Jack Ross

2 months ago | hothouse.substack.com | Jack Ross |Cadence Bambenek

Hello, dear Hothouse readers,I’m still digesting the new administration and the devastating L.A. Fires. I imagine I’m not alone. Given everything January threw at us, I’m working to pull together a dispatch to help us navigate the months ahead. In the meantime, before current events entirely eclipse recent memory of the L.A. Fires, I wanted to share this critical story by Capital & Main. This reporting previews lessons from the housing crunch unfolding now in Los Angeles County following the fires.

2 months ago | lapublicpress.org | Jack Ross

This article was produced by the nonprofit journalism publication Capital & Main. It is co-published here with permission. It wasn’t the images of flames ripping through neighborhoods in Pacific Palisades and Altadena this month that really triggered Jordan Hocker’s anxiety. It was the flood of social media posts about rent-gouging in nearby Los Angeles County communities that appeared in the days that followed.

Jan 28, 2025 | capitalandmain.com | Jack Ross

It wasn’t the images of flames ripping through neighborhoods in Pacific Palisades and Altadena this month that really triggered Jordan Hocker’s anxiety. It was the flood of social media posts about rent-gouging in nearby Los Angeles County communities that appeared in the days that followed. Hocker lived on Maui when wildfires destroyed as many as 4,000 housing units in August 2023, leveling the town of Lahaina.

Oct 17, 2024 | lapublicpress.org | Jack Ross

This article was produced by the nonprofit journalism publication Capital & Main. It is co-published here with permission. When Tracy Rosenthal and Leonardo Vilchis, two of the founders of the Los Angeles Tenants Union, organized tenants in rent strikes such as the mariachis in Boyle Heights, they saw tenants could refuse to pay rent, win better conditions and still keep their homes.

Oct 8, 2024 | capitalandmain.com | Jack Ross

When Tracy Rosenthal and Leonardo Vilchis, two of the founders of the Los Angeles Tenants Union, organized tenants in rent strikes such as the mariachis in Boyle Heights, they saw tenants could refuse to pay rent, win better conditions and still keep their homes. To tenants’ surprise, “their keys still open the locks” and “their home, though they have not paid for it, persists,” they write in Abolish Rent: How Tenants Can End the Housing Crisis.