AFR released housing policy recommendations to promote equitable housing access for all people in the United States, minimize pervasive harm from the COVID-19 pandemic, hold predatory actors accountable, and expand sustainable opportunities in communities of color.
Now, with 26 million workers unemployed and countless businesses closing indefinitely, private equity firms are salivating at the potential business opportunities that might arise from the expected economic fallout. Unless we take immediate action to prevent it, private equity firms will take advantage of this unprecedented crisis to make even greater asset grabs.
“Coronavirus distress is the ‘opportunity of the century’ for real estate investors,” according to a recent headline in The Real Deal, a New York real estate news publication. The article quotes Meridian Capital Group’s David Schechtman saying “But I will tell you, real-estate investors — when you take the emotion out of it — many of them have been waiting for this for a decade.”
Letter to HUD opposing the set of deregulatory efforts now under way that are withdrawing crucial commonsense oversight from the housing and financial markets, enabling discrimination, and thereby increasing barriers to affordable housing
A coalition of 27 civil rights, community, consumer and other groups challenges CFPB’s consideration of reducing home lending disclosure, a critical tool to stop lending discrimination and hold banks accountable for their record of lending to communities of color and lower income neighborhoods.
The proposed loophole-ridden rules let investors to reap tax benefits for investments outside of the Opportunity Zones, compounding the program’s tendency to invest in booming areas that drive up housing costs and displace lower-income residents of color.
The 22 community, housing, civil rights, consumer and other organizations believe that HUD must carefully assess the risks and benefits of the Opportunity Zone investments. The Opportunity Zone program poses substantial risks to lower-income households and households of color that already face rapidly rising housing costs and a declining availability of affordable housing options
24-Group Organizational letter on the need to collect data on Opportunity Zone tax break that could reduce affordable housing options, displacing lower-income families of color.
AFR Education Fund comment on the need to collect data on Opportunity Zone tax break that could reduce affordable housing options, displacing lower-income families of color.
Private equity owns over a million U.S. apartment units. Tenants pay a price when corporate landlords buy their buildings. In some cases, private equity buyers have pushed out lower-income tenants – through rent hikes, eviction threats, and more – to flip buildings into high-rent properties to sell for big profits.