Workshop 2:

The Bail Dispute Tool

Wednesday 14 April 2021 ~ 5:15 - 6:30pm Pacific

CANCELED

Using Web Based Tools To Fight Evictions and for the Abolition of Debt

Dawn Lueck, Mackenzie Halter, Isidro Cerda, and Paul Lanctot

As Critical Resistance reminds us, abolition is the absence of police, prisons, and borders. But it is also the PRESENCE of housing, healthcare, education, a thriving environment, and economic opportunity. At the Debt Collective we focus on improving economic opportunities by abolishing burdensome debt that severely limits people’s lives. Household debt is at an all time high, having reached 13.5 trillion dollars in 2018, however, mass indebtedness provides the right conditions for political mobilization around debt and it’s abolition. In order to achieve this we are using technology to create free mutual aid tools to help households know their rights, assert their rights, and fight against evictions, rent debt, and bail bond debt.

As of May 9, 2020, approximately 599,000 workers in LA County have lost their jobs and have no unemployment insurance. And about 449,000 of those unemployed and with no income live in approximately 365,000 units of rental housing, leading to the accumulation of rent debt numbering in the tens of thousands of dollars per household. Thanks to eviction moratoriums, tenants cannot be evicted during the COVID 19 pandemic for accumulated rent debt, however once those protections are lifted we anticipate both a significant rise in evictions and rental debt that will be transformed into consumer debt, burdening even those tenants that don’t get evicted for years to come.

The Eviction Defense Tool will help tenants facing eviction to file the legal paperwork to contest their eviction in court. The tool also provides resources to find legal help and become more involved in the LA Tenants Union. Through this part of the tool we see an opportunity for radical change by building tenant power, and mobilizing them to demand better housing conditions and the cancellation of rental debt and reduction of rents. We will also help tenants organize around abolishing the accumulated rental debt which will be transformed into consumer debt and dealt with in small claims court, possibly exacerbating racialized displacement, houselessness, and the criminalization of poverty.

California’s median bail rate is five times higher than the rest of the country ($50,000 in California versus $10,000 nationally). Based on a bail amount of $50,000, the average premium charged by a bail bondsman is $5,000 in California. The debts owed to bail bonds companies thereby create a financial prison that is exceedingly difficult for low-income and indigent people to overcome.

The Bail Debt Dispute Tool will allow co-signers on bail contracts who have outstanding bail debt to challenge these debts and cease enforcement actions against them. It will also refer people with bail debt, to state regulatory bodies and enforcement actors whose responsibility it is to enforce California consumer protection laws. This tool has the capacity to legally discharge upwards of $700 million in bail debt across the state of California, and generate widespread media and political attention.

We hope to participate in the virtual gathering Imagining Abolition: Beyond Prisons Wars and Borders, by presenting our tool, our approach to organizing using the the tool as a piece of legal mutual aid, and facilitate a discussion/skill share about how these tactics can be implemented in other parts of the country.

Dawn Lueck is recognized as an Anti-Debt Activist, Artist, Visionary, Rebel and Resistor. During her graduate studies at CIIS, she began front lining movements and actions that inform and educate individuals with discussions and tools that really dig into the question, “Who Owes Who?!” In 2015, she published “The For-Profit College Scam, Why I Support the Debt Strike Against My Former Employer.” And has been on strike and organizing fellow debtors and members of the Debt Collective ever since.

Mackenzie Halter is an attorney based in Oakland, California. Mackenzie is passionate about incarcerated persons’ rights and criminal legal reform. She hopes to one day see the abolition of the US carceral state. In furtherance of these goals, Mackenzie joined the Debt Collective as a Legal Fellow to assist in the creation of a Bail Debt Dispute Tool. The tool will assist cosigners on predatory bail bond contracts to dispute unjust and illegal bail debts.

Isidro Cerda is an organizer and urban planner based in Los Angeles, California. He is passionate about affordable housing, and the fight against gentrification and has worked in this area for over ten years. Isidro joined the Debt Collective as a researcher and organizer with the main task of disseminating the Eviction Defense tool to organizations like the LA Tenants union and other local non profits.

Paul Lanctot is a web developer and long-term organizer with the Los Angeles Tenants Union. He is currently working with the Debt Collective to build web apps to support tenants and debtors in navigating complicated legal processes.