Don’t listen to police Chief Hollow-heart, be sure to give your homeless neighbors cash, food or whatever else they may need if you’re able to. Instead of providing labor & resources to Big Charity, check out some of the amazing local mutual aid groups like Progressive People's Action of Pinellas and St. Pete Food Not Bombs to see how you can get involved.

Back in April, the ACLU of Florida sent Mayor Ken Welch & the city government a warning about the unconstitutionality of St. Pete's anti-panhandling law. 

This week, council member Ed Montanari doubled down on his support of the ordinance during the police department's quarterly report presentation, asking Chief Holloway if he’d directed more enforcement of the ordinance, to which the chief replied “Yes, sir”.  

Notice how the administration & some members of council are unwilling to move forward with rent control & other tenant protections due to legal challenges, but will happily take on the risk of lawsuits to defend an inhumane ordinance which turns our homeless neighbors into criminals for simply asking for a couple bucks. 

Our government is *supposed* to be “of the people, by the people, for the people”, so what’s really happening here? 

While massive inflation & an unprecedented housing emergency ravage working people in the Sunshine City, the politicians are bolstering the police to violently suppress the consequences of a failing economy instead of addressing the root of the problem by serving the needs of the people directly. Instead of providing housing, more good paying jobs with benefits & access to vital resources, the city would rather allow corporations & developers free rein to gentrify St. Pete while using the cops to strong-arm people who don’t fit in with this new playground for the rich. 

The truth is that if the city enacted rent control, strong tenant protections or a robust public housing program with a housing guarantee for all, this would directly threaten the profits of landlords & developers who maintain their stranglehold on our Democracy through huge campaign contributions. This is the reason these politicians continue to fail us, because they don’t actually serve or represent our interests as working people. It’s not a matter of Republican vs Democrat, morality or rationality — it is the needs of the corporate & business elite taking priority over the needs of the working class majority! 

However, the situation is NOT hopeless.

The power of tenants & workers united is stronger than any puppet politician or corporate parasite which stands in our way. We pay the rents, we work the jobs. Together we keep this city running & together we can shut it down! 

Let’s continue to struggle together, care for one another, organize & inspire each other! Let’s continue to educate our friends, family, neighbors & co-workers about what’s at stake and what it’s gonna take to permanently liberate all of us from the shackles of economic servitude & suffering. 

We have a city to win, we have a world to win! 

✊All power to the Tenants🔥

✊All power to the Homeless🔥

✊All power to the Workers🔥

✊All power to the People🔥

Be sure to join us for a protest to tell the city to FUND THE PEOPLE, NOT POLICE! 

📅WEDNESDAY, May 25th 

⏰6:00 PM 

📍City Hall, 175 5th St. N.

Fires Plague Corporate Assisted Living Facility, Apartment Complex in South Pinellas

This past weekend, a fire broke out at Noble Senior Living at St. Petersburg, located on 54th Ave. N. in Lealman. Though the fire was reportedly put out within minutes, a person was rushed to the hospital and ultimately died as a result of the blaze.

This comes on the heels of a 3-alarm fire earlier this month in Kenneth City at the Ashford Bayside Apartments, where dozens of tenants have been permanently displaced. It was reported that the fire alarm system there failed to sound. Miraculously, nobody was killed. Ashford Bayside is owned by Atlanta-based corporate landlord RADCO, who has filed 135 evictions during the COVID-19 pandemic, the most of any landlord in Pinellas county. During this same time, the company received nearly $7 million in fully forgivable, taxpayer-subsidized PPP loans designed for small businesses.

We’re here at Ashford Bayside after last night’s fire. The impact is devastating. Some tenants are being told that they will be rehoused in the complex if there’s space or elsewhere if not. The landlord has still not confirmed what started the fire. pic.twitter.com/MwkFU3BoTl

— St. Petersburg Tenants Union (@SPTenantsU) March 3, 2022

Although the official cause of both fires remains to be seen, these incidents should prompt a larger conversation in the community about housing safety, landlord accountability and the inherent failure of the private sector which puts profit before the lives of tenants.

Last night, a fire broke out at Noble Senior Living in Lealman killing one person. Though the cause is unknown, officials say it doesn’t appear suspicious. The 60/yo facility is owned by @CareTrustREIT, and operated by @NobleSeniorS.

🧵1/8https://t.co/HkQ8OL16xn

— St. Petersburg Tenants Union (@SPTenantsU) March 20, 2022

In the case of the Noble Senior Living fire this past weekend, both owner CareTrust REIT & operator Noble Senior Services have an abysmal health and safety record at numerous properties across the country, as noted in an investigation by HuffPost published last year. An REIT is a company which pools the capital of numerous investors, allowing them to profit without having to play any hands-on role or face any personal accountability to the tenants whose homes they maintain autocratic control over. These parasites don’t serve any sort of material function or perform any actual labor themselves. Instead, they partner with for-profit operators, who oversee day-to-day management of the facilities owned by the REIT. These operators cut corners in order to remain competitive and to maximize profits for their stakeholders.

Noble Senior Services, who CareTrust contracts with here in Florida as well as in several other states, has come under scrutiny for a variety of incidents, including attacks against residents, unsanitary healthcare practices, mold, pests and electrical hazards. In March 2021, a tenant at the same facility which caught fire this weekend was raped by another resident there. At a Noble facility in Pensacola last year, a tenant was reportedly beaten to death. In Fort Wayne, Indiana, a Noble facility received 29 citations stemming from 60 complaints alleging resident neglect. One allegation included a nurse cleaning the wound on a resident’s finger with a poorly sterilized box cutter, leaving it looking like “raw hamburger meat”.

 
What makes this more egregious is that both CareTrust and Noble Senior Services receive huge amounts of taxpayer money. As reported by the HuffPost: “CareTrust reported that in 2020, its 200-plus facilities received more than $150 million in various forms of federal COVID-19 aid, including aid from a $100 billion fund established by the CARES Act for health care providers that lost revenue or incurred costs because of the pandemic''. According to their website, Noble Senior Services benefits from the Low Income Housing Tax Credit Program (LIHTC) as well as other unspecified “government programs”.

The invisible hand of the free market not only fails to guarantee safe housing for all people but the profit motive actually makes housing less safe, especially for the working class. The corporate dictators who control our living spaces will never voluntarily sacrifice massive profit growth, which is gained at the expense of our human rights. When these parasites are heavily subsidized on the taxpayer dime, like RADCO, CareTrust and Noble Senior Services, it becomes clear that the whole system is a complete racket. Housing justice will never be possible unless we fight to make this basic need one that is Democratically controlled by the people, and eliminate the role of useless profiteers who are literally killing us and keeping us poor.

Rent Control Isn't Doomed. We're Only Getting Started.

by organizer Jack Wallace

Graphic From Karen Lieberman on Facebook

A symbolic “statement of belief” was voted down 3-1 by the members of St. Pete’s City Council’s Housing Committee. They voted against symbolic recognition of the housing emergency we are facing in our city. The loudest objectors in the room were city attorney Joseph Patner (who serves at the pleasure of Ken Welch), and councilpersons Brandi Gabbard and Gina Driscoll. Why would these politicians, who claim to be so concerned about this crisis, seek to stop such an effective measure like rent control? I would suggest one to look at the campaign contributions to these three politicians from the last election cycle. Brandi Gabbard accepted $18,619 (44% of her total campaign donations) from real estate/development-related donors last election. Gina Driscoll took $66,551 (31% of total). Ken Welch accepted $491,150 or 39% of total. 

In another country, we see this as corruption, in St. Pete, it’s politics as usual. We know these politicians don’t want to impact their powerful friend’s profits and vote accordingly.

Rent control is just a bandaid to stop the bleeding of working people in this city, who’ve seen rent increases of 24% on average over the past year. If this doesn’t constitute a crisis, what does? We know our goal of guaranteed housing for all will be just as difficult as the struggle for rent control, and we know that these politicians will accept our call if there is a mass movement of working people to demand they do so.

Join us as we double down on our demand!

📅 Thursday, Feb. 17th

⏰ 5:00 PM

📍 175 5th St. N., St. Pete City Hall

Visit peoplescouncilstpete.org to learn more.

Taxpayer Cash for Corporate Control: Affordable Housing is a Business Bailout

This past month, the city of St. Pete received an unsolicited offer from a real estate developer to purchase taxpayer-owned land in Midtown with plans to construct a 96-unit “affordable” apartment building. The apartments will only be leased to those making below the area median income, with rents capped as not to exceed 30% of a tenants annual income. As rents in St. Pete continue to soar at some of the highest rates in the country, this announcement appeared to be a positive headline amidst the daily deluge of news stories about skyrocketing rents, gentrification and tenant abuse. However, a closer look into the developers behind the proposal, and the process by which so-called “affordable” housing is produced, is something workers and tenants should be paying close attention to.

Former Carlisle Executives Mitch Rosenstein (top) and Oscar Sol (bottom)

The development on 18th Ave. S. was proposed by the Green Mills Group, a Ft. Lauderdale-based company who recently developed two multi-family apartment buildings here in St. Pete, Burlington Place and Burlington Post. The company’s founders, Mitchell Rosenstein and Oscar Sol, were former senior executives at another South Florida-based corporation, the Carlisle Development Group. That company, which was one of the largest affordable housing developers in the country during the mid-2000s, was part of a $36 million fraud scheme which resulted in federal charges brought against a number of those involved. Between 2007-2012, Carlisle executives were accused of submitting inflated construction costs at 14 development projects in order to obtain large government tax credits, then pocketing the excess cash. Rosenstein, director of finance for the company during this time, and Sol, who was senior vice president, left Carlisle in 2011 over an alleged pay dispute. The pair subsequently ratted to the FBI and struck a cooperation deal with the feds, according to the Miami Herald. No charges were ever filed against them. Seven others charged in the scheme would ultimately plead guilty, including Carlisle founder Lloyd Boggio and CEO Matthew Greer, who were both sentenced to prison.

The Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program, which Carlisle Development took advantage of, is the top source of public funding for so-called “affordable” housing in the United States. Founded during the Reagan years in 1986, the program was part of a years-long push to divest from federal public housing and shift toward private ownership of “affordable” housing. In this convoluted public-private partnership, tax credits are allocated to individual states annually, which are then distributed to developers in a competitive process through individual state housing finance agencies. Developers who are awarded these tax credits then sell them to investors to shore up cash for development projects. Despite $8 billion in tax money pumped into this program annually, the housing it produces remains in full control and ownership of unaccountable landlords who are only required to keep the rent low for a limited time. If more tax money is not funneled into corporate coffers, these owners are free to jack the rents up on tenants as high as they please.

The program requires landlords to keep rents at an affordable rate for a minimum of 30 years, although a loophole exists which can allow them to raise rents in as little as 15 years. It’s estimated that 143,456 affordable homes subsidized by the LIHTC program across the country have been lost since 1990. In addition, more than 387,000 LIHTC-subsidized homes are set to lose their 30 year affordability requirements by the end of the decade, and 1.2 million homes have already surpassed the 15 year early opt out mark. Expiring affordability requirements and the conversion of once-subsidized units to market rate has led to instances of massive rent hikes and tenant displacement, as noted by the LA Tenants Union, who has been organizing tenants at a formerly LIHTC subsidized property which saw a 200% rent increase upon expiration of it’s affordability requirement.

The program has also been criticized as lacking adequate oversight. In a 2017 interview then-U.S. assistant attorney Mark Sherwin, who helped prosecute the case against Carlisle Development, described the LIHTC in Florida as “a program of trust” and said “this program has been described as a subterranean ATM” of which “only the developers know the pin”. It should be noted that up until the federal investigation, Carlisle Development showed no signs of being a bad actor, having had an excellent reputation on paper and a history of projects delivered under budget. What’s more troubling is that since 1986, only 7 of the 56 state housing finance agencies who administer the program have been audited, which means it’s impossible to know the full extent of non-compliance, abuse and fraud within the program as a whole.

The taxpayer-owned property on 18th Ave. S. where Green Mills Group is seeking to develop "affordable" housing

For the Green Mills Group, along with their partners and investors all looking to get their beaks wet, the project on 18th Ave. S. is an excellent opportunity to expand profits and personal wealth on the taxpayer dime. Along with seeking to utilize the LIHTC program, Green Mills is also fishing for additional government cash from other sources including Penny for Pinellas, Florida SAIL, city funding and the American Rescue Plan to further subsidize their profits. The asking price for the 2.1 acres of taxpayer-owned land is $1 million, a virtual giveaway in one of the hottest real estate markets in the country. As part of their proposal, Green Mills is seeking a whopping $2.8 million profit payout, which amounts to 13% of the total cost of the project. Newly elected Mayor Ken Welch, who received a total of $8,500 in campaign contributions from Green Mills and two of their subsidiaries, will be in charge of choosing a proposal for the site before it is sent to city council for final approval.

Public wealth should be invested in housing. In fact, we should be investing a whole lot more. In return the public must retain full, Democratic control of what is produced, with permanent affordability being part of the deal at bare minimum. If we’re ever going to guarantee a safe, stable, unconditional roof over the head of everybody in the Sunshine City, and in cities across the country, we’re going to need to rein in the parasitic, profit-driven institutions which make this goal impossible. Landlords and other tyrants who deny us access to our basic needs, along with politicians who enable them, are enemies of the hard working people who make up the backbone of our community. Their power is an illusion. Without our labor, strength and minds – our collective consent – these crooks wouldn’t profit off another meal served, another trip driven, another rent check paid or another home built. The choice is ours to make together: will we continue to accept the scraps we’re given, or seize the freedom we’re owed?

Kriseman Sells Us Out To Developers & Corporations One Last Time

In one of his final acts as Mayor, Rick Kriseman approved plans to sell 2 acres of public land located on the east side of Tropicana Field in order for it to be developed into office space and luxury housing at the behest of two recently transplanted tech firms, Dynasty and ARK. The city’s asking price? $6.25 million. By comparison, the Kolter Group recently purchased a .04 acre parking lot nearby at 200 Central Avenue for $20.45 million – a rate of $50 million an acre. Selling public land at such a low price amounts to nothing less than a massive corporate giveaway. The sale is also a one-time transfer of wealth from the public sector to private enterprise, providing little return for St. Pete’s working class.

The proposed development at 910 2nd Ave S. The city owned land beneath will be sold for $6.25 million.

The 36-story building is set to contain 350-400 units of luxury housing, with 12% set aside for so-called “workforce” housing, a designation used for those making somewhere between 80-120% of the Area Median Income (AMI), meaning individuals making less than $41k and families making less than $58k annually will not qualify for the estimated 42-48 units of subsidized housing planned at the site. These subsidized units will undoubtedly be gobbled up quickly by out-of-state techies, edging out members of St. Pete’s existing higher paid workforce, like firefighters and educators.


What’s more is so-called “workforce” and “affordable” housing units are funded in full by taxpayers, yet these units do not remain permanently affordable since it goes into the pocket of developers who are only required to keep them affordably priced for a limited number of years. As corporations, tech firms and wealthy retirees continue to swarm to our city, and shape our downtown for their pleasure, the city government has a duty to bargain better deals for existing residents who are drowning in the rising tide of so-called “progress”. Instead of doling out corporate giveaways the city should be making the profiteers, who created this housing emergency in the first place, pay their fair share in order to help dig us out of it.


While short-term solutions such as rent control are necessary to stop landlords from gouging us into homelessness, we must simultaneously focus on long-term solutions to ensure guaranteed housing for all in the Sunshine City. 

Instead of stale, inefficient market-based solutions to provide housing, the city should pivot toward social solutions, such as the establishment of a community land trust. Land trusts take the value of land out of the equation, ensuring permanent affordability and giving residents personal ownership over the homes built on top. They also protect us from parasitic investors who siphon wealth out of our community through real estate deals. 


In addition, the city could be investing in the development and procurement of new public housing. The St. Petersburg Housing Authority currently operates 371 units of public housing, but is permitted by federal law to operate up to 891 units. That’s 520 additional low income families who could benefit from permanent affordability offered through public housing, which could be constructed on city owned land instead of selling that land to out of state profiteers.

Kriseman posing with NYC billionaire Trump supporter, John Catsimatidis. Catsimatidis recently made headlines for heckling Tenants Union protesters at a ground-breaking ceremony downtown.

It remains to be seen whether Kriseman’s successor, St. Pete native Ken Welch, will implement policies that pivot from business as usual, or if he will stay the course and continue to enable rapid gentrification and displacement. As for outgoing Mayor Rick Kriseman, he will be largely remembered as progressive in name only, with his efforts to make St. Pete a city of inclusivity overshadowed by unrelenting concessions to the business class at the expense of the poor.

Slumlord Terence J. McCarthy, Owner of the Stanton Apartments and Hotel

On September 27th, news broke over a planned expansion of the Cordova Inn in downtown St. Pete. The expansion will involve the demolition of the Stanton Hotel and historic Stanton Apartments, permanently removing 49 housing units from the downtown area. What's more is that these are some of the last housing units left downtown which are still actually affordable for low income earners. Three days after the expansion was announced, tenants were issued notices to vacate, giving them either 15 or 30 days to leave depending on their lease type, along with a crude list of "resources'' including a hyperlink to the Homeless Leadership Alliance of Pinellas.

The current owner of the Stanton Apartments and Stanton Hotel, Terence J. McCarthy, is set to make a huge profit off the sale of these properties to the owners of the Cordova Inn. 

So who exactly is this man?

Mr. McCarthy is the founder of TJM Properties, a real estate company which buys, sells and leases many different kinds of facilities including hotels, senior living facilities, multifamily buildings and more. According to the company's website, TJM has acquired more than 900 properties all along the eastern United States since its inception in the late 1970s.

McCarthy himself is worth millions. He personally owns a $2.7 million condo at 400 Beach in downtown St. Pete, as well as a $4 million mansion on Gulf Blvd. in Redington Beach. His success in business, however, has come at a great expense to our community and to the taxpayers.

Through his former company, Southside Contractors, McCarthy began buying up homes throughout St. Pete at low cost in the late 1980s, doing minor repairs and flipping the homes for double to unqualified buyers. In order to do this, McCarthy would falsify information on the loan applications. Many of the buyers would ultimately lose their homes through foreclosure, leaving HUD on the hook for paying off the loans and taking possession of the homes, often worth much less than they were originally sold for. In 1992, McCarthy pled guilty on federal charges in order to avoid indictment for his crimes. It is estimated his fraud scheme cost taxpayers up to $1 million.

Walking away from Southside Contractors with a small slap on the wrist, McCarthy would continue to expand his wealth and generate controversy. Three years after his guilty plea McCarthy racked up fines related to deplorable conditions at a downtown St. Pete hotel he owned at the time. In 2007, a mentally ill woman wandered off from a senior living facility owned by McCarthy and was later found dead. In 2013, he raked in over $200 million from the sale of 15 senior living facilities and would go on to secure major acquisitions such as Harrah's Tunica, a former 2000-acre resort in Mississippi, and the Atlantic Club Casino and Hotel in Atlantic City, NJ, which was later sold.

During the pandemic, McCarthy took out 23 separate PPP loans for TJM Properties and it's various affiliates, totaling more than $8.7 million altogether. Nearly $3.8 million has been fully forgiven by American taxpayers so far according to SBA records. TJM hardly appears to be a small business which these emergency loans were intended for. Many large well off companies, such as TJM, gobbled up loans and sucked the program dry while many genuinely struggling small businesses were never able to access the funds.

Some of the loans taken out on behalf of TJM affiliates, such as TJM Tunica, LLC which holds several parcels of land in Mississippi, appear to be passive businesses. These sorts of companies were generally ineligible for PPP money.

It is unclear whether or not any of these loans were procured by McCarthy in violation of federal rules, but considering his history of fraud, it's something that is not outside the realm of possibility. Our organization plans on reporting all of McCarthy's loan activity to the Small Business Administration.

McCarthy is clearly no struggling small landlord, but rather an up and coming real estate fat cat with money to burn. It should be noted that McCarthy donated $15,000 to mayoral candidate Robert Blackmon's campaign through TJM properties and 5 of it's affiliate LLCs the day before residents at the Stanton were issued notices to vacate. We are calling on Robert Blackmon to return the money to McCarthy, and to use his public platform to demand McCarthy instead use the money for relocation expenses for tenants at the Stanton.

Terence J. McCarthy, along with the New Hotel Collection, should be responsible for rehousing the all tenants at the Stanton. So far TJM properties has offered a measly $500 to tenants after they move. To put that in perspective, an average month's rent for a 1 bedroom apartment is around $2,000. Earlier this week we sent both McCarthy and the owners of the Cordova Inn a letter signed by the majority of residents at both the Stanton Apartments and Stanton Hotel with a set of demands, which includes giving residents until the end of the year to move and $6,000 for each household to aid in relocation.

We will continue to fight alongside residents of both the Stanton Apartments and Stanton Hotel, and are prepared to organize any action we find necessary to ensure their right to shelter is not violated.

We are also calling on the city council to immediately introduce an ordinance requiring landlords to cover rehousing costs for tenants forced to move due to exorbitant rent increases, as well as relocation costs for tenants directly displaced due to renovation or development. Our elected officials have a duty and responsibility to ensure this sort of injustice never transpires here again.

To all greedy profiteers here in the Sunshine City, our message is loud and clear: our lives are more important than your profits. We're done putting up with your exploitation and abuse. Clean up your act or get the hell out of our community.

✊All power to the tenants! All power to the workers! All power to the people!🔥

Mass Eviction Event Underway in Downtown St. Pete

Yesterday, residents of the Stanton Hotel, located in downtown St. Pete, were given notice to vacate their living spaces by October 15th. 

This comes days after a planned expansion of the Cordova Inn was announced, involving the demolition of both the Stanton Hotel and Stanton Apartments which contain 49 living spaces altogether. Along with the notice to vacate, residents of the Stanton Hotel were given a “list of resources”; a crude printout with a hyperlink to the Homeless Leadership Alliance and Catholic Charities. 

According to an article published  earlier this week by St. Pete Rising, the new buyers were reportedly aiding with relocation of tenants, however it appears the current owners, Old St. Pete Development LLC, are attempting to clear house before the sale is finalized. This corporation is linked to Clearwater-based TJM Properties and Key West-based New Moon Management.

Week to week rentals like those offered by the Stanton Hotel are a common living arrangement for those who cannot afford a first/last month rent payment and security deposit generally required for an annual lease, or for those with poor credit, history of eviction, criminal background or other circumstances preventative of acquiring a lease. This means “hotels” such as the Stanton become home to some of the most vulnerable members of our community, and contain many long-term tenants. These living arrangements are incredibly exploitative in nature, with tenants oftentimes paying incredibly high rent for tiny living spaces not necessarily intended for long term habitation. Under Florida law, a landlord is only required to give a tenant 7 days notice to before terminating a week to week rental agreement.

In 2020, St. Pete City Council passed  ordinance 419-H as part of the city’s tenant bill of rights, which requires a written 90 day notice of intent to develop in order to give displaced tenants extra time to secure new housing. However, it is unclear if this is applicable to residents of the Stanton considering it’s status as a “hotel”. It’s also unclear if the 90 day notice is required for residents of the 18 households at the Stanton Apartments, or if residents there were given notice to vacate as well. 

The new owners of the Cordova Inn stands to generate massive profits from the new expansion of it’s facilities. The demolition of both the Stanton Hotel and Apartments will permanently remove 49 units of “affordable” housing from the downtown area and replace those with upscale units designed for short term visitors. With rents in Tampa Bay skyrocketing to unprecedented levels, it is likely that many residents of the Stanton will become homeless or displaced from the area entirely. 

Housing is a fundamental human right that should be guaranteed to all, unconditionally. 

The rising tide of downtown development continues to lift the boats of profiteers and affluent transplants while allowing our most vulnerable to drown. 

Contact the owners of the Stanton and demand they halt the evictions!

TJM Properties

(727) 683-1200

New Moon Management

(305) 293-8888