After the real estate bubble popped, taking the U.S. economy with it, more than 9 million homes were foreclosed or sold at a loss, leading to fears th

After the crash: How Wall Street is driving up homelessness

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2021-07-11 15:00:05

After the real estate bubble popped, taking the U.S. economy with it, more than 9 million homes were foreclosed or sold at a loss, leading to fears that tracts of abandoned neighborhoods would become "ghost towns."

While this happened in some areas of the country, elsewhere, the empty homes were an opportunity—most of all for Wall Street investors that swooped in to buy properties in bulk and rent them out at a profit.

In the decade since the crash, 7 million more households have become renters, while only 1 million more have become homeowners, according to Census data. And "institutional landlords," as the Wall Street investors are called, have become a major driver of the affordable housing woes many Americans are now facing—from steep rent payments all the way to eviction.

Some cities make it harder than others to evict people. In Los Angeles, eviction is relatively easy—as Melinda and Michael Peffer found out when the home they had lived in was sold to an investment company and they were served with an eviction notice, despite having been, in their words, model tenants for 16 years.