Showtime Shanna, an organizer with the East Lake Tenants Union, at a rally at the intersection of Wrightwood and Kimball avenues, down the street from Mayor Lori Lightfoot's Logan Square home, Saturday, June 11.

Members of the East Lake Tenants Union at the Washington Park SRO, 5000 S. Indiana Ave.

Showtime Shanna, an organizer with the East Lake Tenants Union, at a rally at the intersection of Wrightwood and Kimball avenues, down the street from Mayor Lori Lightfoot's Logan Square home, Saturday, June 11.

Showtime Shanna is a South Shore–based storyteller, tenant organizer and aspiring lawyer. At the helm of the East Lake Tenants Union, she has spearheaded a campaign for better living conditions in the management company’s many affordable rental units across the city—starting from the Washington Park SRO, where she used to live. By its own reporting, East Lake is “one of the largest managers of affordable housing” with around 172 properties and 12,000 units throughout the Chicagoland area as well as in Missouri, Indiana and other areas in Illinois. In the process, Shanna, “La Mami of Housing,” as she calls herself, started filming interviews with tenants about their lives and their struggles with property management companies and holding press conferences to both document and further the tenants’ fight for safe and accessible housing. Shanna has also written about tenants’ organizing at an East Lake property in Washington Park for the South Side Weekly . 

The Herald sat down with Shanna to talk more about her work and her hopes for what low-income tenants in the area can achieve through organizing. As told to Emeline Posner. Edited for length and clarity.

I’m from Houston, Texas. I came here in 2017.  I started off with City Colleges and then I ended up graduating from Chicago State with my bachelors in criminal justice. I’m trying to go to law school, so I’m working on that. I really want to focus on housing, immigration and criminal justice, because that was my passion when I first jumped into this. As I’ve grown in my own experiences, housing is really my niche. 

(Slumlords) are a thing (in the South), don’t get me wrong. But not in the sense of — your property’s falling apart, that’s kind of frowned upon from where I’m from. So when I got here I was like, damn, this is a lot.

When I first moved here I lived in Greektown for a year, I had no problems, it was perfect. And then I had moved to Little Italy and I had a terrible slumlord. It was terrible, rat-infested, they didn’t want to fix anything. It was really bad. I had stayed there for eight months but only paid rent for one month. I read into laws, the RLTO (Residential Landlord and Tenant Ordinance ), knowing my rights. 

So I moved out of there and into an East Lake building (Washington Park SRO, 5000 S. Indiana Ave.), which I just left. I had never been on low-income, Section 8. I’m coming in with a market-rate mindset of, ‘I pay my rent,’ not knowing that this is what goes on in these buildings. 

I had my own issues right when I walked in. But I also talked to a few people who were having issues too and we banded together to fix stuff, to get stuff done. 

The real big thing was and is the gym (a Crossfit gym in the Washington Park SRO). We’re all at home listening to this earthquake of a noise every morning, every day. We’re being woken up four or five in the morning and this is going on all day. You’ve got a lot of seniors, they’re on medication, but they can’t sleep. We can’t get access to (the gym) like we want to.

The other thing was the security. (Residents at the Washington Park SRO) don’t have access to the front door. You have to get buzzed in. So we raised (the issue to management) and we’re still pushing because it is a building code violation and a fire hazard. Several times there’s been a shooting and somebody’s been stuck (between doorways), waiting to get in, cause it’s like a box—the security guard, they go to the bathroom or sometimes they leave, and you’re like, ‘Okay, I can’t get into my own apartment.’ 

And then just the inconsistent management—it was a new manager every few months. There was no access, no community rooms, no engagement, cleanliness, the list goes on, but those were the big ones. 

When I first went into (conversations with tenants) I did not know about organizing. I was just talking to people, getting them together on specific issues. I’m putting myself out there as a tenant. ‘Cause the thing is trust: they would rather trust it from somebody who has something to lose, too, because the first thing they say is, ‘I don’t want to lose my housing.’ Nobody wants to lose their housing. So that’s the biggest fear that we have to combat, that I’m going to be kicked out for doing this. Just like at Amazon: ‘I’m going to be fired for joining the union.’ Trying to get that into their minds, ‘You’re protected, that’s why we’re here,’ that’s the hardest part about this.

Each tenant, I tell them, specifically what I do, what (East Lake Tenants Union) does, and I say, ‘Do you want your story told? We’re here to tell your story. ‘Shanna’s here to tell your story.’ The press won’t come out… (but) we’re really getting into what’s really going on. We’re getting the visuals , we’re getting the testimony; we want to show the world, so (tenants) know somebody is genuinely interested in what they have to say. 

The second thing is, I tell them, ‘This is a tool.’ We’re putting this out there, we’re sending it out to the management, to HUD (the Department of Housing and Urban Development). Somebody’s going to see this and we’re going to get something done.

I always talk to long-term tenants first, because they can tell me, when did things change? Because in these buildings, even the Washington Park SRO, there’s always a peak in the beginning when the building was ran well, (when) there weren’t issues, and if there were, they were corrected. Every building has those people that everybody knows, they’ve been there for a long time, they make noise.

Members of the East Lake Tenants Union at the Washington Park SRO, 5000 S. Indiana Ave.

What’s the long-term goal with your organizing? 

Tenants owning and occupying the building. And remaining there — staying in the area, implementing the services that they were supposed to have and still have — implementing those services for them but it’s tenant owned and occupied. East Lake out of the picture. 

These (management companies) do not see a court of law. But  people are dying in their apartments, children are being exposed to lead. You need to treat what they’re doing as criminal acts, cause it’s that serious. 

East Lake… they have got to go. They just have to go, contracts need to be cut with the CHA (Chicago Housing Authority), HUD needs to cut their contracts. And this is for any management company, Pangea, whoever. If they’re not performing, they need to go. It’s not that hard, it’s very cut and dry. They got too many buildings, too many complaints.

The people who are not affected—who are market renters or people moving into these gentrified areas—you got to do the work as well, get involved and do some work. Just get involved, it’s very easy. Flyering the neighborhood, to get more word out, making phone calls, being the ones to call on our elected to pass legislation. Maybe if you just say, ‘Hey, I want to check on the seniors in my neighborhood.’

It shouldn’t just be when there’s a fire, it shouldn’t just be when there’s a press conference. You should be going in these buildings, like I am, to see for yourself. These people shouldn’t have to call you, you should go looking for it, cause it’s right there, especially in gentrifying areas.

You can follow Shanna at @ShowtimeShanna on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and the East Lake Tenants Union at @EastLakeTenants. 

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