Landlords Throw Party to Celebrate Being Able to Evict People Again
The Berkeley Property Owners Association's fall mixer is called "Celebrating the End of the Eviction Moratorium."
A group of Berkeley, California landlords will hold a fun social mixer over cocktails to celebrate their newfound ability to kick people out of their homes for nonpayment of rent, as first reported by Berkeleyside.
The Berkeley Property Owner Association lists a fall mixer on its website on Tuesday, September 12, 530 PM PST. “We will celebrate the end of the Eviction Moratorium and talk about what's upcoming through the end of the year,” the invitation reads. The event advertises one free drink and “a lovely selection of appetizers,” and encourages attendees to “join us around the fire pits, under the heat lamps and stars, enjoying good food, drink, and friends.”
The venue will ironically be held at a space called “Freehouse”, according to its website. Attendees who want to join in can RSVP on their website for $20.
Berkeley’s eviction moratorium lasted from March 2020 to August 31, 2023, according to the city’s Rent Board, during which time tenants could not be legally removed from their homes for nonpayment of rent. Landlords could still evict tenants if they had “Good Cause” under city and state law, which includes health and safety violations. Landlords can still not collect back rent from March 2020 to April 2023 through an eviction lawsuit, according to the Rent Board.
Berkeleyside spoke to one landlord planning to attend the eviction moratorium party who was frustrated that they could not evict a tenant—except that they could evict the tenant, who was allegedly a danger to his roommates—but the landlord found the process of proving a health and safety violation too tedious and chose not to pursue it.
The Berkeley Property Owner Association is a landlord group that shares leadership with a lobbying group called the Berkeley Rental Housing Coalition which advocated against a law banning source of income discrimination against Section 8 tenants and other tenant protections.
The group insists on not being referred to as landlords, however, which they consider “slander.” According to the website, “We politely decline the label "landlord" with its pejorative connotations.” They also bravely denounce feudalism, an economic system which mostly ended 500 years ago, and say that the current system is quite fair to renters.
“Feudalism was an unfair system in which landlords owned and benefited, and tenant farmers worked and suffered. Our society is entirely different today, and the continued use of the legal term ‘landlord’ is slander against our members and all rental owners.” Instead, they prefer to be called “housing providers.”
While most cities’ eviction moratoria elapsed in 2021 and 2022, a handful of cities in California still barred evictions for non-payment into this year. Alameda County’s eviction moratorium expired in May, Oakland’s expired in July. San Francisco’s moratorium also elapsed at the end of August, but only covered tenants who lost income due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
In May, Berkeley’s City Council added $200,000 to the city’s Eviction Defense Funds, money which is paid directly to landlords to pay tenants’ rent arrears, but the city expected those funds to be tapped out by the end of June.
I lost my home of over 7 years at the end of last year because the landlord decided to increase the cost by $900 a month even though I managed to pay them for every month of the pandemic via housing assistance etc, so you can fuck right off with saying none of it is true.
So your anecdote of your personal event is indicative of the entire market?
I'm sorry you had a bad time... but let's look at what you said.
You're implication here is that you've rented for 7 years, and apparently NEVER had a rent increase? That's insane on it's own. Now 7 years later you're complaining that there's finally a rent increase? Even though costs of maintaining a house has gone up over time... Those costs your landlord would have been eating for 7 years. Further, you never state what you were actually paying... If you were renting a $5000 house, and then it went up to $5900, that's actually expected as rent tends to increase at about 2.5%.
Now if it started at $750 and now it's increasing to $1650 with no changes to the property, then you might have a leg to stand on to complain... but please keep the emotions out of it. I used to rent at a condominium complex... Where each unit is owned. TONS of units would get trashed every year because the vast majority of renters do not know how to maintain a house... and don't want to learn/be liable for it. Those units were NEVER maintained properly, because they simply were not educated on how to perform that maintenance, and I'm talking simple things like cleaning up after a liquid spill on carpet.
Please point out in my reply where I said I never got a rent increase during that time. I'll wait.
Also, I don't need you or any other asshole on here telling me what a reasonable rent increase is for my area, for the property I inhabited for 7 years. I already know, and a $900 increase all at once, even for this area, was absurd for where I was renting. It was such a ridiculous increase that I couldn't justify it and had to move against my wishes, after being a model renter by most standards. I don't need to tell you more than that.
You would have brought it up. It strengthens your case to have paid rent increases over the years. The fact that you omitted it is obvious evidence that it didn't happen.
No, it's not obvious evidence, are you a dumb Republican or something? You made an assumption based on words I didn't say, that's not evidence of anything.
In reality I did pay an increase every year, and expected to pay another such reasonable increase for this year, but instead of something normal, it was drastically higher because my landlord took hits on a separate vacation property during the pandemic that had nothing to do with me, and decided to make up the difference with the property I was living in. So she priced me out so she could rip it up and do renovations, then rent it out someone who probably just moved here from California and doesn't know how stupid the price is. And if we had some kind of policy regarding rent control, and/or ejecting people out for these kinds of reasons, there would be far less people on this island trying to find a place to live. It's nothing but landlord greed, regardless of whether or not you agree with that.
Sounds like Renter entitlement to me... You admit that they want to do renovations to the property. Why should they cater to you if they can improve the property and get better rent for it? They want to add improvements. Those improvements have a cost associated with it... you're not willing to pay. That's that. You think that those improvements should be furnished to you for free?
But see, this is my point. You've left out the details that paint you poorly. Ultimately the owner has a right to do with their property as they please unless they violate the law or contract.
Honestly don't care, dude. You apparently are also some kind of entitled person talking out of your ass about something that happened to me.
Improvements weren't needed. At all. It's just the ongoing repeated cycle we have over here of owner's making unnecessary renovations just to resell it or re-rent it at much higher prices, usually at whatever they heard someone else was renting things for, which is why so many people who live here have trouble finding homes and possibly leave the state even though they shouldn't have to. Natives getting prices out of their own homeland by investors from the mainland.
You want to talk about entitlement? How about all these out-of-state companies calling Lahaina fire survivors to try to sweep up and take over their land? They're trying to do this exact this same thing, just the next version of the cycle.
See, to me you're the arrogant, entitled, ignorant one, because there's a whole different kind of housing politics going on here than anywhere else on the mainland. Similar, but way worse, partially because we're a tourist destination. You just won't actually understand until you've been here living with it, and remain ignorant with wrong opinions until you do.
I'm blocking you now. Enjoy your day.
A lot of those people don't have money to rebuild a house... Getting value for their land so they can live somewhere else is likely the only way out of poverty for a lot of those people. But you can feel free to dress it up however you want.
And considering you have no idea where I live... pot... kettle.
Yes because that's what adults do when they don't get their way in a conversation. They plug their ears screaming "LALALALA" rather than continuing rational conversations.
That has literally nothing to do with what the above poster claimed so you can cool your jets and consider that your landlord was only able to do that because they have a scarce resource, made more scarce by the above policies. I will not fuck right off while you folks make the situation literally worse. You can fuck off and let educated folks solve problems with real economic policies.
I made the situation worse? How exactly? I paid in full for every month I was there, my landlord didn't lose anything on me as a renter, and it didn't matter, still got priced out by an obscene raise in rent only done because we have zero rent control and there was nothing to stop her from getting away with it.
No, asshole, you can fuck off with your ignorance, I understood what Mooselad said perfectly well.
I'm referring to policies. You apparently didn't. I'm curious as to how you think your situation has any impact on the overall housing supply and accessibility to new renters? I'm not seeing the link but maybe I and every other housing policy expert are the dumb ones here.
I just said "zero rent control" in my last reply, that doesn't imply policy to you?
And rent control was literally not mentioned anywhere in this thread so it is your turn to fuck right off.
Rent control also hurts supply which hurts everyone trying to get housing except the lucky few who get in. It also locks in a steady rate of rent increase regardless of the market.
Building more housing gives people options which decreases landlord power.
From Mooselad's reply:
Learn to read.
I paid reasonable rent increases throughout the pandemic, and as soon as the eviction moratorium was up, my next lease renewal was raised ridiculously high and priced me out, which is exactly one of the things he's talking about.
An eviction moratorium is not rent control. It is much worse actually.
Learn to comprehend.
You obviously didn't really deal with the subtleties of this from the renter's end at all during the pandemic. How nice for you.
You obviously don't understand the basics of the housing market and let your personal opinions and anecdotes cloud your perspectives on effective housing policies for everyone.
I would say that ignorance is bliss for you but it's obvious that yours has also caused you hardship.
Also, I am not a landlord so you can take your prejudice and apply your initial uncalled for insult of fucking right off.
Landlord or not, you can still fuck right off. Regarding the rest, I'll just copy you what I said to that other idiot:
See, to me you’re the arrogant, entitled, ignorant one, because there’s a whole different kind of housing politics going on here than anywhere else on the mainland. Similar, but way worse, partially because we’re a tourist destination. You just won’t actually understand until you’ve been here living with it, and remain ignorant with wrong opinions until you do.
I’m blocking you now. Enjoy your day.
Supply and demand applies to all privately owned markets regardless of what you think of a market system. You cannot escape it on an island and it is actually exacerbated the smaller the market.
Blocking me doesn't make your opinion any more fact; it just closes you off in your ignorance.