Happy to be a member of the Kingston Workers History Project in Kingston, Ontario. I've neglected to share some of the articles we are putting out, so here's one on tenant activism in the 1960s and 1970s:

"In 1968, a group of tenants and activists came together in Kingston to form the Association of Tenants Action in Kingston (ATAK). They opposed high rents, argued that tenants should be able to bargain with landlords, and built a wider movement to defend working class and poor people in Ontario against unjust housing conditions. Led by tireless activists, ATAK used diverse tactics to challenge rising rent prices, low vacancy, and hostile landlords. ATAK provides us with an important historical lesson about the effectiveness of grassroots organizing and the dedication of intelligent, diligent leadership to hold governments accountable and advocate for tenants, workers, the poor, and the unhoused."

- "ATAK: Tenant Action in the ’60s and ’70s," Kingston Workers' History Project. November 27, 2022.

the rent is too damn high

Underrated thing about The Crow (1994) is that ultimately it's a film about a guy utterly wrecking his shitty landlord.

Like yeah, Top Dollar is a spooky casually homicidal goth mob boss who ordered the brutal murders of the protagonist and his fiancee, and we get the whole classic revenge spree film slaughtering your way through the criminals to get to the top guy formula.

(With in addition to the whole revenant bit the interesting variant that Eric isn't even actually going for the guy at the top, he just interjects himself into the proceedings lmao.)

But also he's a slumlord, and the reason they died was Shelly formed a tenant's union in response to wrongful eviction proceedings. And Top Dollar would rather have his building sitting empty than put up with that shit.

Which will make it very funny if the remake that got greenlit for next year is deep-sixed by the studios' deranged collective refusal to come to terms with the WGA and SAG-AFTRA.

Reframing common employer phrases into plainspeak

Laziness = poor ppl resting/playing, ever

Working vacation = rich ppl getting paid to rest/play

Rage applying = looking for a better job

Rage quitting = leaving toxic job/boss

Quiet quitting = refusing to do free labor

Blackmail = employees leveraging anything

Insubordination = talking about pay at work

Company culture = guilt trips & pizza as pay

Morality clause = make us look bad, get fired

"We're like family" = "we ask for favors, then never pay you back"

"We expect everyone to pitch in" = "we expect you to do free labor"

"HR is here to help you" = "HR is here to stop you from suing us"

Thx for coming to my TedTalk

pro tip: don't keep a knife in your hand when you're blinded by onion fumes & trying to find the sink to wash your eyes out

always on my organizing grind gonna get my building unionized

Hey all. Me and my entire apartment complex are raising money to help the most urgently in need among us, and pay litigation fees to go after our property management company in court.

(The lawyers representing us are doing so at no charge.)

Said property management company has been continuing to rent units in our complex despite serious HVAC and plumbing issues. We've had heat and water shutoffs constantly during this winter, and it culminated at the beginning of this month in them asking everyone on the ground floor to vacate with a 30 day notice.

A little over a week later they sent out a retraction, saying that no one needed to move out, although they'd allow anyone who had already found new housing to end their lease with no penalty.

Then they tried, halfway through the month, to make everyone leave with three days' notice instead, claiming that they couldn't repair the heat and it wasn't safe for us to keep living here.

They sent out that notice on a Friday afternoon, mind you--making it even more difficult to get moving or storage arranged or contact any other leasing offices.

This wasn't legally enforceable, they didn't offer any alternate housing or help finding new permanent housing (at least not until people started threatening to sue), and now they're aggressively trying to get us to break up our collective organizing.

My roommates and I are okay--we're in the group that originally was told to leave and had been planning to move out anyway. But it's still been an incredibly stressful and disruptive experience.

Many of our former neighbors are in much worse situations and could really use help.

I saw an American Marxist-Leninist claim that Anarchists do nothing because of "the optics" and I couldn't think of a bigger case of projection. For years now Anarchists have been heading the fight against Cop City, which would not only train cops in this country, but export our brutality to other countries such as Israel. It has been Anarchists destroying the construction equipment, gathering intelligence on the people and companies involved, protecting the forest.

When it comes to the broader police and prison abolition movement, Anarchists have been on top of that too. Especially since most MLs think the A in ACAB means American and are perfectly willing to lick fascist boots if they think that one day they can wear the boots. When the local MLs saw how serious we were during the George Floyd Uprising not only fighting the police but the local fascist militias too, they turned tail and called the cops on us.

When Roe v Wade dissolved, it's been anarchists torching the anti-abortion places and teaching people how to make safe abortion pills.

While MLs have decried trans people as "westerners" engaging in "bourgeois degeneracy", anarchists have been the ones fighting the fascists, smuggling HRT and preventing the infiltration of TERFs in the American feminist movement.

When it comes to Gaza, Anarchists have been the ones smashing banks and other sponsors of the ongoing genocide. Just a week or two ago, Anarchists poured concrete into the water supply of a building where a Zionist event was happening, to remind them of the water they're depriving from the Palestinians.

Time and time again Anarchists have been doing not only the risky, stylish shit, but the quieter necessary shit (childcare, food, intelligence gathering, zine/sticker making, scheduling etc) needed to actually achieve change.

The only thing MLs know how to do is lead people into police kettles, sexually abuse their comrades, call the cops, get infiltrated by the feds and read Lenin like he was a holy prophet.

i can't do this gentrification discourse why are y’all pulling up dictionary dot com trying to one up each other 💀

recalling how the other day me and my cousin were discussing religion (as one does with their cousin. we certainly do it often) and we were talking abt how many religions preach living simply and being charitable and giving to the poor. and my grandmother was nearby and she’s always on my case abt how i’m not religious and she frequently gets mad at me for that and assumes that any time i am talking abt religion (ie christianity and specifically catholicism) i’m ridiculing it (personally i am not of the mindset that the core tenants of religions should be ridiculed. but. whatever. i will ridicule the catholic church though fuck them) but i quoted matthew 19:24 word for word and i’m guessing she was looking for me to say something wrong because i could hear in the tone of her voice that she was annoyed when she said “yes. that’s the verse” and then she was just weirdly passive aggressive the rest of the night. which is strange. you’d think she would have been happy that i can even quote a bible verse 😭 but apparently not getting to be angry at me was worse. sad.

“The Kingston Community Legal Clinic is warning residents after a Landlord and Tenant Board adjudicator decided a landlord was wrongfully attempting to evict their tenant.

“The landlord seeks possession of the rental unit so his mother can live there,” adjudicator Laura Hartslief wrote in her June 28 decision on the fate of Jason Martin’s home in the basement unit of 151 Fraser St. “I am not satisfied that it is more likely than not that she genuinely intends to live there.”

Jordan Morelli, a physics professor at Queen’s University who owns the rental unit, said he is devastated by Hartslief’s decision.

“It’s a complete outrage that we’ve lost this thing because I’ve been trying to get my parents here for two years,” Morelli said. “I really want my parents to be living in there.”

John Done of the Kingston Community Legal Clinic represented Martin at the Landlord and Tenant Board hearing. He said his clinic has seen a significant increase in evictions for landlords to renovate units or to use for their own use — which is what Morelli applied for. In many of those cases, but not all, landlords evict a tenant who is paying a lower rent, renovate the unit, and rent it out again for sometimes double the cost.

Done said that, at first, Martin was resigned to moving out, but when Done saw Martin’s case, he urged him to push back against Morelli.

“These are situations we see all of the time in a Landlord’s Own Use application, and our view is (that) once we start putting these under the microscope, a lot of them don’t have merit,” Done said. “Once Mr. Martin said he would accept our help, then there were, indeed, some things that sort of leaped off the page. … There were the hallmarks of these (types of) landlords’ applications that I don’t think they could show good faith.”

Martin, who on Wednesday said he still couldn’t believe he was successful, said Done worked wonders. Martin said, the stress of the case, which was drawn out over two years due to a scheduling overflow caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, has caused Martin to lose five jobs over the two years.

“When I got that decision, I actually had to leave work,” Martin, who has been working steadily at a local fishing tackle manufacturing company since the end of May, said excitedly. “I couldn’t believe it, and I was overwhelmed. I was shaking, I couldn’t talk, my brain went to mush. I’m very happy with the decision.”

Morelli owns a total of 10 units within five properties in Kingston. He said he wanted to use Martin’s apartment as a new home for his mother, Henriette Morelli, who currently lives in a two-bedroom condominium with her husband, Edwin Morelli, in Saskatoon.”

- Steph Crosier, “Tenant wins at board hearing,” Kingston Whig-Standard. Jul 11, 2022. This was a front page story in the print edition.

///

We are happy that this story is now out in the open for all to see. It won't be the last word on the matter, that's for sure. But it clearly demonstrates why Queen's University professor and faculty association president (as well as former president of the Kingston NDP riding association) Jordan Morelli's N12 eviction notice was thrown out at the LTB. In our opinion, what this stories reveals is that Morelli is willing to exploit the housing crisis for his own financial gain. 

Prior to this instance, there was two previous times where he claimed family members were moving in to units when they never did. He paid these tenants a meagre $3000, money which they quickly burned through with their rent prices hundreds of dollars a month higher. Meanwhile, he charged higher rents to the people moving in: one unit went from $409 to $1150 a month, while another went from $670 to $1200. He made that money back within months. 

Morelli wants to claim he is a victim in all this, and actually goes so far as saying that the landlord tenant laws works well for tenants. But the facts speak for themselves: The LTB rejected his case because they do not believe his story. Additionally, close to 90 percent of tenants at the LTB have no legal representation, and if it weren't for KUT and KCLC supporting Morelli's tenant, Morelli would most likely have someone living in Martin's unit's at double the rent. 

Tenants can win when they stand up and fight. Get to know your neighbours and organize with them! In Martin's case, former tenants stood with Martin to explain what had happened to them after moving out. This sort of solidarity led to Martin staying in his apartment at a rent price he can afford. KUT stands with tenants across the city and will do what we can to help.

- official statement of the Kingston / Katarokwi Union of Tenants, July 12, 2022 (Martin is a member)

/// The tenant union had helped several other tenants of Morelli, who had also been told they would have to move out of his own properties for the same reason of family need, and the communication between tenants allowed them to learn he was using the same line on several tenants - allowing the tenants to resist his efforts or negotiate for better accommodation to leave. Martin’s is the first official victory against this particular landlord, but likely won’t be the last. Of course, Morelli is a self-pitying landlord in all of this, being quoted in the article as saying: “Somehow I’m the bad guy in all of this; they’re trying to paint me as a villain.”  Morelli is hardly the worst landlord in Kingston, Ontario, and nowhere near as powerful as a rental company like Homestead. His tactics are typical of landlords everywhere. The reason why he acts the way he does, and can act the way he does, is at base a structural issue, in which housing is an investment and a means of accumulation rather than a basic right. But Kingston is a smallish town, with a proportionately smallish, vague, fragmented, and often dysfunctional ‘left’, so Morelli’s role has been controversial and increasingly divisive. Notably, it was discovered by the tenant union that his mother, who he has been claiming he was going to move into one of these vacated units, is a retired university professor who likely doesn’t want to live in a tiny basement apartment! 

As the press release from KUT notes, Morelli is a major player in the local political scene, as former riding president for the federal NDP, as secretary of the Kingston and District Labour Council (and had the temerity to send this article to other council members, even after the Council passed a pro-tenant motion!) and at Queen’s University, where he is a professor and head of the faculty association. In those roles, he is a bad faith opponent of tenant rights, student activism, grassroots unionism, and the left-wing of the NDP (as well as the small, overlapping and fractious autonomist, anarchist, communist and decolonial groups in the area). For instance, this was his response to the Ontario government, controlled by Conservatives, capping rent increases!

If there was any justice in the world or social democracy and labour unionism was not so pathetically degenerated, this kind of coverage should get him kicked out of the KDLC or NDP.

Order of operations!!!

Groceries (maybe?)

Refill pill case

Computer tasks:

Edits for V

Reply to V's email re: translation

Reply to J's email re: visit

Reply to your mom’s email re: pillowcases lol

Transfer funds for Internet bill

PAY INTERNET BILL

Invoice 1/2

Edit other J's paper, so that you can text him back without The Mortifying Ordeal

Once you do this: Text J

Locate collage supplies, to make: Congrats card for P!!! 

WE ARE DOING DESK TASKS AT THE DESK. WE CAN TAKE BREAKS AND READ STEFANIA. WE HAVE NOTEBOOK FOR NOTES. BRAIN IS FULL OF BEES

Find where the movers put...the wires for the printer...so you can print Court Letters and everything else lmao

You have Knives now, so: you can prep veg and make soup in the Crock Pot. You have two jars of stock, carrots, two types of zucchini, cabbage, broccoli, canned greens, & maybe some squash. No lentils or beans to thicken broth because we haven't been to the store about it yet, so maybe add beets and rice noodles too, if they're still good? Then the warm curry-palate seasoning blend, extra electrolytes, etc. OR miso paste and ramen seasoning packets if it's noodle-dense and we want to go in that direction, flavor-wise. I think there's some pickled ginger in the cabinet, and various vinegars, plus MSG. Might even be dehydrated tofu cubes somewhere, actually.

Read Slavic Review articles (outside if weather holds)

You gotta go down the back stairs I know why you're being Weird about it (in first building downstairs neighbor who threatened to shoot us while drunk and grabbed/kissed me once hung out around the front and back stoops) but you are fine here and need to take out the trash lol

This deserves the public eye.

See the subtle shades of yellow decay.

The green that represents my greatness.

And the quarter pounders that represent your face.

The gentle coating of white.

You can smell it through the screen.

It's organic.

It's art.

im trying to help form a tenant union in my city but i feel like i don't have much to offer. the only thing i can do is canvassing. i cant remember landlord names or the geography of the town, i can't keep up with a lot of what people talk about in strategy and idk the legal side of anything and ik i should be learning more but. idk maybe its adhd or autism (which i still havent gotten diagnosed and maybe never will at this rate) but idk how to be like "um so idk what the hell is going on and its stressing me out" and i feel useless. bc even though all i can do is canvass and give rides (and i also have too much anxiety for phone calls too), i bailed on a canvass today bc of an anxiety attack or some shit. idk what was wrong with me but i was crying and feeling hopelessand s*icidal so im like. idk. i dont want to do this but i dont want to not do it either. bc the world is ending and im trying to help the other people who want it to Not do that.

rewatched paranoia agent by proxy (reaction youtube), feeling emotionally akin to warm yet raw eggs again. great.