I was at bankruptcy court for three hours yesterday and listened to more of the hearing online after that. The lawyers for my current landlord and the presumptive buyer were SO mad about organized tenants so I personally think every rent-stabilized building should form a union :)

For @thenation.com and @typeinvestigations.org, I looked into American Landmark, a major landlord filing evictions far more than the national average. I found they are owned by an Israeli company with ties to the IDF, including during the Gaza genocide. (1/10) www.thenation.com/article/soci...

Today's must-read by @thomasbirm.bsky.social: a major corporate landlord is fueling homelessness across the U.S. *and* the mass displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank. The Israeli company owns tens of thousands of apartments in the South, filing evictions at nine times the national average.

Many Jewish institutional leaders have spent the past few months promising that New York Jews will be in danger if Zohran wins. We’re about to see exactly how wrong they were. Will they admit it? empty-brain.ghost.io/will-jewish-...

Under Trump, the draconian future of homelessness policy is coming into focus: mass internment. Utah is building a 16-acre site to detain up to 1,300 homeless people inside locked "accountability centers." This is profoundly alarming. Vital reporting from @ellenbarry.bsky.social and Jason DeParle:

Published my first Op-Ed w/ Professor Ed Goetz on how the national narrative about Minneapolis misses how zoning and market rate housing are necessary but not sufficient to help lower-income renters 🧵 www.startribune.com/twin-cities-...

Nobody wants it as a story but I have multiple NYPD sources who voted for Mamdani, are eager for his win in November, and who say their colleagues quietly feel the same. They like that he wants NYPD to focus on crime, not quality of life enforcement.

A group of tenants with rent debt are refusing to pay Equity Residential, one of the largest corporate landlords. The campaign’s goals are to win debt cancellation and spur regulatory action to hold corporate landlords accountable. Michael Friedrich reports: prospect.org/infrastructu...

Rent Debtors Strike Against Abusive Corporate Landlord The Debt Collective is leading the charge against the real estate behemoth Equity Residential prospect.org/infrastructu...

Real this lovely essay on Krasznahorkai by @luriethereal.bsky.social

Well it’s not long sentence, but I did get to write this essay for @newrepublic.com! I strongly encourage you to join us. newrepublic.com/article/2015...

Imagine real estate-backed securities, but on the blockchain and totally unregulated. What could go wrong?

Many Americans racked up rent debt during the pandemic, often due to corporate landlords’ predatory practices. Now, strikers argue that their debts to Equity Residential are uncollectible under consumer protection laws. Read my report at @prospect.org. prospect.org/infrastructu...

A group of former tenants has organized the first rent debt strike in U.S. history. They are refusing to pay back unjust debts to Equity Residential, a corporate landlord accused of widespread misconduct. I wrote about their campaign for @prospect.org. prospect.org/infrastructu...

Atlanta has been been rapidly gentrifying for years & seen tremendous growth in property values since 2011. Yet the public schools starve. And now Mayor wants to extend its tax increment districts, which include some of city’s hottest areas, for 25 years, diverting more $ from schools. #AtlantaWay

A group of former tenants has organized the first rent debt strike in U.S. history. They are refusing to pay back unjust debts to Equity Residential, a corporate landlord accused of widespread misconduct. I wrote about their campaign for @prospect.org. prospect.org/infrastructu...

there is no question in my mind that rfk jr is the most dangerous person in this administration and that his eugenicist ideology threatens the lives of millions of people www.advocate.com/politics/dem...

The Trump administration has deployed armed troops and masked paramilitaries to brutally kidnap people from U.S. streets. That is why, as a Democratic member of Congress, I am proposing a bill that provides these agents with a free subscription to the Headspace meditation app.

In the 1970s, landlords burned their buildings for profit, displacing thousands of tenants in poor neighborhoods. For @thebaffler.com, I wrote about @benchansfield.bsky.social's excellent “Born in Flames” and the consequences of the arson wave. thebaffler.com/latest/ring-...

“Born in Flames” investigates the wave of arson that swept across the Bronx in the 1970s—and the landlords who were often behind it. @mfriedrichnyc.bsky.social reviews the history of white-collar criminals run amok.

I wrote about “Born in Flames,” a new history of 1970s arson-for-profit, financialization of housing, and the consequences for tenants, for @thebaffler.com.

So grateful for this very sharp review of Born in Flames in @thebaffler.com Thank you @mfriedrichnyc.bsky.social ! !

“There are, of course, some experiences that you just cannot realize without the paternalism of private enterprise.” @mfriedrichnyc.bsky.social‬ puts out park conservancies to pasture in NYRA no. 46/47. nyra.nyc/articles/cen...

In the 1970s, landlords burned their buildings for profit, displacing thousands of tenants in poor neighborhoods. For @thebaffler.com, I wrote about @benchansfield.bsky.social's excellent “Born in Flames” and the consequences of the arson wave. thebaffler.com/latest/ring-...

In the 1970s, a wave of arson swept across the Bronx. As @mfriedrichnyc.bsky.social writes in a review of “Born in Flames,” it helped pave the way for today’s highly financialized, boom-and-bust real estate cycles.

Most people don’t realize that private conservancies, not the Parks Dept, do the bulk of fundraising and management for NYC's marquee parks. This arrangement keeps them nice but makes for dumb uses of public space, networks of donor influence, and an unequal park system.

The fastest-growing homeless population in America? School-age children. Last year, student homelessness in California—where rents continue to soar past wages—rose by 20,000, reaching its highest level in a decade. But sure, keep insisting homelessness is all about mental illness and addiction.

Horrifying details of evictions in NYC: Marshals evicted over 7,500 tenants on days when it was hotter than 90 degrees since 2017. A large share happened in “heat islands,” the areas of the city most vulnerable to extreme temperatures.

“For today’s plutocracy, the [parks] conservancy represents a… political project… explicitly aimed at retrenching from the perceived excesses of the New Deal... The strings attached to their charity have multiplied, ensnaring parks in a complex web of influence thru the vehicle of the nonprofit.”

Anas Al-Sharif, like hundreds of his slain colleagues, was killed for exposing the gruesome truth of the Gaza Holocaust. May his memory be a blessing, and may his children live to see a free Palestine.

Sometimes these guys just come out and tell you that they are little goblins

79% of Jewish Israelis are ok with starving Gaza. Large majority of Israeli Jews untroubled by reports of famine in Gaza, poll finds www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...

kennedy is going to kill a lot of people

As end-of-empire scenarios go it is so much more dignified to get your capital city sacked by the Visigoths than to have a bunch of illiterate rich people in their 70s doing it through a series of incomprehensible tantrums because their brains were defeated by their phones.

I went long for @nyreviewofarch.bsky.social about inequality in public space, the Bank of America Winter Village-ization of the urban commons, and why we should stop relying on an undertaxed donor class to fund our parks. nyra.nyc/articles/cen...

The One Where @mfriedrichnyc.bsky.social critiques park conservancies. nyra.nyc/articles/cen...

I went long for @nyreviewofarch.bsky.social about inequality in public space, the Bank of America Winter Village-ization of the urban commons, and why we should stop relying on an undertaxed donor class to fund our parks. nyra.nyc/articles/cen...

It is very funny that Ezra Klein and Chris Hayes spent 90 mins talking about Zohran Mamdani's command of the "attention economy" and never once mentioned the massive organizing effort that delivered him the primary win. Sorry, it 's only "attentional strategy" if it's social video!

All gas, no breaks. Only you can make this poll a reality: zohranfornyc.com/events

Our new ad is now live. Freeze the rent.

Certain people will tell you otherwise, but freezing the rent is a great way to ensure that rents do not rise.

For my debut in @us.theguardian.com, I wrote about how Trump’s cuts to the arts could erased stories told by small cultural institutions

Lots of great details in this new piece from @rebeccaburns.bsky.social including how much profit-seeking landlords are gambling that they can buy buildings, quickly remove the tenants, & flip or refinance it. + how all that makes them vulnerable to rent strikes. inthesetimes.com/article/chic...

NEW: We're uncovering a new racist, classist pattern of eviction carried out by corporate landlords in places like Los Angeles — and we're fighting back. prospect.org/infrastructu...

A new study shows that large corporate landlords in LA are disproportionately evicting Black tenants in the post-pandemic housing market. The findings are disturbing, but they also raise possibilities for tenant organizing. I wrote about it for @prospect.org. prospect.org/infrastructu...

"Corporate landlords are systematically attracting Black residents into white, upmarket neighborhoods, stripping their wealth, and then kicking them out again." The Institute's own graduate researcher, Alex Ferrer, reveals striking findings with unprecedented data from the #TenantPowerToolkit.

A new study shows that large corporate landlords in LA are disproportionately evicting Black tenants in the post-pandemic housing market. The findings are disturbing, but they also raise possibilities for tenant organizing. I wrote about it for @prospect.org. prospect.org/infrastructu...

Americans are facing a dire supply shortage of friend. We must unleash the market to create an Abundance of friend.

Every New Yorker knows that sometimes you can get a seat on a rush hour subway train but it will require that you remove the Mysterious Napkin that other riders have avoided touching

People talk about a "housing crisis." Landlords are not experiencing a housing crisis. Tenants are suffering a housing crisis at the hands of greedy landlords.