Video by Julia Espinoza/The Collegian
On Friday, March 4, the Fresno community held a rally at Fresno City Hall to advocate for affordable housing for all, addressing the housing crisis within Fresno and demanding anti-displacement policies from the City Council.
Local organizations that came to speak at the rally included the Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability, Faith in the Valley, We Are Not Invisible and Mujeres Amorosas Poderosas.
The Fresno State community, including students, professors and alumni, also showed its support and demanded change, noting that housing issues have been a long-lasting battle in the city.
Matthew Jendian, Fresno State sociology professor, said he has been advocating to City Council members for housing changes since 2004.
“We actually hosted a housing tour for [former Fresno] Mayor Alan Autry at the time and City Council members, to show them what the housing situation was in Fresno,” Jendian said. “We actually took them. We chartered a bus and drove them to different units in Fresno, showing them what people were living in and how much they were paying.”
Jendian, who has been working on housing research for over 20 years, was one of the founding members of Faith in the Valley when it was first called Faith in Community.
During the 2004 housing tour, the organization showed the former mayor and council members that a majority of Fresno residents were unable to afford the average price of housing in the city. They also showed the homes of residents with bathrooms, floors and ceilings tattered and infested with mold, with residents living there because it was what was affordable.
They were also shown affordable places in Fresno that were nice to live in, but action was needed to fulfill the lack of these houses in the city. Jendian said a commision was made to build 10,000 affordable housing units by 2010, but it was never funded, “leaving us in the same mess that we were in back in 2004.”
Friday’s rally started after a report called “Here to Stay,” commissioned by the City of Fresno and requested by the Transform Fresno program and the City’s Housing Element, studied “displacement prevention efforts,” the report said.
The report was authored by the Thrivance Group and it studied the housing conditions of the community, recommending 46 anti-displacement policies to the city.
The report noted Fresno’s history of “harmful land-use practices” against people of color.
“Fresno includes a series of hostile land acquisitions imposed on Indigenous Americans, forced labor exploitation of Black farmers, unjust labor practices toward brown migrants and the socio-economic alienation of Hmong residents,” the report said.
It included this information to justify why policies targeted at aiding people of color in Fresno is necessary and to explain how the neighborhoods that minority groups were forced into are now victims of increased rent and living costs.
“The connection between revitalization and displacement in low-income communities of color is: while these investments are made in the interest of low-income communities of color, they revitalize neighborhoods to the extent that they become more attractive to people who don’t currently live there,” the report said.
Jendian also noted that government action needs to be taken in order to integrate affordable housing within diverse neighborhoods with different economic backgrounds, rather than concentrating low-income housing in one community.
He said it will not harm property values, but create a “racially, ethnically and socioeconomically diverse community.”
“Isn’t that the community that really reflects who we are?” Jendian said. “Instead of having a school, for example Buchanan or Clovis North or Clovis West in Fresno, that only has people from a certain socioeconomic background and certain, very limited, racial and ethnic diversity.”
“I have students who are struggling with affordable housing right now at Fresno State. It’s affecting their education. It’s affecting their graduation, and that’s why I’m here,” he added.
During Jendian’s 20-year tenure at Fresno State, he said he’s seen several students take time off school to earn money.
He said research and anecdotal studies, like listening sessions on guaranteed basic income, have found that a majority of students are either facing a housing cost burden ”” spending 30% of their monthly income on housing ”” or a severe housing cost burden ”” spending more than 50%.
Pa Houa Lee, a Fresno State junior majoring in sociology, said she attended the rally because of her family’s difficult experience with housing. Lee said she remembered sharing a small, two-bedroom apartment in Kings County with her parents and six siblings.
She emigrated from Thailand in 2004, and said her family was unaware of resources to help them at the time. Both of her parents also have disabilities that prevent them from working, so they live off Social Security.
“It’s not just me. I know I’m not the only one experiencing it. I’m out here to support those people so they don’t have to go through what my family went through,” Lee said.
Lee also said she knows students struggling to pay for rent, with one friend still paying off the debts for living in the Fresno State dorms. She noted that students who are struggling aren’t aware of the resources, so more information and awareness needs to be spread.
“Students are really shy, so you have to reach out to them,” Lee said.
“There’s students who feel like they’re alone, who feel like they’re the only ones experiencing this housing crisis,” said Alexandra Alvarado, community organizer for Faith in the Valley.
“They’re living out of their car. They’re living with family,” Alvarado said. “They’re trying to live in dorms with their friends. They’re not getting their deposits back and they’re getting pushed aside, taken advantage by their landlords… We can continue to share resources and continue to build power to make sure no students continue to go without housing.”
Alvarado is also a Fresno State alumna and graduated from the sociology department program in 2015.
She also attended the rally on Friday, and said she went because people can make a change when they come together. Her time at the university started her path in public work because it “brought community into the classroom,” Alvarado said.
“The data, there’s real people behind there. The numbers, there’s real people behind there. They want change… We are hoping to create a community where everyone is housed. Everyone deserves a safe, affordable, accessible place to call home,” Alvarado said. “Know that there are people out there to support.”
Many attendees and speakers at the event encouraged people in Fresno to stand together to speak on the issue, and for those who can’t attend events like the rally, to email city council members and the mayor.
“That’s why I’m here: to advocate and use my voice to pressure city hall to do something. To take action to address the immediate need of the unhoused and the immediate need of the people who are struggling to stay in their homes; to the long-term need of building enough affordable housing in the city of Fresno for people of all income backgrounds,” Jendian said.
