SAN DIEGO, California - The San Diego County Board of Supervisors voted 3-1 Tuesday in favor of a proposal that will address corporate "bad actors" who purchase homes and, in the words of the proposal, contribute to an already difficult affordable-housing situation.

Vice Chair Terra Lawson-Remer said her sponsored policy aims "to protect communities from illegal business practices, and safeguard housing options for first-time homebuyers and working families."

Lawson-Remer said private equity giants and large corporations "are increasingly buying up the nation's scarce supply of homes, including in the San Diego region," driving up prices for their own profit and making the housing affordability crisis worse.

"I can't stress it enough, but as tenants, we are getting displaced due to corporate greed," said Patricia Mendoza, of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment. "Our communities are not for sale."

CALIFORNIA - En California, los propietarios deben tener una razón válida o una causa justa para desalojar a un inquilino, pero los expertos indican que, desde la pandemia del COVID-19, el número de casos de desalojos ha ido en aumento.

"Lo que hemos visto es que depende dónde vive el inquilino, porque tenía distintas protecciones durante la pandemia, y el resultado es que estamos viendo una diferencia en dónde hay más desalojos", indicó Leah Simon-Weisberg, vocera de la Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment.

Según estadísticas de las cortes en California, de los 58 condados que tiene el estado, 28 registraron el número más alto de desalojos de los últimos cinco años.

SAN DIEGO, California - San Diego County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer said she will ask her colleagues on Tuesday to sue Blackstone, a New York real estate firm she alleges has engaged in tenant harassment, price fixing and gouging.

Lawson-Remer claims that starting in 2021, Blackstone has acquired 66 buildings in San Diego, totaling approximately 5,600 units. Since then, she claim some rents have surged 200%.

The supervisor alleges Blackstone has contributed to the rising housing costs in San Diego, where the median home price is around $1 million and rents can range from approaching $2,000 to more than $3,000.

Lawson-Remer joined about three dozen people and ACCE Institute, a community group, on Monday to picket a Blackstone property in Pacific Beach.

One of those protesters was Celeste Johnson.

"These big investment companies like Blackstone. They don't care about us. They don't care about our communities," Johnson said. "All they care about is their million-dollar investors."

SAN DIEGO, California - You can’t sleep here, you can’t sit over there, you can’t eat in that spot, panhandling isn’t allowed in this area — there have been a growing number of rules and policies dictating what kinds of “acts of living” people can do in public spaces and the U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled against sleeping in public.

In Grants Pass v. Oregon, the court found that the city’s ordinance against sleeping or camping on public property did not qualify as “cruel and unusual punishment” under the Eighth Amendment. For people experiencing homelessness, advocacy groups, and the three dissenting justices, it was a missed opportunity to focus on responses that uphold the humanity and dignity of America’s homeless population. Nationally, more than 650,000 people were experiencing homelessness in 2023, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development; in the San Diego region, the 2024 point-in-time survey found 10,605 people locally were experiencing homelessness, according to the Regional Task Force on Homelessness San Diego.

Yesenia Miranda Meza is a member of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), a planning commissioner for the City of Pomona, and a co-founder and board member for Pomona United for Stable Housing (PUSH), who was assisted by ACCE in 2017 when she found herself facing a significant rent increase that she couldn’t afford.

Eric Tars is the senior policy director at the National Homelessness Law Center, whose father was born into and grew up in refugee camps during World War II, motivating his work and his desire that “I wouldn’t want anything less for anyone than I would have wanted for my own father.” Miranda Meza and Tars each took some time to discuss their thoughts about this ruling and their experience with the most effective responses to homelessness. (These interviews have been edited for length and clarity. )

CALIFORNIA - An intricate network of housing industry groups, often backed by corporate landlords, are actively blocking solutions that would alleviate the worst aspects of the current housing crisis and improve affordability, according to a new report.

The report, from Capital Strategies for the Common Good, the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, Bargaining for the Common Good, and Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund, sheds light on the money behind the political influence that has distorted the politics of housing in favor of wealthy interests, partly in response to a recent surge in tenant organizing at local, state, and federal levels that has begun to challenge the status quo.

“Corporate landlords do not merely profit off of the housing crisis to the tune of billions of dollars,” said Dustin Duong, research associate at Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund. “They then plow that money into lobbying efforts that stall or bury efforts to relieve the crisis. It is a vicious circle of money, politics, and industry influence.”

“Californians consistently identify high housing costs and homelessness as two of the top issues they want to see lawmakers address,” said Christina Livingston, Executive Director of the Alliance of Californians For Community Empowerment (ACCE). “However, to date, state and local governments have failed to pass policies or make investments commensurate with the scale of the problem. Why? One of the major reasons is the powerful and deep-pocketed corporate real estate lobby led by the California Apartment Association (CAA). While the CAA often claims to represent mom-and-pop landlords, the CAA’s agenda primarily serves their Wall Street corporate landlord leadership. The business model of these mega-corporate landlords is predicated on increasing profits at all costs by raising rents, neglecting maintenance, and evicting frequently – to the detriment of our cities, our communities, and our families.”

RICHMOND, California - Richmond city leaders late Tuesday voted unanimously in favor of a ballot measure that will ask voters whether or not Chevron should pay an additional tax on its refinery operations.

The City Council voted 7-0 for the proposed new oil refining business tax measure targeting Chevron, one of the world's largest oil companies. The measure is slated for the November ballot.

The mayor and vice mayor of Richmond have said the new tax would raise millions of dollars annually for the city.

Chevron, one of the world's largest oil companies, could end paying much more to do business in the East Bay, as Richmond city leaders Tuesday are set to vote on a new tax on the company's refinery. Bob Redell reports.
City officials and environmental groups have accused the Chevron refinery of harming the local environment and the residents who live nearby.

The Bay Area Air Quality Management District estimates that each year, between five and 11 people die prematurely in Richmond because of emissions from the refinery.

CHARLOTTE, Carolina del Norte - Activistas de varias organizaciones nacionales llegaron de varios estados para realizar un tour por vecindarios de Charlotte para darle voz a su campaña “House Every One”, y apoyar a la organización local Action NC en su defensa por los derechos de los inquilinos de un complejo de casas móviles y de una familia latina que enfrenta un desalojo.

Una de las manifestaciones, que se realizó el pasado 10 de junio, se llevó a cabo en el complejo de casas móviles, Charlotte Hills Mobile Homes, donde la mayoría de los inquilinos son latinos.

“Tener un techo es un derecho”, fue una de las arengas que corearon los manifestantes en apoyo a los inquilinos.

SAN PABLO, California - The trouble began for Mauricio Badillo around July 2022, when the 43-year-old married father of three asked his landlord to address the mold in the home he rents in San Pablo.