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.


  • ∟⊔⊤∦∣≶@lemmy.nz
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    1 year ago

    None of what you said is incorrect, but there are houses sitting empty that could be rented out. More than I expected in my city.

    It’s a small percentage of course, and I expect that the houses are in really rich areas that increase in valuation at a faster rate than the cost of owning an empty house. I’m not an expert on this though.

    • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.com
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      1 year ago

      It’s a small percentage of course

      If we’re spending time chasing down 1% or less of all houses out there to punish people… then we’ve lost the point… The real answer is to build more housing, not chasing down the people who are “hoarding” it.

      It’s simple logistics… increase supply or decrease demand. In this case demand is a static small increase year after year. This is bad policies (usually at the local level) that stops builders from building more houses (or only building mini mansions because that’s what local government incentivized through building code or otherwise [otherwise being that they collect most taxes out of that group of people]).

        • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.com
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          1 year ago

          Agreed, actually recently we had those exact policy changes and now there is construction happening everywhere.

          I’d ask where you live where that’s happening (Just the mythical fact of bullshit laws getting repealed makes this place you live sound like unicorn levels of legendary…) but I don’t want you doxxing yourself. I see countries in the EU resist these random bullshit laws and they continue to do fine year after year. It’s make my dual citizenship look really appealing… Just up and leave and go somewhere where there’s more sensibility and logic.

          • ∟⊔⊤∦∣≶@lemmy.nz
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            1 year ago

            I’m on an NZ instance, so it’s pretty easy to guess. Compared to the US it is kind of legendary. The downside is we are a tiny island in the middle of nowhere.

            • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.com
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              1 year ago

              I’m on an NZ instance,

              Well that would mean I have to assume something… And assuming things tends to lead to people saying a dumb saying.