Tenants Deliver Eviction Notice to CIM Headquarters, Bring UC’s Blackstone and CIM Group Investments to Regents Meeting

Los Angeles, CA: Tenants from Alexandria, VA and San Diego, CA addressed the University of California regents during the board’s quarterly meeting January 17-18 at UCLA. Tenants spoke about the increase in eviction filings at apartment complexes owned by private equity firms the CIM Group and the Blackstone Group, both of which UC is invested in.

Tenants also delivered an Eviction Notice to the CIM Headquarters at 4700 Wilshire Boulevard on January 17 at 10 a.m.

The University of California Endowment and Retirement Plan has invested:

• $7 billion in the Blackstone Group over the last ten years, including $4 billion just this month. In 2021, Blackstone, the largest landlord in the U.S, bought 5,600 apartment units in San Diego County. This past August, Blackstone representatives reached out to inform local elected officials that the company was planning to evict a number of tenants who had fallen behind on their rent, and Blackstone has begun evicting tenants in San Diego and throughout the country.
• $220 million in Los Angeles-based CIM Group. In 2020, CIM purchased Southern Towers, a five-building apartment complex in Alexandria, VA with over 2,000 units. The advocacy group African Communities Together (ACT) has filed a complaint with the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) and Freddie Mac that CIM’s eviction practices have violated the federal CARES Act, which requires landlords of properties financed by Freddie Mac to provide tenants a 30-day notice to vacate. Instead, CIM has given tenants just a 5-day notice to move out.