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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.
for Oracle to polish their image which, currently, is pretty bad in the social-and-responsible-enterprise area. Whether they'll really do something - I doubt it.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
ORACLE = One Rich Asshole Called Larry Ellison.
Well, Oracle is not to blame.
The landlord is to blame if they used illegal means to evict the renters.
If the eviction was legal, well, you do have a problem with the local laws then, wouldn't you say?
If the people need welfare, the government should supply public housing directly.
There are multiple empty houses for every man, woman, and child in America, thanks to the mortgage scam. And thanks to the bailout, the banks can afford to not sell those homes for whatever the market can bear, so they are sitting on them and refusing to sell them in order to keep real estate values high and maintain the value of their "investment" (really an elaborate theft from the taxpayer.) So in fact, the government has funded the deliberate ongoing maintenance of the homelessness of the population.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Bollocks. Knowingly benefitting from an immoral act is immoral.
mod parent up, or a kitten gets it!
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.
so many people scream for special rights to *renters* as if they are owners
There is no fundamental right to exclusive control of land, not even in a capitalist society. If the property owner decides to build housing, and rent out housing, then their customer's lives depend on this relationship, which is in danger of becoming tyrannical or unfairly exploitative, so the property owner automatically cedes certain rights, Even rights that might not be in their best financial interest to lose, and even rights they do not willingly give up.
Actually.... the deedholder or claimholder is just a renter too. The ultimate owner of land is the state government, and in most places, they even charge the current deedholder a rent called property tax to maintain any privileges, and their usage of the land has to be compliant with the law and in the interest of the public (E.g. You cannot just dump hazardous wastes on your land, however you like).
It makes perfect sense, that a government respecting the interest of the public would have reasonable regulation of the government deedholders' subleasing arrangements with members of the public, where people secure their housing / apartment living spaces, or even, where people secure housing for other vital purchases: such as the usage to host the main office of a small business.
Ahh more insults from you, this is becoming common.
Just because a bank is holding onto property does not mean its empty, and nor does it mean it would be affordable to rent for these people needing to find cheap accommodation. Unoccupied properties degrade quickly, so banks will gladly rent them out. The people in this story are renters, so the fact that banks wont sell is meaningless to this discussion.
Plus I really dont think there are 640million empty properties right now in the US ("multiple empty houses for every man, woman and child" is what you said, combined with the current estimated population of 322million). A quick googling shows a recent estimate is only 18.6million, and most of those need significant extra work as they are uninhabitable.
Add to that the fact that acting as a landlord for an extra 3.5million zero or low income people (the estimated number of homeless in the US) puts a huge strain on somebody - were you thinking of forcing the banks to bear this cost? Another thing to consider is that the banks *are* donating empty houses to cities for social housing, but most cities dont want them because it eliminates property taxes on those properties and adds them as a burden to the city.
You also realise that the banks are paying for the bailout, right? To date, the US Federal Reserve has actually made a profit of $63.2Billion on loans totalling $618Billion disbursed under the TARPS and Fannie and Freddie.
Of that $618Billion, the Federal Reserve has seen $681Billion flow back, and thats with about $230Billion in loans yet to be repaid. Puts your "elaborate theft from the taxpayer" comment in a new light, now doesnt it...
https://projects.propublica.or...
http://themindunleashed.org/20...
http://www.businessinsider.com...
Actually, in many states the lessee has many rights, such as the right to continued used of the property throughout the duration of the lease, the lease holder can not step foot onto their property without proper prior notice, and many other bundled rights... which include, the quick return of security deposits held in a special interest bearing account, or a written and judge signed decree of why the money was not returned.
In this case, unless the residents agreed to something in return for the termination of their leases... such as a relocation amount, even a pittance of one, then they should have read the agreement better, they got all they are going to get.
Here is some Michigan precedence (some context IANAPL, that is a non-practicing lawyer, but went to law school, passed bar, patent bar, etc, but don't practice), when General Motors which had land near an airport, gave up said land for the expansion of the airport, the tenants of the land, and the owners were given money in return for their quick and timely removal from the land. The agreement for the lessees was 6500 dollars if they rented another property, and more if they bought another property. Granted, this was a move by General motors and the county, and the municipal government, and the owners of the airport. General motors owned the land, and rented houses on the land to their employees for ridiculous low rates... think 3 bedroom brick, ranch houses on 2 acre lots, for 250 dollars a month.
This was about 20 years ago, I know it firsthand, because my family worked for GM and at least 2 uncles, and my family were forced to move... we took the buy route, and even though we did not have much money, the relocation fund, and the first time buyers bonus, and other federal assistance, made moving into a newly built and financed house easier and cheaper than renting a new house or apartment. Big difference than living off of Uncle GM and their gracious cheap family housing, but the 12 grand, plus other assistance made the move easier.
Point is this, no one that leases property has the right to remove you from the property, you have secured property rights through the signing of a lease, it is in fact your leased property, within the limits of the lease. You have the right to quiet enjoyment, and the right to do whatever you want while you are there within the constraints of your agreement. As my law professor stated, property is a bundle of sticks, and a lease contains quite a few sticks (rights) to the property.
I would not be surprised if the property owner pulled a fast one, and got them to sign over, or paid them very little, and now they find themselves in a bind. I also presume that many of these people are not fully educated on the matter and the law, and that someone should have explained it to them better, as to what rights they do have, and do not have. And lastly, I presume, that some are old and infirm, and living on fixed incomes, and have no way to move easily, and may even have medical devices in place (oxygen generators, tub and shower handles, special phones or alert systems), which if this is the case, have an even harder time to move.
So, what we need, is an advocate for the lease holders, and Oracle could provide at a minimum that for goodwill and public perception, and may be able to help these people without handing out a single dime of their own money, just the cost of some local attorneys, who also probably want to do something to get their name out their in a positive way... it could be a win / win for everyone, if they start blaming the right people and accepting the responsibility of the right or wrong that has happened, that is a big if, but an easy fix.
I just believe a lot has been lost in translation, and a lot as been lost through the telling and retelling from many different points of view, and flavored by media bias (big company boot poor out of home), just tell oracle and the county, state, and local government to do their job and help the displaced understand what is available to them. Simple and easy.
Fascism, not, Socialism, not, Media piece during holidays that pulls the right heart strings, yes.