AIDS Healthcare Foundation corporate landlords proposition 33

AIDS Healthcare Foundation’s Years-Long Battle Against Corporate Landlord Greed

In News by Patrick Range McDonald

Since 2018, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, the parent organization of Housing Is A Human Right, has battled the largest corporate landlords in the United States, and it has no intention of stopping – Big Real Estate’s predatory tactics have fueled the housing affordability and homelessness crises in California, threatening the health of millions. Now, in 2024, AHF and a statewide coalition are working to finally rein in corporate landlords by passing Proposition 33 in November.

In 2018, AIDS Healthcare Foundation sponsored Proposition 10, which aimed to repeal statewide rent control restrictions in California. A broad coalition of housing justice groups, labor unions, and social justice organizations supported the “Yes on 10” campaign, believing that rent control is a key tool to stabilize the housing affordability crisis.

In fact, studies published, in 2018, by USC, UC Berkeley, and UCLA found that rent control would urgently help poor and middle- and working-class tenants drowning under sky-high rents in California.

Corporate landlords, however, were desperate to keep the status quo — no matter the consequences to seniors on fixed incomes, working-class families, students, and the middle class. Many of the corporate landlords, such as Essex Property Trust, AvalonBay Communities, and Equity Residential, operate in multiple cities, charging top-dollar rents with no regulations that effectively protect tenants. Proposition 10 threatened to stop that by allowing cities to expand rent control and rein in predatory landlords. In other words, Big Real Estate would no longer be allowed to make trillions in revenue by charging outrageous rents.

In 2018, Californians largely supported rent control, but corporate landlords and their lobbying group, the California Apartment Association, rolled out a multi-million-dollar misinformation campaign to trick and confuse voters. Unfortunately, it worked – Prop 10 lost on Election Day.

Two years later, in 2020, AIDS Healthcare Foundation decided to move forward with another ballot measure, Proposition 21, that would reform statewide rent control restrictions. AHF believed that the housing affordability and homelessness crises were so dire, with millions of people facing life-altering consequences, that a quick return to the ballot was needed.

Eviction Lab, for example, recently found that unaffordable rents are linked to higher mortality rates, and The Guardian reported that deaths among the unhoused were only increasing year after year. UC San Francisco also found that sky-high rents are forcing people into homelessness. As AIDS Healthcare Foundation has routinely pointed out over the years, housing is a serious public health issue – and it demands a swift response.

But once again, corporate landlords and the California Apartment Association rolled out a misinformation campaign. In 2020, Big Real Estate spent nearly $100 million to defeat Prop 21.

This year, AIDS Healthcare Foundation and Housing Is A Human Right are sponsoring another statewide ballot measure to repeal rent control restrictions – and again it’s supported by a coalition of housing justice groups, labor unions, social justice organizations, and civic leaders, including U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, the California Democratic Party, and labor icon Dolores Huerta. It’s called Proposition 33.

But the nation’s largest corporate landlords and the California Apartment Association are taking their opposition to a new, disturbing level. The CAA and Big Real Estate are pushing forward a ballot measure, Proposition 34, that aims to stop AHF’s housing advocacy work on rent control and other tenant protections – and effectively take away AHF’s ability to participate in the democratic process. The National Organization for Women, Consumer Watchdog, and other groups strongly oppose Proposition 34.

AHF, though, refuses to be bullied by Big Real Estate. AHF will always fight for what’s right, especially when taking on the destructive greed of corporate landlords – millions of lives hang in the balance.

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(Photo: Housing Is A Human Right protest in Long Beach against corporate landlords.)