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Oracle Asked To Help Low-Income Residents Evicted For Its New Cloud Campus (cio.com)
itwbennett writes: Roughly 100 low-income families were evicted from an apartment complex on the land in Austin, Texas where Oracle plans to build a new 560,000 sq. foot cloud-computing campus. Some of the former tenants of Lakeview Apartments had leases through the end of the year, but were reportedly forced by owner Cypress Real Estate Advisors to move out early. Some have said their security deposits were not returned, and they have had no assistance as they've struggled to find comparably priced housing. Last week, some of those residents gathered near the site of their former home to protest and to appeal to Oracle for assistance.
ORACLE = One Rich Asshole Called Larry Ellison.
The tenants were notified in June that this was going to happen. They were later notified that no leases would be extended and if the leases expired in September they had to be out by then. People with monthly leases also had to be out by then.
This left some people who had leases until December and a few that just stuck around. The ones with the leases until December are in a court lawsuit currently over the level of inaction the management company provided in not fixes issues and with removal of services.
So what additional protection should they have? I live in Germany and three months is what I can expect for notification.
If that's true, then the government should file charges against them for housing market manipulation, and forcibly liquidate the properties on their behalf.
You missed the part where the government gave them the money that they're using to operate on since acquiring that real estate. The government is literally doing the exact opposite of what it should do, enabling this behavior instead of stopping it.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Let's be honest here:
1) It's not Oracle's fault that the previous owner (e.g. landlord) was/is a dick. Yes, Oracle could do some feel-good PR with it, but it won't make a difference long-term, and the folks involved end up getting their pain prolonged in most cases.
2) How the fuck does this even make it to closing with tenants still on the books? Unless Oracle specifically agrees (agreed?) to take on the role of landlord, the place should have been emptied by the day the title transfer papers get signed.
3) Legally (barring some clause or two that nobody read in their leases), the property seller may be on the hook for paying up any leases that are still live when the property sold (unless, again, Oracle agreed to become a landlord at closing). But, I can only guess at that because I don't know the city/county/state laws that apply.
4) A question - is there any sort of state of federal grant money action or program occurring here? I'm assuming not, else the residents would have gotten at least a year or more of advanced warning, relocation assistance, rental vouchers to help them pay rent elsewhere, etc etc.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?