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’m not complaining that I have to contribute to the mortgage, that’s just how it is. I am fully in agreement that house-hoarders are bad, but there’s a big distinction between that and a general ‘landlord.’
There is absolutely little to none. No matter what you serve the same function, and no matter how “good” of a person you are, a landlord will always be a social parasite.
I would argue that the tenants do have something, which is “not a life living on the streets because landlording was illegal and they couldn’t afford to buy construction materials and pay builders to build them a house.”
mf lives in the confines of capitalism 🙄🙄🙄
And not just capitalism, but for you a concept of “social housing” seems to be absolutely alien. Vienna is an example of a western city that is a prime “fuck you” to this “argument”.
I get where people are coming from, but their argument is “ban all landlords” without any consideration of actual reality that involves having capital and taking financial risk to construct housing.
What fucking risk huh? What risk that any other person living in their own home don’t take?
“Oh the property might burn down.”
Mine can too fucker and you don’t see me complaining. The problem here is, your mortgage is being paid off by your tenant and who’s keeping the property at the end of the day? Not him that’s for sure!
“Oh but I pay my part!”
So If you split the payment, split the property too fucker.
If anything, the tenant takes more risk by renting because if he loses his job or sustains an injury he’s fucked because he has no property of his own he’s guaranteed to live in.
Sincerely, fuck you. I hope your tenant finds a better deal and that both of your properties burn down you entitled ass.
Oh and keep this in mind:
“The Maoist uprising against the landlords was the most comprehensive proletarian revolution in history, leading to almost totally equal redistribution of the land amongst the peasantry”
