Tenants Win at the Vulcan Lofts

This story was published in Street Spirit’s April 2026 joint issue with Bay Area Current. Print copies of the newspaper are available at your local vendor.

In 2019, Anne Bustamante had the fortune to watch as Oakland’s Fantastic Negrito, wearing a pair of pants she made and designed, walked on stage to accept the Grammy for Best Contemporary Blues Album. This felt, to a degree, like a win for Bustamante, and a sign to persevere through many of her other struggles at the time, particularly her fight, along with other tenants in her building, to preserve their home.

Bustamante, along with other Vulcan Studio tenants, were fighting their landlord, Madison Park Financial, to maintain their affordable rent after discovering the property had been put on the market. Bustamante was a founding organizer of the Vulcan Tenants Union, and was the acting treasurer for the group. The contrast of having her work on the red carpet and living in the midst of a large landlord dispute was stark, to say the least.

Just this past February, after eight years of fighting, the City of Oakland officially recognized that the Vulcan Lofts should be overseen by local rent control, known as the Rent Adjustment Program.

“Amidst endless news of the rich and powerful acting with impunity at the expense of those with less, let our story be a counter-example which disproves what can easily feel like the rule,” read a statement on the Save the Vulcan Facebook page. “If our working-class crew of art misfits and eccentric outsiders can start with nothing and band together to triumph over money and power, so can you.”

Madison Park, in an email to Current, said they plan to appeal this decision to the California Superior Court.

This marks a new battle in the wake of the fight to save the Vulcan, and potentially a vital setting of precedent in the local courts when it comes to protecting renters, most especially of live/work spaces.

But how did this all come about? 

Situated in the Fruitvale neighborhood, the Vulcan Studios were, since the 1980s, permitted as a live/work space in Oakland. Formerly a forgery, it was officially turned into housing units in 1987. In 2006, the buildings were purchased by Madison Park Financial, a local real estate company infamous for sending illegal eviction notices during the pandemic.

“People think that because they're paying rent and they're in a house, that that makes it an issue just for the immediate household,” said Hamsa. “But repairs and disrepairs impact everyone, especially if you live in a duplex or an apartment. Everyone is going through the same bullshit.”

The buildings that comprise the property have become home to many working artists, from circus performers, visual artists, fashion designers, and the like. During all this time, the living conditions have never been ideal. 

“They didn’t keep up with repairs, and then when they did come to repair something, they made it worse, I think, to discourage us from asking for help,” Bustamante said.

Seeing as the rent was still affordable compared to alternatives around the city, and the space left room for the artists to continue their work, many just kept putting up with it. Until 2018, that is, when it was discovered that their landlord put the property up for sale. In the listing, as reported at the time by KQED, the property was falsely advertised as “Rent Control Exempt: A Rare Opportunity in Oakland.”

Quickly, a team of tenants, with help from the community organization Safer DIY Spaces, spearheaded a fundraising campaign to help gain legal services and fight their landlord in order to protect not only the long-term security of their residence in the space, but also the protection of their rent increases. They quickly fundraised the $50,000 needed for legal fees.

Since then, the Vulcan case has been a slog to finish. Initially, a filing by the tenants was made to argue that their rent was protected under Oakland’s Rent Adjustment Program (RAP), to which the board members of RAP agreed, with one abstention. 

However, Madison Park appealed this initial ruling, pushing into the minutiae of the law. In this final appeal they believed that because the permits for the living space were not made until 1987, that they were exempt from RAP guidelines. This distinction is important because the RAP law is only acceptable for space built or made new before 1983. However, as the tenants and their lawyers proved in court, there was voter registration from 1982, citing the Vulcan property as the voters home, effectively proving that it had already been a place of residence prior to permitting. 

Essentially, in varying ways, Madison Park attempted to make living at Vulcan not worth it in the hopes they would leave, and give up their battles.

In the case documents, even the Madison Park lawyers conceded this.

“There was indisputably prior residential use of the rental units at the property prior to that date,” wrote Madison Park in one court filing.

This acceptance, along with the protections written into RAP that explicitly state that exemptions to RAP should be “narrowly viewed,” meant they should have rent control.

However, even with this win, many current tenants are still afraid of retaliation from Madison Park. 

During this battle, the quality of the tenants' living spaces only grew worse, with Madison Park at times retaliating against their tenants. They would see objects in the hallway of common areas and hallways, and take away the items with little warning. Once, the landlords hired people to come in and clear out anything in the parking spots, which Bustamante and others used as a space to keep their own belongings, seeing as they were allotted their own parking space. Essentially, in varying ways, Madison Park attempted to make living at Vulcan not worth it in the hopes they would leave, and give up their battles.

“The entire time I lived there they were horrible. I mean, I do feel towards the end they retaliated against me due to my organizing.” Bustamante said, later noting that while many did leave the studios, there are still a few people living there from the initial days of the fight against Madison Park. Bustamante herself moved out of the lofts in 2023, as others took up the torch. 

The collective action of a few tenants in these buildings to protect their home, and preserve an affordable space for artists to live and make their work, will remain for the foreseeable future.

Regardless of who remains, their efforts were not in vain. Staying organized through an eight-year legal battle, the tenants won against Madison Park Financial. This could have a snowball effect, seeing as there are many live/work spaces like this in Oakland. There is now a precedent to apply rent control to these live/work, or semi-commercial spaces, which often evade rent control laws.

Now, as Bustamante said, their fight continues. The next step for her, and the tenants that have lived there over the years, is to get back the money that was taken from them through years of these, now proven, illegal rent increases.

The collective action of a few tenants in these buildings to protect their home, and preserve an affordable space for artists to live and make their work, will remain for the foreseeable future. This kind of unionizing, which Vulcan did on their own accord and with the help of many members of the community, such as Safe DIY Spaces and the tenant union Tenant and Neighborhood Councils (TANC), could be a boon for the future of tenant protections in Oakland. These types of organizations may help tenants, maybe even you, reader, find support for issues with your housing.

“I think Vulcan is an example of how a self-organized building is kind of a landlord's worst nightmare,” said Hamsa, an organizer at TANC. 

“People think that because they're paying rent and they're in a house, that that makes it an issue just for the immediate household,” said Hamsa. “But repairs and disrepairs impact everyone, especially if you live in a duplex or an apartment. Everyone is going through the same bullshit.”

Today, Bustamante doesn’t design clothes as much as she once did. She works in the mental health field, and lives in Alameda with her husband. The arts have not left her life however, as she is aspiring to use art as part of a therapy practice. And while her art may not be seen on the national stage, the impact of her art and therapy practice, as with her contribution to the fight against Madison Park, may quietly give to the future hope that others can hold onto.