If spending over $4000 for a one bedroom apartment sound dystopian, that’s because it is. Unfortunately, it’s become the reality for many working class tenants in San Francisco. But how did this happen?
Well, just like our debts are rich people’s assets, our rents add to landlords’ wealth — along with the back rent we can’t seem to get out from under. Each month marks an astronomical transfer of wealth from a majority of renters to a smaller and smaller pool of landlords.
During our last discussion, I spoke with DC’s Housing Organizing lead, René Moya, about Vivmark Residential — a newly merged, corporate landlord behemoth.
Vivmark was once Equity Residential and Avalon Bay. Together, they’re hell bent on using rents to meddle in politics, enshittify the rental process, and ruin local rental markets. Vivmark could impact local Bay Area housing markets too, so there’s a lot to learn from organizers in Northern California.
Today, I’m happy to welcome a local Bay Area comrade — Dean Preston.
Dean is an attorney, a Democratic Socialist, and former member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. He has an extensive background in tenant organizing, including authoring San Francisco’s Proposition F, which directed the city to establish a universal right to counsel for tenants facing eviction.
