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HOUSING - Blackstone Group, one of the largest corporate landlords in the world, is now financing the campaigns to kill rent control expansion in California and to stop lifesaving advocacy work. It’s not surprising. In 2019, United Nations experts charged Blackstone with fueling the global housing affordability crisis, and the company’s billionaire CEO, Stephen Schwarzman (pictured above), is known as a “modern-day robber baron.” He’s also a close friend and strong supporter of Donald Trump.
In a 2020 exposé about Schwarzman, Housing Is A Human Right reported that the billionaire and Blackstone have a long track record of predatory business practices and a close connection to Trump. Just recently, in fact, Schwarzman, who has contributed millions to Trump, publicly endorsed the former president’s 2024 run for the White House.
Housing Is A Human Right also reported that U.N. Nations housing experts Leilani Farha and Surya Deva wrote a devastating letter to Schwarzman, making international headlines.
Farha and Deva laid out a number of alarming points: 1) since the 2008 global financial crisis, Blackstone, through its subsidiary, Invitation Homes, purchased an “extraordinary and unprecedented number of foreclosed single-family properties,” which turned into rentals and “had deleterious effects on the enjoyment of the right to housing;” 2) Blackstone and its subsidiaries purchased apartment buildings at “unprecedented rates across the world, which is also having deleterious effects on the right to housing;” and 3) “Blackstone is using its significant resources and political leverage to undermine domestic laws and policies that would in fact improve access to adequate housing consistent with international human rights law.”
Schwarzman and his company are back at it.
Stephen Schwarzman (left) with Donald Trump
In late June 2024, Blackstone completed a $10-billion deal to buy AIR Communities, which owns 8,300 apartments throughout California. Only weeks after the acquisition, on July 16, AIR Communities, owned by Blackstone, sent an eye-popping contribution of $1.4 million to the California Apartment Association Issues Committee. That committee funds the No on Prop 33 campaign, which aims to kill rent control expansion in California, and Protect Patients Now, which seeks to stop AIDS Healthcare Foundation’s housing advocacy work on rent control and other tenant protections.
AIDS Healthcare Foundation and Housing Is A Human Right, a division of AHF, are sponsoring Yes on Proposition 33, a November ballot measure that aims to end statewide rent control restrictions in California and allow cities to expand rent control.
In response to AHF’s measure, corporate landlords and their lobbying group, the California Apartment Association, are pushing forward with Protect Patients Now, a dangerous initiative that stops AHF’s participation in the democratic process. Recently, Consumer Watchdog wrote a letter to the California Supreme Court that said Protect Patients Now is unconstitutional.
If it all seems confusing, that’s what Blackstone intends. In the past, in 2020, Blackstone used a shell committee to make significant contributions to No on Prop 21, trying to avoid public scrutiny. Housing Is A Human Right, however, broke the story about Blackstone’s sleight of hand. Proposition 21, sponsored by AIDS Healthcare Foundation, would have reformed California’s rent control restrictions.
In fact, corporate landlords and the California Apartment Association are pulling off their own shell game with No on Prop 33 and Protect Patients Now. Instead of contributing directly to those campaigns, corporate landlords, such as Essex Property Trust, AvalonBay Communities, and Blackstone/AIR Communities, are sending cash to the California Apartment Association Issues Committee. That committee then delivers Big Real Estate cash to No on Prop 33 and Protect Patients Now.
Corporate landlords are trying to avoid the controversy of financing a campaign to kill the advocacy work of AHF, the world’s largest HIV/AIDS nonprofit, which provides life-saving HIV drug treatment to more than two million clients in South Africa, Mexico, India, China, and 42 other countries.
AHF, though, refuses to be bullied, and continues to move forward with Yes on Prop 33, which has been endorsed by housing justice organizations, labor unions, and social justice groups. In addition, the California Democratic Party and numerous civic leaders back the measure, including U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and labor and civil rights icon Dolores Huerta. In keeping with its longtime mission, AHF will always fight for what’s right.
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(Patrick Range McDonald, author and journalist, Best Activism Journalism: Los Angeles Press Club, Journalist of the Year: Los Angeles Press Club, Public Service Award: Association of Alternative Newsmedia, and a contributor to CityWatch.)
