Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Chairwoman of the House Committee on Financial Services, sent a letter to the nation’s largest corporate landlords and top eviction filers during the pandemic urging them to work with tenants to inform them of their rights and connect them with emergency rental assistance.
“Since the beginning of the pandemic, I have made it my top priority to ensure people across the country are protected from both the health and economic effects of the coronavirus…I understood how a rising eviction crisis would hurt both renters and landlords and ultimately our national economic recovery, so I led the effort as Chairwoman of the House Committee on Financial Services to secure $46.6 billion in emergency rental assistance between both the December aid package and the American Rescue Plan. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also recognized the public health implications that a wave of evictions would have during a pandemic and the time it would take for assistance to reach households, so they responded by expanding and later extending the federal eviction moratorium established by Congress in the CARES Act to protect more renters.
“Despite these protections, some corporate landlords, including your company, have continued to file evictions against renters, many of whom are disproportionately Black and Latinx.
“Given what is at stake, I call on you to halt these harmful and unjust practices and instead work to connect your tenants to the emergency rental assistance that I worked to obtain in cooperation with your industry trade associations, tenant advocates and low-income housing advocates, and other stakeholders across the housing spectrum.”
See here for a sample letter.
See below for the full list of corporate landlords that received Chairwoman Waters’ letter:
American Landmark Apartments/Electra America
Asia Capital Real Estate Management (ACRE)
Blue Magma Residential
Bridge Investment Group
Camden Property Trust
Carroll Organization
Colrich
Cortland Partners
Crown Bay Group
Dominium Apartments
Eaton Vance
Federal Capital Partners
FPA Multifamily
Greystar Real Estate Partners
Harbor Group International
Independence Realty Trust
Invitation Homes
Madera Residential
Main Street Renewal (Amherst Capital Management)
Mid-America Apartment Communities
Oaktree Capital
Olive Tree Holdings
Onni Group
Pretium Partners (Progress Residential, Front Yard Residential)
Pro Residential
S2 Capital
Siegel Group
Tides Equities
TruAmerica Multifamily
Ventron Management, LLC
Villa Serena Communities
Weidner Apartment Homes
Western Wealth Capital
In December 2020, Chairwoman Waters secured $25 billion in emergency rental assistance in bipartisan COVID-19 relief legislation.
In March 2021, key provisions from the Committee on Financial Services were included in the American Rescue Plan, including $21.6 billion in emergency rent relief to keep families in their homes in the wake of the pandemic and economic downturn.
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