“No Justice, No Rent:” After Winter Storm Uri, Tenants Go on Strike
Tenants at Villas Del Paseo were without water for weeks after February’s winter storm. Now, they’re organizing to demand better conditions at their complex.
Tenants at Villas Del Paseo were without water for weeks after February’s winter storm. Now, they’re organizing to demand better conditions at their complex.
Sam Russek
Apr 1, 2021, 9:00 am CST
Sam Russek
Olga Villega’s apartment is humid from the gushing bathroom faucet, causing mold to spread and attracting bugs.
Jaider Vara had tried his best to keep his wife and 5-year-old daughter away from the black mold that bloomed on the walls of their apartment in the Villas Del Paseo apartment complex in West Houston. Since a burst pipe flooded their one bedroom after Winter Storm Uri, he’d ripped out the carpet and disinfected the area covered in spores, but there was only so much he could do without tearing down the walls and fixing the leak
Residents in West Houston meet to organize a rent strike.
While many Houstonians recovered from winter storm damages within days, others are still waiting for running water to be restored.
But at the Villas del Paseo apartment complex in West Houston, renters were without water for more than three weeks.
Organizers with the Houston Tenants Union say about half of residents in the 383-unit complex are participating in a rent strike after deciding not to pay rent on March 1. So far, they say none of the residents have gotten an eviction notice.
Ally Torres urged her neighbors to join the strike at a community meeting last weekend.