenda to Maricarmen was erected, around which various speeches were delivered to a crowd of supporters who are committed to the fight for tenant’s self-determination in our city and across all borders.
Speeches were given by TCSD, Genesee Park Tenants Council, and Ann Menasche (civil rights attorney representing residents suing the City of San Diego over unsanitary conditions at its “Safe Sleeping Site”, where 21 people have died since 2023).
Below is the speech delivered by a TCSD organizer:
“We stand here because Urbagestión, a vulture fund in Spain, killed 87-year-old housing activist Maricarmen Abascal by forcibly evicting her from her home of 70 years. During that 70 years she lived there with her family. She watched both her parents die there, worked until she could retire there, and when Urbagestión bought the property she fought to stay there through increasingly impossible rent hikes until she was dragged out on a stretcher. She died in the hospital in October. When she was evicted, hundreds of thousands of people across Spain poured into demonstrations that same weekend. The Madrid Tenants Union set up an encampment at Puerta del Sol demanding an end to exploitation of renters and protection from eviction, and Spain’s tenant and labor unions went on a general strike. In Spain, Maricarmen’s martyrdom is proof that eviction is murder, housing for profit is murder, and everyone has a right to a safe home.
The people of Spain have shown us there is nothing more powerful than people who take responsibility for making sure that they and their neighbors have those homes, have a future without exploitation and death. The state wouldn’t give them that future, so they took it for themselves.
That’s why Tenant Councils of San Diego is so honored to stand here today with our speakers. They have also taken responsibility for taking their homes back and demanding the resources to make them safer, happier homes. Genesee Park Tenants Council is demanding American Asset Trust and Earnest Randy to end their practice of buying up low rent properties with long term residents and forcing them out through rent hikes. The residents of the Safe Sleeping Sites had been coerced from the spaces in this city where they were making their own shelter on the pretext that the city would “gift” them a safer place to sleep, and have had the courage to expose the scheme for what it is.
We stand in front of the San Diego Housing Commission to highlight that our County won’t protect tenants any more than Spain’s government has. They have continually refused to help us. In 2007, through Public Housing Conversion, SDHC took over 1,366 public housing units from HUD. They handed almost all of that public housing over to developers and subsidized the developers through tax credits or vouchers while those same developers took advantage of tenants. Now our supply of publicly owned housing is estimated at 189 units. In 2023, our city councilors passed a Tenant Protection Ordinance that was supposed to protect us from arbitrary eviction. Under that ordinance, SDHC was supposed to create a registry where landlords had to report every single eviction notice they served. SDHC never did. In fact, over the last couple of years reporters and researchers have exposed SDHC again and again approving illegal rent increases, refusing to address discrimination against tenants, and threatening tenants with the prospect of losing their voucher if they don’t leave when they receive illegal eviction notices. SDHC, our city councilors, the San Diego City Attorney, they aren’t doing anything to stop illegal evictions, let alone the unjust evictions their shitty laws allow. They wouldn’t stop AirBnB from replacing all of us with short-term vacationers. We don’t have city-level rent control. We are tasked with defending ourselves from arbitrary eviction. And lastly, we as tenants don’t have any right to purchase our buildings so that we can take stewardship of them and our neighbors. Every speaker tonight and, I’m sure, everyone here, has lost a neighbor to the for-profit rent and eviction scheme our County is a part of.
We are the only ones who can protect ourselves. So as we have a moment of silence for Maricarmen Abascal, for the tenant martyrs who fought together for better, for the neighbors we’ve lost, we should not just grieve, but commit ourselves to do better.”
Genesee Park Tenants Council members and other organized tenants made a show of force with signs calling out Ernest Rady and American Assets Trust for their greedy rent hikes that are pushing vulnerable seniors out from their long-term housing, just like Maricarmen, who passed away after being priced out and violently evicted from her apartment of seven decades.
Tenants from the Genesee Park Tenants Council showed up in force to show that the struggle for secure and dignified housing in Spain is of the same struggle here in San Diego. Below is the speech given by a member of GPTC:
“I am a proud member of the Genesee Park Tenants Council supporting the community I live in, here in San Diego. We are here tonight in solidarity with the communities of Spain, participating in a General Strike and we are here to honor Maricarmen Abascal and anyone who has ever been displaced, evicted, or priced out of their homes.
In 1990, Ernest Rady and his company American Assets purchased the Loma Palisades apartment complex. They quickly began renovating the property and raised rents 10%. This was devastating as these were some of the most affordable apartments in San Diego and raising rents was going to price out some very vulnerable people. All AAT could say in response to the pain is “Change is difficult”.
Some moved out, others tried organizing a tenant union, that ultimately failed. One of the residents, a 62-year-old grandfather, was so overcome by his fear of homelessness that he ended his own life. That was 1990. Thirty-six years later, 89-year-old Ernest Rady is still Executive Chairman of American Assets Trust. And now this company owns our home: Genesee Park Apartments. And they’ve already started repeating history.
We now face years of loud, disruptive construction coupled with crippling yearly rent hikes. Genesee Park was nice, peaceful, and affordable. It’s the place my wife and I called home for the last 16 years. So many of our neighbors are absolutely terrified for the future. What do they do when their social security check can’t cover the latest rent hike? Where do they go when they’re forced out of the only home they’ve known for decades?
Personally, Im angry. Angry at the fact that this endless corporate greed means I will ultimately lose my community and the friendly, familiar faces that I see every day. Ernest Rady is known for his philanthropy. So my message to him is this “You want to do philanthropy?” How about you philanthropically stop destroying our community? Stop the rent hikes.”
Civil Rights Attorney, Ann Menasche speaking to the conditions of the “safe sleeping sites” and the ongoing class action lawsuit.
Ann Menasche spoke on behalf of the tenants staying at the notorious “safe sleeping sites” (tents on an asphalt lots) run by the City of San Diego, the Downtown Partnership, and the nonprofit service provider Dreams for Change. She is representing these tenants in a class action lawsuit against the unsanitary and unsafe conditions of these shelters, where 21 tenants have died.
The transcript of her speech is reproduced below:
This city has failed poor people. Instead of fighting poverty - its a war on the poor. The City has allowed affordable housing to be removed, so theres virtually nothing left. I was around when they were eliminated the SRO hotels, and I know how many people were thrown into the streets [from] the hotel conversions, condo conversions, rent hikes, the speculation and its been a disaster.
It has forced people - who would’ve had apartments - into these camps. You can see [one] from the freeway and it’s worse up close. We did have a tour [and] they tried to pretty it up before the tour, but it still was pretty bad. Tents are [only] 2 ft. apart. We saw 2 dead rats in two tents…People have been bitten by rats, they have them crawling at night, it’s really bad. The City of San Diego is the worst slumlord in the city. People have died. 21 people have died since those camps have opened.
The food makes people sick, they [only] get two meals a day, with small amounts of calories, a lot of them get sick on it [and] they don’t accommodate people with disabilities. It’s a really horrific thing.
People stay there because the alternative is being on the street and risking arrest because it’s illegal to be homeless. That’s their choice, and it’s not much of a choice, and so they end up in these horrific places.
If this were a shelter for dogs and cats, people would be outraged and they would be shutting it down. We have a class action lawsuit pending, we’re fighting the city, and we’re going to keep fighting. Thank you.
