Frenz Took Our Home, Help Us Get Back On Our Feet

Our names are Erick and Santiago and a few weeks ago, on a regular Saturday afternoon, one of our worst nightmares came true. We went to work, and when we came back the apartment that my mother Tereza Jimenez had rented for the last 6 years and was everything to her, and had also become everything to us and our home, was gone. Our embattled landlord, Steve Frenz, had  gone into our apartment without any previous notice and made it uninhabitable. We came home to a completely destroyed apartment: the carpet was gone, the stove, kitchen cabinets, counters, and sinks were gone, and worst of all, all of our belonging had been thrown in the dumpster. We could have never imagined something like this happening to us. Steve Frenz took all of the stuff that we had worked so hard for, he took our memories and threw them in the garbage, and worst of all he destroyed what was and could have been a beautiful home. How can we ever be reimbursed for items that had so much more meaning then monetary value? Like letters from relatives who live far away? Gifts that meant so much to us? Or, even worse, Erick’s only picture of his late dad?

We are still in shock, and have taken some time with friends and family to recover from what happened to us. If we have learned anything from this horrible situation, its that no landlord should ever be able to do this and no one should loose their home like this again. We feel that he has abused his power, without caring that he was stepping on us and this has made our community even more afraid of him. Everyone deserves a safe, stable and dignified home. Now, more then ever, we are seeing how Steve Frenz has robbed our community of that human right.

However, to be able to fight for our community, we need to get back on our feet. Frenz destroyed all of our belongings. But hope cannot be thrown away like our belongings. Thanks to the support of Inquilinxs Unidxs Por Justicia we now have a new apartment and we are slowly getting new furniture and making it our new home. We have faced expenses trying to get some of what we most need, and we are doing our best. We are turning to our community for support, and so that we can keep working towards a community where what happened to us will never happen again. We don’t wish this experience upon anyone, to be honest not even on Steve Frenz, because no one deserves to go through something like this.

If its in your heart and wishes we ask for your support so that we can replace the belongings we lost, get back on our feet, and move past this terrible experience. Steve Frenz took our home, he threw away hard work, memories, and showed us what an abuse of power can do. Frenz couldn't have imagined that by doing this to us our community would only get stronger. Together we will show him that he cannot hurt our community like this.