News and Views
January 12, 2010
Because of the Palmer/Sixth Street Properties vs. city of Los Angeles decision, affordable housing in San Francisco may be in jeopardy and the Board of Supervisors is taking measures to try to protect it.
January 12, 2010
As restructuring looms in the predatory equity investment in Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village in NYC,tenants and elected officials hold that the historic property should remain permanently affordable.
January 12, 2010
a bill in the Florida legislature designed to give renters more rights when their landlords face foreclosure was postponed to vet concerns raised by Realtors, bankers and others.
January 12, 2010
Foreclosures in California have had a direct effect on a San Antonio, Texas tenant: drying-up his water supply.
January 11, 2010
Ken Genser, mayor of Santa Monica, supporter of affordable housing, and an active member of Santa Monicans for Renters Rights died at age 59.
Monterey County Redevelopment Agency project, paid for in part by grant money, is a joint effort to provide housing assistance to renters displaced by code violations in their current homes.
San Francisco Supervisor John Avalos who has proposed legislation to extend just cause for eviction protections to all the city's renters in-perpetuity, says that Mayor Gavin Newsom's alternative proposal is "very limited" and would only last for one year.
January 11, 2010
Buyers of foreclosed residential properties in New Jersey might soon be required to let tenants know their apartments are changing hands.
In the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood in San Francisco, residents have complained for years of slumlord conditions and bad management at apartment complexes owned by AIMCO, the recent recipient of $13 million in tax credits.
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted 7-3 Tuesday to approve legislation that extends the eviction protections in place for those living in units built prior to June 1979, as they are covered by The City’s rent control ordinance, to those units built afterward
January 9, 2010
The partnership in control of a New York apartment complex missed a debt payment Friday. Default would likely wipe out the $500 million invested by CalPERS, one of several investors in the project. The California State Teachers' Retirement System already has written off its $100 million investment.
January 9, 2010
Tenants from a building owned by NBA team owner and LA mega-landlord, Donald Sterling, have filed suit against their landlord claiming that he is responsible for a fire that destroyed their building.
January 8, 2010
Echoing a court decision on Stuyvesant Town in New York, an NYC judge has ruled that a landlord who received abatements improperly took units out of rent control, a standard practice in predatory equity schemes.
January 8, 2010
LA NBA team and mega-landlord, Donald Sterling, is being sued by tenants who say he failed to fix electrical problems in their apartment building which led to a devastating fire in September.
January 7, 2010
As President Obama escalates the war in Afghanistan, deploying tens of thousands of troops, renters are disproportionately bearing the burden of fighting America’s wars.
Approximately 75% of America’s military personnel are renters. This is in sharp contrast to the general figures for rest of the country. While about 65% of Americans are homeowners, a mere 25% of military personnel own their own homes.
The Circuit Court for Baltimore City vacated an order granting possession of a Baltimore City home to JP Morgan Chase Bank, NA. The tenant in the home had contacted the Public Justice Center in October of 2009 seeking legal assistance to enforce her rights under the federal Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act.
January 6, 2010
Just as tenant advocates had warned, numerous predatory equity investments are now collapsing and the threat of widespread foreclosures is putting many innocent tenants at risk.
As predatory landlord Page Mill Properties (David Taran) faces foreclosure on it's 1800 units in East Palo Alto, tenants and advocates insist the new owner(s) will have to be dedicated to owning and operating affordable housing.
January 5, 2010
A scathing article published today in the online newspaper BeyondChron.org criticizes San Francisco Superior Court judges of pervasive anti-tenant bias.
"As 2009 drew to a close, the Appellate Panel at SF Superior Court quietly upheld the eviction of long-term San Francisco resident, Susan Suval. Without any explanation, the court rubber-stamped the erroneous trial court ruling that allowed a landlord to invoke the Ellis Act despite a written agreement with the City that he would do no such thing.