As a result, the landlord sold the building a year ago but has still not stopped fighting.

"Believe it or not, he's still litigating with us, even though he's been gone for a year," Mello says. "He's spent over $40,000 in legal fees."

That's $7,000 more than what he paid for the building originally.

Rallying the Troops

EZF, the sponsor of the event, is a non-profit grassroots organization founded a decade ago.

In the rally's opening speech, Steve Michael, a housing advocate in Boston, told an allegorical story about the organization's founding.

"Ten years ago, there was a group of people like us, regular working class folks like us, and they met a gang, a gang of rich real estate people, and they took all their money, they took their keys, they took their homes," he told the crowd. "The people decided to organize."

Leading Housing Organizer Bill Marchotte identified EZF's goals as fivefold: decent affordable housing, living wage jobs, good healthcare, good education and equal justice for all.

According to Marchotte, the end of rent control has pushed eradicating housing injustice to the forefront of the organization's concerns.

He says that throughout Cambridge, landlords evict residents to fill the vacancies with higher-paying tenants, and also harass tenants who organize and protest.

EZF uses a variety of means to combat housing injustice, including outreach and education, the purpose of last Saturday's rally.

"The demonstrations are to focus public attention," Marchotte says. "We're trying to educate the community by putting a face on the problem."

"Having people stand up and tell stories is a very courageous thing for them to do," he says.

EZF also works to set up tenant organizations, the most effective way to combat injustice, and provides legal aid and advice, including financial support for those who qualify.

Marcotte, 50, is no stranger to housing injustice. He describes his job--one of EZF's three paid positions--as full-time with part-time pay. He also works part-time as a housekeeper to pay the rent, which has been getting increasingly hard to do.