Fifty-five families living in Isla Vista, the beachside community neighboring UC Santa Barbara, are victims of a mass eviction at the hands of a greedy real estate developer. All 55 of the familes were served eviction notices last month. These mostly low-income, Spanish-speaking families lived in the Cedarwood Apartments - a development recently acquired by a real estate developer (with a tragically ironic name), Conquest Student Housing. Conquest plans to significantly raise rents and replace the evicted families with UCSB students. The story of the Cedarwood families shows how Proposition 90 would make a terrible situation even worse.
Prop 90 - or as we at Courage Campaign call it, "
Leave No Real Estate Developer Behind" - would give even more power to developers like Conquest to do whatever they please, ignoring both common decency and legal restrictions.
Prop 90 would allow real estate developers like Conquest to sue local governments when regulations -- in the form of environmental protections, community planning, or affordable housing requirements - caused the company any additional cost. This sweeping, radical change would give real estate developers a veto over any restriction on their already extensive power. It's crucial to vote No on 90.
Much like Howie Rich (the billionaire developer putting up money for the Prop 90 campaign), the owners of Conquest Student Housing have done their best to remain anonymous and invisible. They've used technicalities in the law (like setting up shadow companies and speaking only through attorneys) to hide their identities. Determined to speak directly to the people responsible for the mass evictions, a group of 11 Cedarwood family members and community activists went to the LA headquarters of Conquest a few weeks ago. When the group finally saw someone who appeared to be an owner of Conquest, police surrounded them and allowed the owner to drive away before he could be identified.
The struggle against Conquest continues. Cedarwood families and community activist groups including Santa Barbara PUEBLO have taken their case to the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors, but the Supervisors have said that they lack the legal authority to step in. Student activists at UCSB have held fundraisers to help support the evicted families, and just yesterday, student activists occupied a UCSB administrative building, demanding that the University take action. So far, UC administrators have not made any statement of how they can support the Cedarwood families.
Proposition 90 would give real estate developers like Conquest even more power. They're already able to ignore discrimination laws - California law prohibits discriminatory evictions of families with children - and Prop 90 would allow Conquest to ignore environmental and zoning laws as well. Vote No.
From
The Courage Campaign