Michael Friedrich

The Eviction Kings One of Israel’s biggest companies is taking over huge swaths of US real estate—and tenants are paying the price.

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...

The Eviction Kings One of Israel’s biggest companies is taking over huge swaths of US real estate—and tenants are paying the price.

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.

Will Jewish leaders atone for their sins next year? Falsifiable fearmongering and the Zohran Mamdani election. Maybe because they’re clergy so bad behavior takes on an fancier form, or because their worst conduct has played out in the shadow of the Hi...

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-...

In Utah, Trump’s Vision for Homelessness Begins to Take Shape

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:

Opinion | We’re seeing haves and have-nots with Minneapolis rents While the housing cost burden is easing overall, it’s not the case for lower-income renters, the authors write.

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.

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

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.

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?

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

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...

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

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

The new rent debt strike relies on a strategy that @debtcollective.bsky.social pioneered with student debtors. A small group refused to pay back loans to institutions that defrauded them, creating a "moral shock" that drove a national movement and won billions in relief.

In May, I covered a new study showing that large corporate landlords are disproportionately evicting black tenants in L.A. Equity Residential was the worst offender. @debtcollective.bsky.social is now organizing debtors harmed by the landlord’s eviction practices. bsky.app/profile/mfri...

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

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...

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

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...

RFK Jr.’s damage to the CDC is ‘past the point of no return,’ Dr. Demetre Daskalakis warns “The CDC you knew is over,” the infectious diseases doctor told The Advocate. “Unless someone takes radical action, there is nothing there that can be salvaged.”

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.

Ring of Fire | Michael Friedrich A new book explores the incentives that sparked an arson wave in the Bronx during the 1970s.

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-...

What, in your estimation, does your comment have to do with this post, the essay it’s linked to, or the book under review?

Ring of Fire | Michael Friedrich A new book explores the incentives that sparked an arson wave in the Bronx during the 1970s.

“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.

Ring of Fire | Michael Friedrich A new book explores the incentives that sparked an arson wave in the Bronx during the 1970s.

“The arson wave was, in a sense, a free-market slum-clearance program,” Ansfield writes.

It made way for today’s inexorable gentrification process, led by the finance, insurance, and real estate sectors that rose to dominance in the 1970s. thebaffler.com/latest/ring-...

Corporate elites continue to push private risk onto the public, as they did with inner-city risks fifty years ago, Ansfield notes. Today, state-sponsored insurance indemnifies capital from climate risks, from the coast of Florida to “firebelt” areas like the Pacific Palisades in California.

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...

Ring of Fire | Michael Friedrich A new book explores the incentives that sparked an arson wave in the Bronx during the 1970s.

The arsons of the 1970s make a fitting origin point for our present urban crisis. They helped clear the ground for today’s highly financialized, boom-and-bust real estate cycles and the dire housing instability that they have yielded for working people. thebaffler.com/latest/ring-...

Ring of Fire | Michael Friedrich A new book explores the incentives that sparked an arson wave in the Bronx during the 1970s.

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-...