California is one of the hot-zones
in the world’s urban housing crisis, driven by a combination of
opposition to highrise/high-density living and the mass purchase of
foreclosed properties following the 2008 crisis by giant Wall Street
landlords who have steadily ratcheted up rents
and evictions in a big to safeguard the flow of payments to bondholders
who get a share of the rents extracted from struggling tenants living
in dangerous, substanding housing.
California’s cities have different policy levers they can yank on to
address this: zoning changes, commuter rail, school spending. But one
lever that cities have relied upon since the beginning of modern urban
government is missing: rent control. California state law forbids rent
control on single-family homes; and apartments build after 1995.
A ballot measure, Prop 10, will allow cities to impose rent controls on
all rental stock, allowing voters a say in the way that their cities are
developed. But the giant hedge funds that own hundreds of thousands of
California rental properties are pumping millions more into
scare-campaigns intended to convince voters to oppose Prop 10.
Blackstone, the largest private equity firm in the world, is
California’s biggest corporate landlord, with 127,000 single-family
homes in its “portfolio.” They’re responsible for $6,859,747 in
anti-Prop-10 spending, part of the $45m attack on the proposition.
Landlords across California have sent eviction notices to their tenants
giving them 60 days to leave; other have announced massive rent
increases – and tenants have been notified that these will be cancelled
only if Prop 10 fails.
