Tenants battle vermin, sewage in investor-owned mobile home parks

[Zorro]

Within days of moving into Waterside Mobile Home Park in Gibsonton, Jennifer Rivera Cruz said she broke out in hives. When the allergic reaction didn’t get better, she panicked. Overwhelmed, she covered her face with a blanket and wept.

As soon as the sun set, hordes of termites squirmed from the walls, swarming Cruz, her wife, Dena Guzman, and their three children.

“We would wake up every day at 2, 3 o’clock in the morning, feeling stuff walking in my hair, on my face,” Cruz said.

The couple said they begged their landlord to do something. They had just moved from a different park in Tampa, owned by the same company, where the infestation was just as bad. They decided to stop paying rent until the termites were exterminated.

https://www.tampabay.com/news/real-estate/2024/10/23/tenants-battle-vermin-sewage-investor-owned-mobile-home-parks/

[rubbersole]

1. Investor owned residential housing...

...what could go wrong? It's going to get much worse before it gets better. If ever. This should be the priority of the new Dem Congress. After expanding the SC.

[jmbar2]

3. No joke - see the links in my post below

Private Equity is pillaging the US economy.

[jmbar2]

2. Really good article leading to links about Private Equity's assault on the US economy

The Private Equity Stakeholder Project does research on the impacts on private equity investment on industries, workers and the US Economy.
https://pestakeholder.org

What I Learned
Democrats are touting the economy a lot, but workers aren't feeling it because the structure of the US economy has become so lopsided in favor of the megacorps. Private Equity Firms have led increasing concentration of wealth creation into fewer and fewer hands while reducing worker's pay, security and working conditions.

Private equity takeovers often result in significant job losses and decreases in average worker wages at the companies they buy. Private equity-owned retail companies have laid off hundreds of thousands of workers due to store closures and bankruptcies.

The largest number of workers employed by private equity-owned companies are concentrated in industries where employers often pay low wages – at least 1.5 million workers in Food Service, 1.1 million workers in Retail, and almost 1 million in both Security and Health Care. For example, in December 2020, Roark Capital acquired Dunkin’ Donuts, bringing the total number of workers at its companies or franchisees to almost 1 million.

Earlier this year, the Warburg Pincus-owned Allied Universal Security acquired G4S and now has over 800,000 workers globally. In the last year and a half, Apollo Global Management has almost doubled the number of employees at its companies to over 550,000 through acquisitions such as its buyout of Alorica, a call center operator with 100,000 workers, and Michael’s craft stores with 45,000 workers.

...pension funds make up the largest investor group funding private equity firms. Pension funds and other investors should consider the risks of investing with anti-worker private equity firms and take responsibility for ending abusive practices at companies they are invested in through private equity.

Really good database on familiar companies that have been swallowed by these firms. https://pestakeholder.org/explore-the-issues/labor-and-jobs/largest-private-equity-employer-database/

Wow. Just wow...