by Rich Lord
When Reed Van Schenck saw his photo in the window of his landlord’s office, along with a sign saying he was “wanted for questioning” by Wilkinsburg police, the effect was “terrifying,” he said.
“I knew I had not done anything wrong,” Van Schenck, a graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh’s Department of Communication, said in an interview. All he had done, he said, was distribute flyers demanding that his Wilkinsburg-based landlord, C.P. Development, also known as Regent Square Rentals, negotiate with tenants over potential future evictions and the quality of maintenance.
His belief that flyering is not criminal provided little comfort. “I don’t trust the police to be on the right side. I trust them to be on the side of the landlord.”
The pandemic crisis has prompted tenants to organize in the Pittsburgh region, and activism in Wilkinsburg is emerging as a prime example. Tenants organized under the banner of the United Neighborhood Defense Movement [UNDM] have protested at C.P. Development’s office.
Now the UNDM is calling for a “rent strike” against C.P., starting Aug. 1, and is among groups planning to protest at 3:30 p.m. Friday on Grant Street, Downtown, against a potential surge in evictions when current moratoriums are lifted.
The pictures in C.P.’s windows — removed in June — and tenants’ beliefs that they’ve been tailed by police have some of them worried that the borough will favor its biggest landlord over its residents.
Wilkinsburg Police Chief Ophelia Coleman said her department isn’t taking sides. Officers have monitored protests, she said, and the department has concern with a possible connection between organizing and graffiti, but that’s all.
“For them to say that the Wilkinsburg police are targeting them, that’s a total lie,” Coleman said in a July interview. “Not one protester can tell you that the police have said anything to them or that they’ve said anything to the police.”
Protesters gather outside of the Wilkinsburg offices of C.P. Development, also known as Regent Square Rentals, on June 20, 2020. (Photo by Ryan Loew/PublicSource)
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Tenants call for ‘rent strike’ against Wilkinsburg’s biggest landlord — and fear retaliation
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