Meet Anjie—Lawyer, Housing Advocate (Story 22/40)
This year, we’re sharing 40 stories of community in honor of our 40th anniversary working in City Heights!
These stories range from long-form interviews to short videos to captioned photos, but all of them focus on a City Heights community member’s perspective on life here. Today’s story focuses on our colleague, Anjie Frias, as she works to help prevent evictions and keep people housed across San Diego. Here’s Anjie:
“This eviction prevention work definitely feels endless. There are so many tasks ahead of us to create more housing stability for tenants, and the national attention on evictions that occurred as a result of the pandemic has helped to sustain my personal motivation. Government officials are beginning to see what I have seen in helping clients for many years: tenants need better protections because housing is a social determinant of health.
The conditions of our home and the stress we experience related to our home impacts our health. The other thing that sustains my efforts is the collaborative nature of stakeholders in this community who want to support individuals and families facing avoidable evictions. Being able to work alongside people with the same goals is always energizing.
When I first began working with tenants in Georgia, I learned that tenants were doing everything in their power to provide safe, clean homes for their children, but they didn’t understand the laws and that lack of understanding resulted in a lease violation and grounds for eviction.
When I moved to San Diego, I found the same. Most tenants understand the basic rules around renting a unit: pay your rent for the right to live there—but the laws that assign responsibility for the home are complicated and easy to misunderstand, and the laws are not forgiving of misunderstandings. Once the tenant has acted in a way that gives a landlord justification for eviction, it rarely matters whether it was intentional or a misunderstanding.”
When asked if she has a story that stands out from this work, Anjie said “I have hundreds.”
“Each time I give a Know Your Tenants’ Rights Workshop, I hear stories of the tenants and the struggles they face to provide a safe living environment for themselves and their family. The imbalance of power between landlords and tenants, which is created by weak tenant protections, places the tenants in a vulnerable position that is further amplified when the tenant has language, financial, or other barriers. I find their stories compelling and hope to be part of a solution so that eventually all individuals and families have safe and healthy places to call home!”