Tenant union rallies for protection of rental rights

Forty protestors gathered outside the San Bernardino office of Hightower Management on July 26 to advocate for tenant rights and code enforcement.

The protest’s chief target was renter Mike Nijjar. 

The California Department of Justice filed a suit June 12 against Hightower Management and 155 other people or businesses who are part of the Nijjar family’s rental empire. The DOJ named 3,243 residential properties, or 9,930 individual units, as being owned by the family in the Inland Empire, and 22,000 units across California. (The protest was planned before the lawsuit was filed.)

The companies own 1,307 properties in the city of San Bernardino, 488 properties in Hemet, 238 in San Jacinto, 171 in the city of Riverside, 127 in Moreno Valley, 106 in Rialto, and more throughout San Bernardino and Riverside counties, according to Bonta’s complaint. A full list of their properties in the Inland Empire, according to the complaint, are available here. 

Hightower Management Area Manager Monay Wilson told Inland Empire Law Weekly that the tenants were protesting outside the wrong building, and that she views her work at Hightower Management as distinct from the complaints about Nijjar family ownership. The company manages more than just the buildings owned by the Nijjar family, she said. A list of 23 available units from Hightower has only 12 units that are recognized by the Department of Justice as being owned by the Nijjars. As far as the tenants’ complaints of paying $1,850 to rent an apartment in San Bernardino, Wilson said that Hightower does not set the rent, the homeowners do, and Hightower just collects it.

If they want to protest Nijjar, she said, “They should be driving out to LA”. 

Wilson declined to comment on the lawsuit brought by the state. Nijjar’s attorney did not reply to an earlier request for comment on the lawsuit.

Beyond the distinction of ownership and rent, Wilson took offense at the claims that Hightower underservices their tenants.

Some of the tenants’ maintenance issues are prolonged by the tenant not responding to Hightower staff, Wilson said. Some of the issues are brought by Hightower’s purchase of negligently maintained properties. The high number of complaints against the company, she said, is just due to the high number of Hightower’s units. Wilson could not remember the last time Hightower Management received a monetary citation.

“I just feel like the time they are taking, coming after us, they should be focusing on job placement, things to help them live better,” Wilson said.

Eighteen speakers spoke at the rally planned by the San Bernardino Tenant Union, the Inland Tenant Union and the Inland Equity Community Land Trust.

Organizer Ashley Dial, a Hightower renter, brought filled roach traps and said that she was given a key to a vacant adjacent unit when her shower stopped working. 

“I brought roaches that don’t pay rent, but they’re living in my house,” Dial said, holding up the traps.

“I see Mike Nijjar on golf trips, nice boats, kids’ college probably paid off, probably paid off on the expense of us. We’re paying people’s houses off. We’re paying for people’s children to go to college. We’re paying for people’s boats and golf trips and all that stuff while we’re out here struggling,” Dial said.

Attorney Davin Corona, of Castelblanco Law, spoke.

“I started doing tenant rights work maybe about 25 years ago, and yeah, there were slumlords then, too, and who would have thought we would have eradicated them? But no, they're still around. So just keep in mind that we always have to let them know what we demand and what we desire. We don't need to live the way they have people living. It's all about profit over people, and it's time to change that. And so we also need to pressure our government officials, do better. We don't need to live like this. It isn't gentrification that we're fighting. It's slum housing that we're fighting,” Corona said.

San Bernardino City Councilwoman Treasure Ortiz spoke in favor of increased code enforcement.

“Politics breeds slumlords, and one of the largest slumlords is one of the largest political contributors in our city. Oh, and so you have had, always had, my commitment to make sure that the buck stops here. It is about accountability, and the city of San Bernardino has to make sure that we are enforcing all the regulations that we have in place to make sure that you are up on all of your codes, to make sure that the outside infrastructure is just as good as the inside. And so this coming August 6, at our city council meeting, I have an item on our agenda asking for an update on all of the inspections that were supposed to be in place since 2023, making sure that all landlords are accountable for paying for those inspections and the inspectors, which means that we should be upping the amount of code enforcement officers in our city. Nobody should be able to hold a business license, nobody should be able to have multi-family residential properties, without any type of accountability. Not just when you move in and when you move out, but every single year that you live in your space, there should be no roaches, there should be no mold, there should be no crime, there should be no deterioration of your quality of life while your rent continues to go up. You have my commitment, San Bernardino,” Ortiz said.

A renter who covered his face and did not provide his name said that he rented from one of Njjar’s companies three years ago, in “slum like conditions” off of Baseline Street and Sierra Way.

“My water always leaked, I paid for parking that I couldn’t use, feces all over the property, little to no maintenance. We’re in this problem because housing has been privatized. We need communities to own their housing,” he said. The former renter argued for the adoption of socialist housing policies, including rent control, rent freezes and the abolishment of rent.

Deborah Harmon spoke for Hightower tenant Jasmin Armenta. Harmon said Armenta was afraid of being evicted if she left her house. Armenta was placed in a Hightower unit through San Bernardino County’s Department of Children and Family Services. The rent for the year was paid by the county, Harmon said, but Hightower still called asking her for rent money. Wilson, the Hightower employee, said that CFS only paid for three months of Armenta’s rent. Hightower Management also asked Armenta to pay out of pocket for repairs, and despite Armenta’s payments, the repairs were not completed. Wilson said that delays in maintenance can be caused by lack of cooperation from tenants.

“We are believing that her justice will be in the courtroom,” Harmon said.

Attorney Lanetta Rinehart from tenant law firm Elder & Spencer spoke after a counterprotestor held a sign that said “Pay your rent. Elder & Spencer are crooks.”  The counterprotestor was a tenant at a property managed by Bridge Management, Wilson said. Bridge is another company linked to the Nijjar family in the Attorney General's complaint.

“(The counterprotestor) said, “why don’t we stop them? They don’t pay rent. They’re rich, and they pull up in Teslas,’” Wilson said.

Rinehart said the firm wants to educate tenants on their rights.

“We want to be a resource for tenants who have questions about their rights. We will be working very closely with the tenant union, putting on clinics for anyone who wants to know their rights. Elder & Spencer is an active advocacy law firm throughout the entire state of California, representing thousands and thousands of tenants,” Rinehart said.

During the interview with Wilson in the Hightower office, people in the back garden started yelling. Wilson and the company’s security guards ran through the back office and outside. When Wilson came back, she said that a protestor was hitting a car parked in the lot. 

“That’s crazy,” she said.

The protest was planned at the same time as a barbeque and backpack giveaway that Hightower Management arranged for children returning to school. The event was planned before Wilson heard about the protest, she said. 

“Y’all are uninterested in this, scaring away kids,” Wilson said.

Wilson said that wasn’t the only time they gave back to the community. She showed an Instagram video posted in 2023 of a clean up at San Bernardino’s Seccombe Lake. During a follow-up call Wilson gave to Inland Empire Law Weekly, she asked if the publication would come out and cover its other events to give back to San Bernardino.

“No one invests in this community like we do,” Wilson said. 

Additional speakers included:

Deidre Larson, tenant

Ipyani Lockheart, Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity

Sonya Gray-Hunn, community organizer for Congregations Organized for Prophetic Engagement

Alec Sandoval, founder of the Inland Empire Reading Group for Political Education

Jeff Green, Associate Director of Inland Empire Community Land Trust

Alaysha Nash, Black Young Democrats of the Inland Empire

Kimberly Calvin, Akoma Unity Center Director and former San Bernardino councilmember

Alexis Tran Bell of Inland Empire Democratic Socialists of America

Anthony Noriega, District Director for League of United Latin American Citizens

Stephanie Aud, San Bernardino Tenant Union

Evelyn Everheart, San Bernardino Tenant Union