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.
That has literally nothing to do with what the above poster claimed so you can cool your jets and consider that your landlord was only able to do that because they have a scarce resource, made more scarce by the above policies. I will not fuck right off while you folks make the situation literally worse. You can fuck off and let educated folks solve problems with real economic policies.
I made the situation worse? How exactly? I paid in full for every month I was there, my landlord didn’t lose anything on me as a renter, and it didn’t matter, still got priced out by an obscene raise in rent only done because we have zero rent control and there was nothing to stop her from getting away with it.
No, asshole, you can fuck off with your ignorance, I understood what Mooselad said perfectly well.
I’m referring to policies. You apparently didn’t. I’m curious as to how you think your situation has any impact on the overall housing supply and accessibility to new renters? I’m not seeing the link but maybe I and every other housing policy expert are the dumb ones here.
I just said “zero rent control” in my last reply, that doesn’t imply policy to you?
And rent control was literally not mentioned anywhere in this thread so it is your turn to fuck right off.
Rent control also hurts supply which hurts everyone trying to get housing except the lucky few who get in. It also locks in a steady rate of rent increase regardless of the market.
Building more housing gives people options which decreases landlord power.
From Mooselad’s reply:
Learn to read.
I paid reasonable rent increases throughout the pandemic, and as soon as the eviction moratorium was up, my next lease renewal was raised ridiculously high and priced me out, which is exactly one of the things he’s talking about.
An eviction moratorium is not rent control. It is much worse actually.
Learn to comprehend.
You obviously didn’t really deal with the subtleties of this from the renter’s end at all during the pandemic. How nice for you.
You obviously don’t understand the basics of the housing market and let your personal opinions and anecdotes cloud your perspectives on effective housing policies for everyone.
I would say that ignorance is bliss for you but it’s obvious that yours has also caused you hardship.
Also, I am not a landlord so you can take your prejudice and apply your initial uncalled for insult of fucking right off.