At 8AM on May 23, 2023 nearly 100 community members representing working class families, college professors and students, union activists, artists, local health care professionals, housing activists, and more, showed up en masse to the Lane County Courthouse in Eugene, filling the courtroom and flooding the halls as the judge went through the morning’s eviction court docket. It was a showing of solidarity with local resident and community organizer, Candice King, whose name was on the docket. In an act of civil disobedience, Candice declared her rent strike on April 1, 2023. The rent strike comes after an absentee landlord who lives in California and owns six additional properties in Lane County refused Candice’s multiple offers to buy the house she and her family have called home for the last five and a half years. The landlord told Candice to “stop asking,” to purchase the home. So after the loss of her husband last year to suicide, which Candice attributes to the extreme economic barriers she and her husband faced as a working class Black family in Oregon, Candice is done asking and has made her demand clear. The court packing action was organized by a wide swath of community members to show that Candice and her family belong here, in their home. All dressed in red, the community showed a united front against house hoarding, demanding the preservation of the sanctity of home and community in a society that increasingly robs the majority from ever having a place to call their own. The outpouring of support at court visibly shook the property management company representative and her legal counsel. This action at Candice’s first appearance hearing is one of many the community is prepared to engage in. Candice’s trial is currently set for June 21, 2023 at 8am at the Lane County Courthouse.