EXHIBITION: September 17 – November 5, 2023
Why We Don’t Want to Talk About It
Project participants really wanted to gather narratives of eviction and displacement. We were sure many people would want to share their stories, but that wasn’t the case at all. This ‘poem’ was assembled from snatches of conversations with tenants about why they don’t want to share their eviction stories, then written onto a piece of painters’ plastic, evoking empty buildings and difficult memories. This fragment of the poem illustrates the pain and anger that inspired this project:
My neighbor was devastated and stopped communicating with the entire community the day he moved out.
My neighbors think it’s useless to fight back.
I don’t want to think about it anymore.
I don’t want to be seen as a victim.
I’ve known the family forever so I didn’t want to cause problems.
It all worked out for the best… but I hated it when the landlords treated me like I was living in their house and not my home…
I can’t really talk about it publicly- I can sing you the song I wrote though.
I don’t think you’re going to tell it right.
The Annotated Ellis Act
A wall-size annotation of LA’s Ellis Act and Tenant Anti-Harassment Ordinance, by Tom Laichas and friends, highlighting tenant protection provisions that the City has failed to enforce.
Aanti Sumaiyya’s “Dignity Village”
This installation features Aanti Sumaiyya’s paintings, hand-crafted dolls, and writings, her creative anchors as she transitioned from being unhoused on Ocean Front Walk into permanent housing in Venice.
“These paintings and dignity dolls are reflections of my personal survival stories being a chronically homeless girl and woman who is now in supportive housing. Seemingly elementary, they are anything but. I share them and my book with you in hopes to open the minds and hearts of others about what we homeless women and girls experience daily and nightly: fear, frustration, bewilderment, despair. I can’t thank Venice enough for helping me.”
AirBnB and Short-Term Rental Maps
Every apartment unit and house listed on Air BNB, VRBO, and similar Short Term Rental (STR) services reduces the housing available for long-term residents. While the map in the exhibit identifies the 330 short term rental properties registered with the city of Los Angeles as of July 2023, InsideAirBNB.com lists over 1,600 properties available for rent as STRs. Despite enacting a Home Sharing Ordinance, the city has failed to address illegal rentals and their contribution to our housing and homelessness crises.
THE GALLERY
The gallery included the timeline and three story panels described below, a video, and a poetry panel combining photos of people who shared their eviction stories and poems we wrote about and for each other, in pairs, during the first workshop.
Venice Census & Housing Activism Timeline
A sixty-year time line (1960-2020) of Venice housing activism (bottom) and Venice census data (top). [Census top to bottom: white population; tenant population; owner-occupied population; Latino population (orange); population paying 35-49% of income on rent; population paying over 50% of income on rent; Black population; Asian population].
Story #1
Documents revealed through a public record request tell the story of one Venetian artist who filed complaints thru the Tenant Anti-Harassment Ordinance (TAHO) detailing over two years of endless harassment by landlords. The City has refused to forward her case to the City Attorney for prosecution.
Story #2 & Story #3
Two panels tell the stories of a tenant evicted from Venice using the Ellis Act despite lies told by the City Attorney – and a tenant who has been harassed by her landlord off and on for seven years, including use of AppFolio.
Photo by Cindy Bendat
Infinite Reality
Infinite Reality #44, Pat Raphael: a conversational culmination exploring the never-ending source that can be tapped through the process of creating, versus the finite scarcity that characterizes modern capitalism. Oil, acrylic, marker on canvas. Photos by Cindy Bendat.
Rental Flyer
Made in Venice, by Pangea
