Stand with Blackstone tenants around the world in demanding justice from CEO Schwarzman!

Our Homes Are Not a Commodity!  No Business As Usual Today -- Shut Em Down!

Today members of Occupy Our Homes Atlanta delivered a demand letter to Blackstone Groups Atlanta Head Quarters. We encourage you to take the time to make a call/email as people around the world take a stand against Blackstone's unfair, exploitative housing practices. Can we count on you to make the call?
Blackstone, one of the world's largest private equity firms, is buying up housing all over the world and quickly becoming one of the largest landlord's in our cities.  But at the expense of families and communities.  Blackstone buys up our foreclosed homes for cheap, kicks out the residents, charges exorbitant rents, fails to do proper maintenance and excludes people of color and immigrants!

Fore More background info on #StopBlackstone campaign see below

CALL CEO Stephen Schwarzman NOW at 212-583-5000

If number is busy, call 212 503 2100, 212 583 5799, see all Blackstone #'s globally below

Document # of calls made, city and country here:  http://bit.ly/1MqsQi9

EMAIL him at stephen.schwarzman@blackstone.com

SCRIPT -- Tell the Blackstone CEO:

"Mr. Schwarzman, I stand with Blackstone tenants and community organizations around the world.  Stop buying up our foreclosed homes and public housing, stop all your unjust evictions and make your rents affordable.  I support this important struggle and will not let up until you meet the tenants' demands.  Homes are NOT a commodity!"

TWEET -- #StopBlackstone

By calling in you are part of an international day of action spanning 4 countries and 3 continents!  TODAY, Right To The City and PAH in Spain are organizing protests at Blackstone offices in the US, Spain, Japan and England!  In the US we are doing actions and delivering demand letters in cities across the country including New York, Atlanta, Chicago, and Seattle. Our call in's will be happening in over 40 cities worldwide!!!!!!!!!!!

We are just getting started and in the future, we plan to expand our organizing and protests to everywhere Blackstone is,  including China, Australia, and India.  Our international demands are below and will be paired with local demands in each city.

For more background info on #StopBlackstone -- Our Homes Are Not a Commodity see bottom of this email

MORE PHONE NUMBERS:

Atlanta
The Blackstone Group
Phone: +1 404 460 2321
Fax: +1 404 460 2337

Boston
The Blackstone Group
Phone: +1 617 646 2900
Fax: +1 617 646 2905
Chicago
The Park Hill Group
Phone: +1 312 705 3070
Fax: +1 312 705 3079

Houston
GSO Capital Partners LP
Phone: +1 713 358 1400
Fax: +1 713 358 1401

Los Angeles
The Blackstone Group
Phone: +1 310 310 6949
Fax: +1 310 310 6998

Menlo Park
The Blackstone Group
Phone: +1 650 798 3800
Fax: +1 650 798 3801

San Francisco
The Park Hill Group
Phone: +1 415 276 5900
Fax: +1 415 276 5919

 _________________________________________________________________________

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Blackstone is one of the world's largest private equity firms.  Blackstone made big money in the last housing bubble and now is cashing in again to make lots more.  It is buying up housing and real estate all over the world and quickly becoming one of the largest landlord's in our cities.  They are raking in the profits.  But at the expense of our families and communities.  They buy up our foreclosed homes for cheap, kick out the residents, charge exorbitant rents, fail to do proper maintenance and exclude people of color and immigrants!

Our International Demands on Blackstone

        1. Stop Buying Our Occupied, Foreclosed and Subsidized Housing

• Do NOT destabilize our communities by buying homes that should be owned by individuals, the government or local entities.
• End the purchase of homes owned by banks rescued with public money or homes that were purchased with sub-prime loans.

          2.  No Unjust Evictions

• Stop unjust evictions of homeowners or tenants in purchased properties
• Stop forcing tenants out of homes due to harassment, your failure to make repairs and charging unjust fees.

3.  Affordable Rents

• Do not charge unfair rents
• Do not make people pay more than one third of their income to housing
• Ensure that at least 25% of all Blackstone housing in a city is affordable to poor people who make 0 to 30% neighborhood median income

       4.  Quality Conditions and Sustainability

• Renovate all purchased homes to a high quality
• Maintain all properties in good condition
• Make prompt and quality repairs
• Ensure all utility systems and materials used in building and repairs are sustainable

5. No discrimination

• Do not discriminate against people of color or immigrants including by using unfair prohibitions regarding former incarceration or arrests, and/or immigration status.
• Allow equal access to Blackstone homes for all people regardless of race, nationality, age, gender, sexual orientation, disability, family status, immigration status, former incarceration, eviction history or credit history.

6. Accountability

• Provide responsive and quality customer service
• Provide full name and contact information for one consistent person from Blackstone’s property management company who has full authority to address tenant’s issues promptly and effectively

7.  Transparency of information

• Provide to the public business and industry information including:

• Names of all the companies Blackstone has any ownership in/control over and what properties and real estate they relate to and how
• Terms of purchase of all housing/land/buildings purchased
• Regular updated list of which properties are securitized, and who are the investors including banks that put up any money
• Regular updated list of properties that are directly or indirectly managed by Blackstone worldwide
• Regular updated list of all those evicted from each property and why (names can be withheld if it is required by law)
• List of who's application was denied and why (names can be withheld if it is required by law)

It's True; Wall Street Makes for Terrible Landlords

On Wednesday October 15th at Noon, members Occupy Our Homes Atlanta will gathered to deliver a petition and a giant check to Invitation Homes to demand that the company employ fair rental practices in the management of their large number of Atlanta single-family homes.

For the last two years, private equity firms have been buying up foreclosed homes in various cities across the country and converting them to single family home rental properties with an eye towards securitizing the rent their tenants pay. In Atlanta, the largest investor of this kind has been The Blackstone Group, the world’s largest alternative asset private equity firm. The Blackstone Group owns companies like Sea World, The Weather Channel, and Hilton Group. Now they own thousands of houses in Metro Atlanta, and tens of thousands across the United States, through their subsidiary Invitation Homes.

Nefesh Chaya signed a two-year lease with Invitation Homes so that she and her service dogs could settle into the neighborhood. She is facing eviction today because she requested reasonable repairs to a home that had been vacant for a while. Invitation Homes promised that mold removal and repairs would be complete before move in day, but they weren't, and Nefesh had to push the company to follow though. In September, Invitation Homes decided they weren’t going to spend any more money on repairs. They added the cost of a kitchen plumbing fix to Nefesh’s online bill. Invitation Homes refused to accept her rent without the disputed repair cost when she traveled to their office and then they filed an eviction.

Invitation Homes acquired their Atlanta homes for pennies at foreclosure auctions, has driven up rent in the city, and are willing to threaten eviction to get more money out of Atlanta residents. Neighbors tell us that the last tenant in Nefesh’s home was pushed out this way too. Occupy Our Homes Atlanta is concerned that Invitation Homes’ predatory rental practices undermine stability in our neighborhoods and promise to transform a large number of Atlanta single-family homes into revolving doors.

As we gathered outside the building that Invitation Homes leases it was clear that the word was out on our visit as security had a rather large perimeter around the building and were actively looking for our group. When we were spotted we made it clear that our purpose was to deliver a ceremonial check, along with real cash, and a set of festive balloons to Invitation Homes on behalf of Nefesh. The check represented the amount owed minus disputed repair fees(in Georgia repair fees are legally allowed to be disputed and are seen as a separate matter not connected to lease/rent fee).

At first we were refused entry into the building and Invitation Homes refused to come down. Eventually Invitation Homes Allowed two people to come up to their office where they refused to accept Nefesh’ rent money, claiming that unless she paid for the repair and added legal fees, they would proceed with a forced eviction.

Nefesh has launched an online petition that we strongly encourage folks to sign and share now as she could face eviction any day now.

 

 

Here is a link to video shot after the attempt to deliver the rent check was refused.

 

Drama at the Fulton County Courthouse Steps

American Friends Service Committee,Occupy Our Homes Atlanta, struggling homeowners, renters, and community members showed up on the Fulton Country Court steps on Tuesday February 5th as the foreclosure auction was taking place to confront investors and expose a troubling new trend being tested in the Atlanta housing market. Our communities have suffered enough from Wall Street's greed.

The last time Wall Street devised a plan to make mountains of money off our homes it ended catastrophically. They’re back with a new plan and literally buying up our homes with millions of dollars at every foreclosure auction.

As the auction began we started playing a giant game of monopoly in front of the courthouse steps. Each game piece represented a private equity group that's been snatching up foreclosed properties in Atlanta(many of which are occupied). We also held a press conference where four home owners who have faced or are facing foreclosure told their story.

At on point an investor was so angry at our presence that he came down from the steps, stomped through our custom monopoly game and assaulted me.

The wave of foreclosures that has swept metro Atlanta for the last few years shows few signs of slowing down. This Tuesday just like the first Tuesday of every month, hundreds of homes will be auctioned off to the highest bidder on the Fulton County courthouse steps as part of the monthly foreclosure auction. The Blackstone Group along with a growing number of private equity firms, hedge funds, and other institutional investors with deep pockets will have representatives there lining up to purchase up these homes at a discount. Their plan is to convert these homes into rental properties, package and trade the leases on Wall Street, and eventually sell off the properties once home prices go up. This scheme will permanently fragment our communities after the same people destroyed them with subprime loans.

The need to provide a return to investors will cause the price of rent on these properties to go up, and potential dominance of local markets will leave very little competition to challenge those prices, further decreasing the availability of quality affordable housing that Atlanta is starving for.

Additional Media-

Op ed piece: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shabnam-bashiri/atlanta-blackstone-group_b_2617441.html

Blackstone youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynZx2Un34EU&feature=youtu.be

In the wake of one the greatest financial disasters in modern times, you'd think we'd have learned our lesson

Every day it seems a new report comes out praising the ongoing housing recovery. In Georgia, home prices are up 5 percent over last year, a year in which we also had one of the highest foreclosure rates in the country. Seems a little odd, doesn't it? That's because the "recovery," as they're calling it, is fueled almost entirely by Wall Street private equity, hedge funds, and the Fed's unwavering support. That's right. After creating a massive bubble in home prices that eventually burst and caused our economy to go into a tailspin, these guys have decided to come back for more, and figured out a way to profit off their destruction -- by turning foreclosed homes into rentals and securitizing the rental income.

Many are claiming this is as the recovery we need to get the economy going again -- the "private sector solution." The argument goes that investors snapping up these homes and fixing them up does more for the community than letting the houses just sit there, blighting the neighborhood and lowering values. Sure. That argument might have made sense for the pilot program Fannie Mae launched last year. In that bulk auction deal, investors had to agree not to sell the properties for a designated period of time. Many of the homes were occupied with tenants, and vacant homes had been on the market and not sold for at least six months. Of course, that deal proved too restrictive for most Wall Street types, leading the sale in Atlanta to eventually fall through.

The Blackstone Group, the biggest player in the new REO to rental market, has spent $2.5 billion in the last year purchasing 16,000 homes, a number that amounts to over $100 million per week. Property records show that many of the homes Blackstone has acquired in Fulton County over the last few months were purchased on the courthouse steps at the monthly foreclosure auction, or through short sales, when a lender agrees to accept less than the amount owed on a sale. The vast majority of these homes are not empty, but in fact occupied by homeowners who fell behind during the great recession. The sale often represents the last nail in the coffin of foreclosure in Georgia, a non-judicial foreclosure state where there is very little opportunity or time to make good once a homeowner falls into default. Blackstone, operating under their subsidiary, THR Georgia, buys the homes for cash, usually at deep discounts from the principal balance owed on the mortgage.

Take one of the homes they snapped up at the November auction as an example: THR purchased the Southeast Atlanta home at auction for $90,000. The principal due on the mortgage that was foreclosed upon was $219,300. If banks were willing to offer principal reduction on these inflated mortgages down to the same price they are willing to sell at auction, many homeowners would likely be able to afford their payments, and stay in their homes for years to come, contributing to the stability of the neighborhood. Instead, homeowners are getting a flier posted on their door the day after Blackstone purchases it, offering them the opportunity to rent the home they once owned. Meanwhile, the deep pockets of firms like Blackstone allows them to outbid virtually everyone else in the market- eliminating any chance of owner occupants looking for a new home, to get a good deal while prices and interest rates are low.

Blackstone has partnered with Dallas-based Riverstone Residential, the nation's largest third party property management company, to form "Invitation Homes." In a 3-minute commercial for Invitation Homes posted on the company's website, Jonathan Gray, head of global real estate at Blackstone, claims that "there are 12 million single family homes for rent in America, but it's not done on an institutional basis." The market has traditionally been dominated by 'mom and pop' investors, most with fewer than a couple dozen properties. Many landlords build relationships with their tenants, and the communities in which the homes are located. They hire local contractors to do maintenance work, and spend the income generated from rent back in the local economy. That's not how Riverstone operates. Their website touts the array of services they offer in-house for property owners, from contracts with telecom and utility providers, and exclusive partnerships with suppliers, to in-house screening and debt collection. Riverstone is a one-stop shop for property management.

Probably the most disturbing of all is the partnership between Riverstone and credit reporting agency, Experian. Riverstone entered into an agreement last year with Experian Rent, to turn over real time payment history on all of their residents to be compiled into a national database. A press release Experian put out when the deal was announced stated that "by furnishing resident rental payment history data to Experian RentBureau, Riverstone will immediately enhance the effectiveness of its rental collections while decreasing bad debt levels and encouraging proactive rental payment practices among its residents, leading directly to increases in net operating income (NOI) and the bottom line." This kind of data will help Blackstone and other large firms to eliminate some of the doubt and uncertainty around renters and their stability to investors. For the average renter however, the consequences could be detrimental. Gone are the days of calling up your landlord to let them know rent will be there on the 7th instead of the 1st this month. As more and more Americans live paycheck to paycheck, and wages continue to decline or remain stagnant, paying rent a few days late could lead to a negative credit score, impacting their ability to secure resources and move up the ladder of the middle class. Jonathan Gray wouldn't know much about that though. He made $36.5 million in 2011. His boss, Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman, made $148.5 million. This new plan further grows the disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street, and the difference between the 1 percent and the 99 percent.

Interestingly enough, purchasing single family homes isn't Blackstone's only recent foray into the housing market. In the lead-up to the crash, Blackstone's hedge fund group, Blackstone Alternative Asset Management, chose to bet against the subprime market, purchasing credit default swaps and collecting billions in profits when the cards fell. Blackstone's hedge funds are now spending millions purchasing those very same subprime mortgage bonds for pennies on the dollar, betting on home prices going up, leading more homeowners to refinance and reinstating the value of these junk bonds. It's a constant game of speculation for Wall Street, which culminates in bubbles being created, the rich getting richer, and communities losing control over the places they live.

In the wake of one the greatest financial disasters in modern times, you'd think we'd have learned our lesson. Like they say, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Maybe what we need this time around are solutions that help people find long-term housing stability, instead of chasing short-term fixes that will land us right back where we started.

Shabnam Bashiri

Guest Writer