Property Sex

A Justice Department crackdown on landlords who sexually harass tenants hasn't ended the nightmare

“We need to turn the question around to look at the harasser, not the target.” – Anita Hill

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The property manager at the St. Anthony Plaza Apartments in Albuquerque, N.M., had a direct way of dealing with some of his female tenants.

He’d offer to excuse rent for sex. He’d lock them in his office. He’d grope them all over. He’d even masturbate in front of them. These horrors went on for a dozen years, according to a $360,000 settlement announced by the Justice Department just before Valentine’s Day.

I’ll spare the more disgusting details enumerated in the Justice Department’s complaint. But suffice it to say that the apartment complex – where tenants often received federal Section 8 housing assistance – allegedly became a 160-unit fantasyland for its manager, Ariel Solis Veleta.

His employer, PacifiCap Properties Group, is also on the hook for the settlement. The company thought enough of Solis to give him promotions and put him in charge of some of its other properties during his employment between 2010 and 2022.

The Portland, Ore.-based company and its affiliates operate in Albuquerque, Portland, Denver, Las Vegas, Reno and Mesa, Ariz. The lawsuit doesn’t allege wrongdoing on its part. PacifiCap’s blunder appears to be limited to employing Solis and ostensibly having no clue what he was allegedly doing to tenants for more than a decade.

If you are a victim of sexual harassment by a landlord or property manager call the Justice Department’s Housing Discrimination Tip Line at 1-800-896-7743, email the Justice Department at fairhousing@usdoj.gov,, or submit a report online. (Photo Illustration: AI generated.)

Imagine what it’s like to be a vulnerable woman in a Section 8 apartment. Outside is a world filled with unfathomably high rents and people who’ve been driven to homelessness because of a shortage of affordable housing. You may be in no position to refuse.

“A home should be a place of refuge, not fear,” said Deputy Assistant Attorney General Kathleen Wolfe of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in announcing the settlement.

Yet for all this terror and uncertainty, an undisclosed number of tenants at the St. Anthony Plaza Apartments will split $350,000 from settlement. It’s just not enough for them, or enough to inspire deterrence.

This is but one of scores of sexual harassment cases that the Justice Department has filed against landlords since at least 2017. The caseload here is high enough, and the alleged offenses have gone on long enough, to suggest this kind of harassment happens every day.

There’s even a pornography website called “Property Sex” that glorifies the practice. A 2022 article in Vice claims there’s something alluring about the power dynamic between landlords and tenants.

“Actual, literal real estate pornography is a real thing, and it’s wildly popular,” it reads.

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