Weston ACORN & Tenants Host a Picnic for a Playground at Pinedale Properties Building

On Thursday, September 15th, tenants of 1855 Jane St banded together to fight back against their negligent landlord, Pinedale Properties.

Their building has an on-site playground where kids are supposed to play. Unfortunately, Pinedale has neglected to maintain the playground and it has fallen into disrepair — they even slapped a lock on the playground so that kids can’t play there!

There are several busy intersections that children in the building must cross to get to the closest parks and playgrounds now that the playground in their building is locked. On top of that, many kids still want to play at the playground (obviously) and sneak in to play, but it is dangerous as Pinedale does not clean or maintain it.

Every child deserves a safe place to play.That’s the message that tenants and families of 1855 Jane St sent to their landlord at the action today.

Pinedale has harassed and intimidated tenants over rent in the past; some tenants mentioned that they were worried about their landlord retaliating against them for speaking out about the playground. This landlord brags about making millions of dollars each year, but can’t seem to find room in their budget to fix up a small playground for children.

Still, tenants are fed up with Pinedale’s blatant disregard and disrespect. They refused to be silent or intimidated and instead created a community space to gather and call out (literally) their landlord.

At the action, there was a picnic for the children of 1855 Jane St. This involved lots of snacks, games, and a drum circle workshop led by Rikki, an ACORN member and tenant in the building.

This picnic demonstrated the need for a space like the playground at the building, built ACORN’s presence in the community, and brought attention to the issue. There were definitely lots of people stopping and asking what was going on!

Attendees spoke about the need for the playground in the building, but perhaps no one spoke as succinctly as one kid who used the megaphone to share and tell the crowd, “I want to play at the playground!”

There was also a phone blitz session. ACORN members and tenants of 1855 Jane St called the head office of Pinedale Properties to demand that they take action and fix up the playground.

This is just the beginning! Tenants will continue to fight for safe, affordable, healthy homes. One awesome way to have our voices heard next will be the Weston city council candidate Q&A session on September 28th at 6 PM in Trethewey Park.