Highlights
In 2024, the California Endowment awarded a $75,000 grant to the Private Equity Stakeholder Project (PESP) to support “renter stability to aid community health in California.” According to grant disclosures, the funding aims to help PESP “track and challenge evictions, rent increases and deferred maintenance by corporate landlords” through partnerships across California. On its face, this might sound like an admirable mission. But below the surface, the initiative raises more questions than it answers about both the grant maker and the grantee.
PESP’s record on housing data and policy doesn’t inspire confidence. As detailed in our previous analysis, PESP’s so-called housing “tracker” is riddled with selective data and vague definitions that blur the line between analysis and activism. Rather than focusing on real data, PESP often reduces the complicated relationship between landlords and tenants into a narrative of villainous landlords and victimized renters, leaving little room for an honest discussion about how to advance meaningful reform. Worse, PESP’s work often misrepresents industry-standard housing practices as abuses and fails to distinguish between anecdote and evidence.
This raises the question: Why is a major health foundation funding an activist group like PESP? This would only make sense if the grant was actually more about pushing a preferred ideological agenda than about advancing public education. After all, the California Endowment has recently come under fire for exactly this type of political activism. A 2023 investigation found that the despite its lofty mission, the Endowment operates more like a political machine than a public charity, pouring millions into advocacy groups with little separation between grantmaking and activism.
Taken together, these facts point to a troubling trend that prioritizes a predetermined, ideological approach to housing policy rather than an honest appraisal of the public policy challenge and solutions before us.