Ep. 145: How Real Estate-Curated ‘Mom & Pop Landlord’ Sob Stories Are Used to Gut Tenant Protections
Added 2021-09-29 16:41:36 +0000 UTC“The eviction moratorium is killing small landlords,’ says one, as ban is extended another month,” CNBC cautions. “‘No safety net’ and little sympathy. Some small landlords struggle under eviction moratoriums,” declares The Washington Post. “Economic Pressures Are Rising On Mom And Pop Rental Owners,” laments NPR. ”[Landlords] can’t hold on much longer,” cries an LA Times headline.
Throughout the course of the pandemic, we’ve seen a spate of media coverage highlighting the plight of the small or so-called “mom-and-pop landlord” struggling to make ends meet. The story usually goes something like this: A modest, down-on-their-luck owner of two or three properties — say, a elderly grandmother or hardworking medical professional — hopes to keep them long enough to hand them down to their kids, but fears financial ruin in the face of radical tenant-protection laws.
But this doesn’t reflect the reality of rental housing ownership in the United States. Over the last couple decades, corporate entities, from Wall Street firms to an opaque network of LLCs, have increasingly seized ownership of the rental housing stock, intensifying the asymmetry of landlord-tenant power relations and rendering housing ever more precarious for renters. In the meantime, the character of the “mom-and-pop landlord” has been evoked nonstop — much like that of the romantic “small business owner” — in order to sanitize the image of property ownership and gin up opposition to legislation that would protect tenants from eviction moratoria to rent control.
On this episode, we explore the overrepresentation of the “mom-and-pop landlord” in media, contrasting it with the actual makeup of rental housing ownership. We’ll also examine how the media-burnished image of the beleaguered, barely-scraping-by landlord puts a human face on policies that further enrich a property-owning class while justifying the forceful removal of renters from their homes.
Our guest is Alexander Ferrer of Strategic Actions for a Just Economy (SAJE).
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Guest
Alexander Ferrer is Policy & Research Analyst at Strategic Actions for a Just Economy (SAJE), a Los Angeles-based organization focused on tenant rights, healthy housing, and equitable development.
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Show Notes
The Real Problem With Corporate Landlords
Alexander Ferrer | June 21, 2021 | The Atlantic
Examining the Myth of the “Mom-and-Pop” Landlord
Sam Rabiyah | March 4, 2020 | JustFixNYC
The Enduring Fiction of Affordable Housing
Tracy Jeanne Rosenthal | April 2, 2021 | The New Republic
Over Two Thirds of All Los Angeles Rentals Are Now Owned by Speculative Investment Vehicles
Alexander Ferrer | March 10, 2021 | Knock LA
A $60 Billion Housing Grab by Wall Street
Francesca Mari | March 4, 2020 | The New York Times Magazine
Tracy Jeanne Rosenthal | May 29, 2020 | The Nation
Wall Street Landlords Turns American Dream Into American Nightmare [PDF]
Maya Abood | January 2018 | ACCE Institute
Raymond, Duckworth, Miller, Lucas, Pokharel | December 1, 2016 | FRB Atlanta Community and Economic Development Discussion Paper
Suffering landlords are Washington’s new eviction problem
Katy O'Donnell | August 14, 2021 | Politico
What Mom-And-Pop Landlords Can Do To Relieve Eviction Ban Pressure
Natalie Campisi | February 15, 2021 | Forbes
NYC’s Small Landlords of Color Among Those Battling for Survival Amid Rent Moratorium
Greg David | February 7, 2021 | The City
‘No safety net’ and little sympathy. Some small landlords struggle under eviction moratoriums.
Kyle Swenson | December 9, 2020 | The Washington Post
Abby Vesoulis | June 11, 2020 | TIME
For the Small Landlord, All Problems Are Big
Dennis Hevesi | March 1, 1998 | The New York Times
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Transcript
For a full transcript of this episode, go here.
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Comments
My previous building in NYC was about 75% rent control/stabilized and the rest renovated market rent. They've slowly, and intentionally let the building go to shit, underpaid staff and stopped repairs in order to push out the rent controlled residents. They are now fighting the building association for the right to "upgrade" the building and therefore raise the stabilized and controlled rents. Goal of course is to turn it all into fancy apartments. fuck landlords
Evan Halperin
2021-10-06 17:09:08 +0000 UTCAt $900/mo (cheapest scenario), if you had 36 units, that translates to $388,800 a year. Sure you don't keep all of it, but that's a lot of money for mom and pop to be handling...
E J
2021-10-01 14:48:41 +0000 UTCThe phrase 'mom and pop' has crept into media parlance recently in Ireland, where we also have a housing crisis/property price boom (funny how the two things coincide). REITs are a sadly familiar phenomenon also. Any rent control proposals are met with dark warnings in the media and from the Government of small (non-REIT) landlords 'leaving the market'. There's never an explicit reason given as to why this would be a bad thing. Anyway, got that off my chest - great episode and guest.
Ciaran Colley
2021-10-01 09:54:49 +0000 UTC
