Since 2001, the Ellis Act, a controversial state law that allows landlords to evict tenants in rent-controlled buildings and turn them into pricey condominiums and boutique hotels, has devastated Los Angeles’s affordable housing stock. From …
The Real Estate Industry Continues to Use the Ellis Act to Destroy Affordable Housing in California
The real estate industry continues to use a little-known state law called the Ellis Act to destroy tens of thousands of affordable housing apartments in California, fueling the housing affordability and homelessness crises. Housing activists …
Will U.S. Tenants Learn From Pro-Rent Control Demonstration in England?
Activists and tenants in England have called for a nationwide, pro-rent control demonstration, taking place next month on April 18. More than 40 organizations, including the London Renters Union and Greater Manchester Tenants Union, are …
Are Big Real Estate and YIMBYs Totally Wrong About How to Solve the Housing Affordability Crisis?
Are Big Real Estate and YIMBYs totally wrong about their never-ending push to solve the housing affordability crisis through a trickle-down agenda? Housing Is A Human Right and many housing justice groups believe so, and …
Essex Property Trust Spent $60.1M to Kill Rent Control and Influence Politicians in California
A Housing Is A Human Right investigation has found that between 2018 and 2025, Essex Property Trust, one of the largest corporate landlords in the United States, shelled out a whopping $60.1 million in campaign …
Rent Control is One Part of the Answer
Whenever billionaire corporate landlords and YIMBYs counter pro-rent control advocates, they routinely use a false argument: rent control alone won’t solve the housing affordability crisis. It’s a false argument because housing activists have never made …
The Real Dirt: RealPage Scandal, Predatory Landlords, People Power
The Real Dirt is a monthly column by award-winning advocacy journalist Patrick Range McDonald that exposes the real estate industry’s lies, scams, and other unscrupulous acts, which impact the lives of millions. It’s been three years since …
Tenants and Activists Around the World Must Band Together to Fight Corporate Landlords
One of the big stories developing in the United States recently is that tenants and activists in cities all over the country have been banding together to fight Capital Realty Group, a New York-based corporate …
The Real Dirt: The Shady Dealings of Corporate Landlords and California Apartment Association
The Real Dirt is a monthly column by award-winning advocacy journalist Patrick Range McDonald that exposes the real estate industry’s lies, scams, and other unscrupulous acts, which impact the lives of millions. Many of the largest corporate …
Did Trump and Corporate Landlords Target Planned Parenthood and AIDS Healthcare Foundation?
Last month, a federal judge in Massachusetts issued a preliminary injunction for Planned Parenthood that stops the Trump administration’s effort to essentially defund that organization. The political and legal issues involved in the Planned Parenthood …