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Wall Street has found another way to squeeze working families. Private equity firms are buying rental housing, loading properties with debt, raising rents, piling on fees, neglecting repairs, and pushing out tenants who cannot absorb the next increase. At Southern Towers, a 2,346-unit apartment complex in Alexandria, Virginia, tenants hoped new ownership would bring better conditions. Instead, the private equity firm that purchased the complex filed 250 eviction cases during its first 6 months of ownership, despite the pandemic eviction moratorium. Tenants also faced rising rents and deteriorating conditions as maintenance was deferred.  This is the private equity housing playbook. Firms put up relatively little of their own money, finance acquisitions with enormous amounts of debt, and then pressure properties to generate aggressive short-term returns. Tenants pay the price through higher rents, more fees, worsening conditions, and displacement. Defeating that model requires us to fight everywhere. We need lawmakers and their staff hearing from us inside the halls of Congress. We need a nationwide movement of tenants, advocates, and allies applying pressure outside those halls. And we need research, reporting, and articles like the one my colleague Aditi Sen and I published in Shelterforce, exposing how private equity profits from the housing affordability crisis.
Our Shelterforce article lays out how private equity ownership works, how it harms tenants, and how communities are fighting back. That public education matters because private equity firms bury ownership behind complicated corporate structures and count on tenants, reporters, and lawmakers never finding the people who are actually profiting. But organized communities are piercing that corporate veil. Tenant organizing in Minnesota helped push the state attorney general to sue a private equity landlord and contributed to 345 homes being transferred to nonprofit ownership. In Providence, tenants helped win a law blocking landlord algorithmic pricing. At Southern Towers, organized residents pressured investors, lenders, federal officials, and members of Congress until the private equity owner could no longer ignore them. Those victories show what becomes possible when grassroots organizing, policy advocacy, investigative research, and media pressure reinforce one another. They also show why private equity firms work so hard to hide their practices, weaken tenant protections, and block meaningful reforms. AFR is helping connect these fights. We expose the private equity business model, equip allies and policymakers with the facts, organize pressure on lawmakers, and advance reforms that protect tenants instead of Wall Street profits. That work takes sustained resources, especially when we are challenging firms with billions of dollars, sprawling political influence, and armies of lawyers and lobbyists. Thank you for helping us take on Wall Street wherever it threatens our homes and communities. - Caroline Caroline Nagy (she/her) P.S. Check out our substack repost of the original piece if you’d like to read the whole article.
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