Financial firms are raising rents higher than other types of landlords. On average, after a financial firm acquires a building, they increase the eviction-filing rate by three. They triple it.
The tenant pondered. "Funny thing how it is. If a man owns a little property, that property is him, it's part of him, and it's like him. If he owns property only so he can walk on it and handle it and be sad when it isn't doing well, and feel fine when the rain falls on it, that property is him, and some way he's bigger because he owns it. Even if he isn't successful he's big with his property. That is so." And the tenant pondered more. "But let a man get property he doesn't see, or can't take time to get his fingers in, or can't be there to walk on it—why, then the property is the man. He can't do what he wants, he can't think what he wants. The property is the man, stronger than he is. And he is small, not big. Only his possessions are big—and he's the servant of his property. That is so, too.
The Grapes of Wrath Chapter 5
I am a 41-year-old woman with an 11-year-old child, and I am very frightened by the way the Oakland Housing Authority (OHA) has been treating me. I was terrified recently when the OHA Police showed up at my door around 10 p.m. at night, accusing my family of committing fraud to move into this townhouse; and they served me a five-day notice to surrender my home to the OHA, or else.
I feel bad that I have not been able to pay her [the landlord]. We’ve gone from two incomes. I had COVID-19 twice. My kids all have had it once. My husband's had it once. We've been affected by the virus
It’s folks who are poor and working-class that lose out in that deal. There are plenty of landlords who are self-righteous about it and see renters as money-making machines rather than as equal fellow human beings, who have just as much right to want to live well and safely.
