Since formally launching in December 2020, the Eviction Defence Network has supported and organized dozens of actions stopping, resisting, and taking revenge for evictions in communities throughout British Columbia’s Lower Mainland.
Some of these actions have been ad hoc responses to evictions, where EDN activists working with tenants facing eviction have been able to stop or delay unlawful attempts by landlords to throw vulnerable people into the streets.
Other actions have been organized with groups of tenants against poor living conditions, intimidation, and unlawful evictions. This is the model that the Eviction Defence Network hopes will develop into an infrastructure of sustained tenant eviction defence councils. In February and March, the first of these councils have started to form, with the Cityviews Tenants Committee in Maple Ridge and the Dow Avenue Tenant Group in Burnaby.
In March, the Eviction Defence Network held its first monthly tenant group assembly, bringing together representatives from these new tenant committees with tenants in the throes of anti-eviction fights, and organizers with the Eviction Defence Network. These monthly tenant assemblies are places where tenants in struggle can come together, hear about struggles going on in neighbouring communities, and strategize and theorize together.
To draw together information from this network into one central place, and to spread the word about this growing network of anti-eviction fighters, the Eviction Defence Network is now launching a website. See the new EDN website here: http://evictiondefencebc.org/
If you are a tenant fighting your eviction or want to join the Eviction Defence Network’s flying squad, which shows up and faces down landlords and bailiffs, join the Eviction Defence Network!