role does eviction defense play in a larger tenant organizing campaign it's obviously essential but

how

does that defensive work form part of a larger offensive strategy and and are there also risks around centering eviction defense in an organization and more generally centering emergency response to such an extent that it crowds out other collective efforts because there are as you all know constant emergencies that tenants are facing how how do you handle these in a way that build organizing power in the long run rather than distracting from doing so and and conversely how do we build power over the medium and long term while also answering tenants urgent needs or or or through answering tenants or urgent needs i

guess i i'll i'll i'll go i i don't right now i mean i don't i ideally want tenants to be organized and aware of their rights well upstream of the possibility of them receiving an eviction notice but i do think that eviction defense i don't i don't think it crowds out other forms of organizing and i do think about it i mean as sort of you know it is it is downstream ideally we want to be so well organized that no one gets an eviction notice at all but that's just not how it works i think it's really important to think about um the the eviction machine in this country and so eviction defense tactics even and it kind of goes into a broader discussion about what people think about is offensive versus defensive tactics and sometimes in some corners people you know comrades may be a little dismissive of of purely defensive tactics but the fact of the matter is the way that eviction court and eviction processes work in america is like it's it's an incredibly streamlined process um on the part of real estate right so anything that you can do in terms of eviction defense especially collectively but i think you do in terms of eviction defense to gum up the works right i mean i i often say to people you know if every tenant and again even like basic policies um you know that maybe some people would consider reformist like right to counsel or things of that nature of all of these different policies if every tenant had a lawyer if every tenant knew their rights or if every tenant were organized etc eviction court would simply break down i mean we're even seeing during covid that eviction courts are um unable they're they're not uh they're pretty rickety apparatuses they're the only reason that they uh you know they just have the legitimacy to just bring tenants in and just spit them out and evict them very very quickly for for no for no reason that's the way that it's set up but there is a value of eviction court as a side of struggle to to really gum up the works there because eviction court in america simply would not function there are a lot of ways to to break it down if every tenant you know if more tenants were organized or even even little basic things like them having their right to legal defense and we and as far as covid's concern we we really did see that i mean i i forget exactly which city i forget it was minneapolis or st paul but somewhere where um there was a midwestern city where the landlord bar association was recently complaining that they couldn't you know take cases as fast as uh they were they were getting them right um there's a lot of value in in actually organizing around eviction court um and i think it's complementary to you know organizing ahead of that process of of a tenant getting a notice because it's a system that can be i think toppled i mean it feels like it just it is a grinding machine right it's a lot to go up against um you know the legal system but i think there are a lot more opportunities to mess it up and throw a wrench in it um through organizing especially um that that that we that we need to look at as as one of many strategies i

mean