An email obtained by the congressional committee shows what appear to be a playbook for forcing tenants out during a pandemic. Managers reported to executives that the tactic worked, including one who said in an email that he “love getting to say that this means the eviction may happen sooner than expected and seeing the look on their faces,” followed by a smiley emoji. “Executives aimed to ‘bluff’ tenants out of their apartments by ordering that subordinates post and distribute copies of a court order holding that the CDC lacked authority to impose the eviction moratorium,” the report reads, “deliberately hiding the fact that the court had also ordered that the moratorium’s protections would remain in effect as the case was appealed.” It was common for management in Siegel properties to post legal documents that would lead a tenant to erroneously conclude that they were soon going to be evicted.
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Much of the report is devoted to Siegel’s pandemic practices, which the report said were “particularly troubling and appear to be unlawful.”Īccording to documents, company executives shared tips on how to skirt the eviction bans to force tenants out or convince them that the law didn’t protect them.Ĭongressional probe labels Siegel Group’s eviction practices ‘uniquely egregious’ The committee reviewed more than 50,000 documents obtained from the Siegel Group and three other large companies with rental apartments. The report made no specific mention of practices in New Mexico. James Clyburn (D-South Carolina), who launched a congressional probe in June 2021. News reports about the company’s eviction practices in Nevada drew the attention of U.S. Siegel rents about 12,000 units in eight states, most of which are in Arizona and Nevada. “While Congress appropriated tens of billions of dollars to both help tenants remain in their homes and make landlords whole, Siegel’s approach ruthlessly pursued the company’s own convenience and profit with little regard to tenants’ interests,” the report concludes. It also received federal pandemic assistance, including $2.3 million in forgiven loans and more in taxpayer-funded rental payments. The company did so even though it suffered hardly any loss in revenue (an estimated $1,000, in total), according to the report. “Siegel’s pandemic eviction practices were uniquely egregious,” the report states. The congressional report found that the Siegel Group engaged in company-wide practices to subvert an eviction ban during the height of the pandemic, forcing many low-income tenants out of their stopgap shelter during one of the biggest economic shocks in global history. “The type of conduct alleged in the complaints is always concerning to the (Attorney General), but during the COVID-19 pandemic, we are particularly concerned about the punitive actions taken … against residents,” the AG’s Office wrote to the company. The tenant was “rendered immobile by the manager’s actions,” AG Hector Balderas concluded in a letter in June of last year. In one instance at a Siegel Select hotel in Albuquerque, the Attorney General’s Office issued a cease-and-desist letter to the company after management turned off electricity to a room occupied by a man who used an electric wheelchair. The practices of the Siegel Group documented in a congressional report echo those in a Source New Mexico story from September 2021 on illegal evictions, in which tenants reported being threatened and harassed by management at the hotels.
It has three extended-stay hotels in Albuquerque. The company markets apartments as “flexible-stay” and says tenants can stay there for “a long-term home” or “forever,” according to the congressional report.
Siegel rooms are often the last housing people with low incomes find refuge in before they are forced into shelters, residents say.
A congressional report on a national extended-stay hotel chain with properties in New Mexico found the corporation lied to tenants, turned off amenities, towed vehicles and otherwise engaged in “egregious” and “illegal” tactics to force people out of their homes despite pandemic-related eviction bans.
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