Elizabeth Mackey on COPA urgency and tenant exhaustion

Good afternoon, everyone.

Well, the ones that's here.

We've been here all morning from the rally to now.

And I saw Councilwoman Sanchez as she was leaving, so she told me to come and testify.

Nevertheless, my name is Elizabeth Mackey, and I'm an organizer, and I'm a community leader throughout the city with several organizations.

So I'm just here to say we need to pass COPA.

We've been here.

Over and over several years, several months, here testifying through the conditions of these landlords.

And we're tired.

We're so sick and tired of being sick and tired of hearing the same testimonies over and over again.

We demand, we urgency need COPA to be passed.

We had it passed, but we had a corrupted mayor, Mr.

Adams, who vetoed it.

And it is not right for we to be here again to try to get it back.

But we demand for city council to do their job because we wouldn't be here.

We need, what we need, we need people like us to take over our buildings with deadbeat slumlords not doing their job.

We're tired.

Of being tired, of being sick and tired, of living in slum.

We deserve better.

We deserve better.

We pay our rent what they get, but why do we live in conditions the way we live?

We talk about a mayor who say he gonna do block to block.

I don't know what block he on as yet, but at the end of the day, when he gonna come to my block?

When he gonna go to your block?

Because we're tired of being, living in conditions

the condition that we live in our buildings.

These landlords need to be, sorry, I'm so sorry.

The landlords need to take accountability of the things and how they treat us.

So at the end of the day, I'm so sorry about the timing, but at the end of the day, the landlords need to be accountability.

HPD need to come.

They said that they got people to come to do the inspection.

So then how many?

I wanted to ask.

They not here.

They said they got plenty.

So they need to come out.

They need to do their job, and they need to do their job because we as tenants are suffering.

The families are suffering.

The people live in shelters.

They're hoarding apartments that people need to get out of the shelter into the apartments.

But we had enough.

So COPA need to be passed.

We need to have some generation wealth regarding COPA.

It says protection act of land.

That's not even the landlords.

The land is not the landlord.

The land is not even the city.

Thank you.

So we need to be protected.

And we're going to...

Continue fighting.

We're going to let the city know that the land is free.

It's ours.

And we're going to continue fighting.

COPA belongs to the people, not to the city.