By Liam Dillon | LA Times
For nine months, Nash Stabolito has tried to organize a tenant union with fellow residents of his Skid Row single-room occupancy hotel and nearby properties owned by his landlord. In his building, the Baltimore Hotel, Stabolito has photos of cockroach droppings lining doors, mold-like spores dotting walls and a dead rat in a neighbor’s room. Tenants at the other SROs have had similar complaints. Working collectively, Stabolito believes, residents could better their conditions.
But Stabolito said that his landlord, the nonprofit AIDS Healthcare Foundation, has stymied the unionization efforts. The foundation, he said, has stopped him from handing out fliers, blocked union meetings in the buildings and refused to respond to requests for repairs he’s filed on behalf of other residents.
So Stabolito said he was “flabbergasted” to learn that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development this month awarded the foundation $10 million to promote tenant organizing at low-income developments across the country.
Read more at: LA Times
