And all the while, American Landmark's Charlotte tenants' rent money is being funneled, in part, into a company linked to the displacement and genocide of Palestinians 6,000 miles away.

Read the full story here:
www.thenation.com/article/soci...

Diron Kelly, a 49-year-old truck driver, was one such tenant evicted from Conrad in 2024 after American Landmark saddled him with a $400 rent hike.

He spent the following months homeless, showering at rest stops, sleeping in his truck. "It's been a nightmare," he told me. (9/10)

In the first half of 2025, the six AL complexes in Charlotte for which we could obtain eviction data had an average filing rate of 51 percent—7 times the national average.

These filings targeted about 450 different people with eviction in just one city in just six months. (8/10)

@evictionlab.bsky.social at Princeton produces a national average eviction filing rate—in 2024, it was roughly 7%. The highest rate for any of the areas the group tracked was 24%.

That year, the filing rate at Conrad at Concord Mills was 68 percent, more than nine times the average. (7/10)

This displacement, per Lubeck, is immense: Based on AL’s “modeling,” only “55 percent of existing residents [are expected to] stay,” while the other 45 percent “move out.”

Court records show the eviction filing rate at Conrad has now more than quadrupled since AL took over. (6/10)

Lubeck confirmed to me that rent increases are part of the company’s strategy.

“When we take over a property, the first analysis we do is: How much is the rent going to go up? We typically raise the rent anywhere from $100 to $400, so some people are absolutely displaced." (5/10)

At the Conrad at Concord Mills complex, for example, tenants said that after American Landmark bought the property in 2022, they were hit with rent hikes up to $400/mo.

“Before they came, rent was manageable. When they took over, it became out of reach,” one tenant said. (4/10)

Of the 34,000 units American Landmark owns across the South, the company boasts some 2,400 in Charlotte, roughly one in every 85 units in the city.

I spoke with over two dozen tenants in Charlotte American Landmark had filed an eviction against. Their stories were telling. (3/10)

In a 2022 post in Forbes, American Landmark CEO Joseph Lubeck highlighted four of the South’s “hottest markets” where annual rent increases had reached anywhere from 15 to 24 percent and would be “likely to support continued rent growth.”

Charlotte was first on his list. (2/10)

This means that some 70,000 American tenants' rent money is being funneled, in part, into a company linked to the displacement and genocide of Palestinians 6,000 miles away, while facing rent hikes and eviction filings themselves. (10/10)

Read it all here: www.thenation.com/article/soci...

In 2024, the American Friends Service Committee put Electra on a list of companies contributing to "Israel’s prolonged military occupations, apartheid, and genocide.”

The same year, an Electra executive described American Landmark as a “big winning card” for the company. (9/10)

The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights cites Electra in its database of over 150 companies doing business in the settlements. Research groups like Who Profits also have extensive profiles of Electra's business activities. (8/10)
www.ohchr.org/en/press-rel...

On top of displacing these U.S. tenants, American Landmark is owned by Electra, an Israeli conglomerate.

Electra conducts extensive business in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, which drive many thousands of Palestinians from their homes. (7/10)

He continued: “We typically raise the rent anywhere from $100 to $400, so some people are absolutely displaced."

Based on the company’s “modeling,” Lubeck said, only “55 percent of existing residents [are expected to] stay,” while the remaining 45 percent “move out.” (6/10)

When I spoke with Lubeck, he denied that American Landmark’s practices are predatory, but confirmed that rent increases and displacement are part of the company’s strategy.

"The first analysis we do is: How much is the rent going to go up, and how many can afford to stay” (5/10)