[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 26 (Wednesday, February 9, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S603-S604]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                Housing

  Mr. BROWN. Madam President, before last year, the committee I chair 
and one of the committees on which the Presiding Officer sits--the 
Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee--was far too much about 
Wall Street and far too little about issues that matter to people's 
lives.
  We have changed that. Instead of always listening to the biggest 
banks and their corporate lobbyists, we listen to workers and we listen 
to their families from all kinds of communities all over the country.
  Last year, we held the committee's first-ever worker listening 
session where, as hard as it was for all of us, no Senator asked 
questions. We just heard from witnesses. We heard from workers--about a 
half-dozen workers--who just told us their story.
  We know that workers power our economy. We heard from workers from 
all kinds of backgrounds, working all kinds of jobs. Some worked for 
banks, others worked for large tech companies, and some for other 
corporations. They talked about wage theft. They talked about being 
laid off during a pandemic with no severance pay. They talked about the 
danger in their workplaces. They talked about how, in some cases, their 
companies busted their unions.
  Their stories make it clear that the real harm the Wall Street 
business model does is to workers' lives.
  Yesterday, we held our second listening session, this time with 
renters from around the country whose homes are owned by deep-pocketed 
investors like corporate landlords and private equity funds.

[[Page S604]]

  One of those renters--some lived in the Presiding Officer's home 
State, I believe in North Minneapolis--told her story. It is an 
increasing problem in every region, from big cities to rural towns. 
Deep-pocketed investors come into a community they have no connection 
to, and they buy up homes; they raise rents; they cut services; and 
they don't deliver on their promises to their tenants.
  These out-of-town and sometimes out-of-country investors are raising 
rents often by as much as 50 percent, issuing eviction notices, and 
leaving toxic mold and pest infestations to grow worse, all to pad 
their bottom line.
  We heard from renters in apartment buildings and single-family homes 
and manufactured housing. We heard from renters in Las Vegas, NV; Great 
Falls, MT; and Hyattsville, MD--all sharing those stories.
  One renter was told, when she asked why her rent suddenly increased 
by hundreds of dollars a month, ``We have to please the investors.'' 
Think about that. ``We have to please the investors.''
  Renters in Nevada, in Maryland, in Texas, and in California had their 
homes repeatedly flooded with wastewater, lived with rodent 
infestations, and went long periods without working showers or hot 
water.
  Listen to Juan Cuellar from Maryland. He said:

       The ceiling in the hallways is falling in. The wood floor 
     is buckling. We don't have heat. There are cockroaches and 
     mice. The air conditioning units don't work. There is a lot 
     of mold. The refrigerator doesn't work. They don't want to 
     fix anything, including the stove and the refrigerator and 
     the heater.

  They don't even have heat. These investors claim they are just 
running a business. OK. The business is supposed to be providing a 
decent place to live--that is part of the deal--in exchange for 
collecting people's hard-earned money in rent each month. If your 
building is full of mold and mice and doesn't have working heat or 
doesn't have a working stove, you are not holding up your end of the 
deal. You are not running a real business; you are running a scam. 
Families pay a very high price for it.
  Rachel Jones is a working mother in North Minneapolis. She said her 
persistent complaints about her home's leaking sewage and dangerous 
garage went unanswered. The city itself was forced to step in because 
of code violations. This single mother said the company that owns her 
home bought it as ``essentially a money-grabbing tool. That's all they 
are doing.''
  Ms. Nguyen, who lives in Brooklyn, talked about the firm that bought 
her building, Greenbrook. She said:

       They and their business model do not care if I or my 
     neighbors become homeless--in fact, their business model 
     makes that possibility [much more] likely.

  Cindy Newman, from Great Falls, MT, talked about her manufactured 
home community. She worked hard to buy her home, but she rents the land 
it sits on. That is how manufactured homes work, how mobile home parks 
work. She rents the land it sits on. She said they used to have ``a 
fair land owner who kept our community safe and affordable,'' until the 
private equity firm Havenpark Capital took over.
  I would just add that Senator Sanders just walked in, and Senator 
Sanders and I have talked about when these private equity firms come in 
and buy mobile home parks and the damage that so often does.
  She said her new owners in Montana have ``cut back on all amenities 
and strip value out of our communities. They are brutal, absentee 
landlords.'' Her line, her quote.
  The group raised rents and added fees for water and sewer and trash 
removal. Ms. Newman said this company bought a number of these homes--
Havenpark--all over Montana and Iowa and other places around the 
country.
  She said it amounted to about an 86-percent increase--her words--for 
the dirt that her home sits on. But they just can't pick up and move. 
Moving her home to a different community would cost $10,000 or $20,000.
  Just picture these mobile home parks. These mobile homes they buy--
maybe $30-, $40-, $50,000 in some cases--they set them and then they 
build around them, and they aren't really mobile at that point. It 
costs, as this woman said, $10- to $20,000 to move them.
  Most of her neighbors are seniors. They are on fixed incomes.
  She continues:

       It's hard to believe we could lose our homes and our life 
     savings to such uncaring, greedy people.

  Remember, they moved into these places 5 years, 10 years, 20 years 
ago. A family owned it. The family rented the land out for $200 or $300 
a month. Then a private equity firm came in and doubled their rent. I 
mean, think about what that does, just upending the lives of people who 
are not all that affluent. They are kind of living paycheck to paycheck 
or Social Security check to Social Security check anyway.
  As apartments and houses and manufactured home communities that 
people can afford become harder and harder to find, families are left 
with an impossible choice: pay money they don't have for a home that 
may put their kids at risk or gamble and look for a new place to live 
with a fear they will end up with no place to sleep.
  That is what these seven renters, who represent millions of renters 
across the country--that is what they told us yesterday. These renters 
and homeowners shared their stories. They have shone a light on this 
problem.
  Tomorrow in our hearing--we will hold a hearing in our committee 
looking at how we ended up here, how this exploitive business model has 
exploded around the country. For Wall Street investors, rent increases 
are distilled down as returns to shareholders. Code violations and 
eviction violations are just the cost of doing business. But for Mr. 
Cuellar and Ms. Jones and Ms. Newman and millions of Americans, these 
are their homes. These are their neighborhoods. It is up to us to look 
out for them, not to look out for private equity firms' bottom lines.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.