The Briefing: Essex Property Trust's Little-Known Fact, Stephen Schwarzman Makes A Killing, Trickle-Down Doesn't Work
The Briefing is a weekly analysis of housing news explained from the tenant-activist perspective.
CityWatch LA recently published one of our articles that reports the little-known fact that Essex Property Trust spent $60.1 million between 2018 and 2025 to kill tenant protections in California.
The company is one of the largest corporate landlords in the United States, and works closely with the California Apartment Association to influence politicians, sway elections, and stop pro-tenant, pro-affordable housing policies such as rent control. Read our exclusive findings at CityWatch LA and share and like our post.
Corporate landlord Stephen Schwarzman, a multi-billionaire who co-founded Blackstone Group, made an astounding $1.2 billion last year. One major way he made those big bucks was by charging exorbitant rents and aggressively evicting people in the United States and abroad.
Rent control is the only tool that urgently reins in greed-driven predatory landlords and protects hard-working tenants. Read the article and share and like our post.
For years, corporate landlords and YIMBY leaders have been pushing a trickle-down housing agenda that builds luxury apartments first and foremost for the housing affordability crisis. It's a seriously flawed, self-serving policy that doesn't help the people hardest hit by skyrocketing rents: the poor and middle and working class.
So recently a major study found that it would take decades for housing to become more affordable through trickle-down housing policies. That's totally unacceptable, and it's another reason why politicians need to implement the "3 Ps": protect tenants, preserve existing affordable housing, and produce new affordable and homeless housing through adaptive reuse and prefabricated homes. Read the article and share and like our post.
We applaud the Waterville City Council in Maine for approving rent stabilization for mobile home owners. Over the years, corporate landlords have bought mobile home parks and then wildly jacked up rents and aggressively evicted people.
So the Waterville City Council did the right thing by passing an ordinance that will protect people against predatory landlords. More elected leaders need to do the same. Read the article and share and like the post.
The Breach recently published a very important article about how corporate landlords are aggressively evicting Black tenants in Toronto so the companies can make bigger profits. “Housing has become a cut-throat business driven purely by profit," said researcher Nemoy Lewis. "The social sense of what housing provides has largely been eroded.”
Politicians must pass stronger tenant protections. Read the article and share and like our post.
Patrick Range McDonald is a veteran investigative reporter and award-winning advocacy journalist for Housing Is A Human Right.