Rally on Saturday in Tigard with the Woodspring Tenants Association
On Saturday, October 9th, at 2 pm at 113th & Durham in Tigard, Oregon, there will be a rally with the Woodspring Tenants Association, who are facing the imminent loss of their complex’s affordable housing status.
In the midst of the housing crisis, apartment complexes across the US that were under affordable housing contracts are going market rate over the course of the next few years, as the thirty-year contracts expire. Many of the buildings are being bought by investment groups aiming to make a quick buck — or a quick billion — as soon as the contracts expire. Such is the case with Woodspring Apartments in Tigard, Oregon, which has been bought by the San Francisco-based corporation, Hamilton-Zanze.
Hamilton-Zanze’s own website explains the corporation’s MO succinctly, though in corporate-speak:
Find underperforming properties with attractive capitalization rates in markets with positive economic and demographic trends.
Translating that into plain English: find apartment complexes that are under affordable housing contracts (therefore “underperforming,” from the perspective of the capitalists), in places where much more money could be made (“attractive capitalization rates”), because a lot of people with money are moving to the area (“positive economic and demographic trends”).
Portland artist David Rovics took some of the corporate-speak on Hamilton-Zanze’s website and turned it into a song in solidarity with the Woodspring tenants.