Opinion: Left’s anti-rent platform is, at its core, anti-private property

Coalition for a Better Oakland’s Steve Heimoff dives into local progressive pols’ vision to eliminate eviction, thus—supposedly—mitigating residents’ housing challenges. Instead, Heimoff believes this platform is more dangerous than it appears. It hinges on an aversion to private property ownership, and will lead to reduced rights for others if unchecked. “First they came for the landlords, and I did not speak out—because I was not a landowner…”

I’m still trying to figure out what the progressives really believe concerning rent and housing. Their actual agenda, I’m convinced, is a mystery wrapped in ambiguity, surrounded by a bodyguard of lies.

On the surface they utter cliches such as “Housing is a human right.” They create rent moratoriums in the name of COVID, even though COVID is no longer a problem. They protest against market rate housing. In short, their position seems to be fairly simple: to make housing available for all, as cheaply as possible.

That in itself is not objectionable. It’s unrealistic, of course, but an absence of realism has never stopped idealists. But there’s something sinister below the surface appearance of what Fife, Brooks, Thao, Bas and others like them present publicly. It’s becoming more evident to me every day that what they desire is to abolish our system of rental housing and replace it with some kind of “housing on demand” system, by which people who claim to be unable to afford rent will be allowed to live for free in homes owned by others.

You have to read between the lines to reach this conclusion, but that’s what I do. I can’t prove my case not yet. I’m working on it. But the progressives increasingly are dropping clues as to their true objective, which is a war on landlords. For example, Carroll Fife just this morning tweeted her fear of being “rent blackballed” if she complains about leaks in her rented apartment. This seems designed for the sole purpose of stirring up resentment of landlords, which is a precondition of preparing the public to support anti-landlord legislation.

This article originally appeared in Coalition for a Better Oakland. Read the whole thing here.

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