Nearly three years ago, tenant advocate Zerita Jones organized a housing protest at a black-tie event attended by real estate tycoon Swaranjit “Mike” Nijjar and his wife, Patty.
The Crystal Ball gala, held in November 2022 at the Pasadena Convention Center, was raising funds — at $600 a plate — to benefit patients and communities served by Methodist Hospitals.
The group of activists that night split up. Half remained outside picketing, while the other half went inside, dressed for the red carpet gala.
“Some of us started chanting that Mike Nijjar is a slumlord,” said Jones, pointing to video provided by the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment that shows protesters outside and inside the convention center.
In the video, clapping and chanting protesters can be seen standing next to tables topped with china, silverware and bottles of wine while surprised philanthropists mill about in tuxedos and gowns.
While the protesters were escorted out by police for causing a disturbance, Jones sidled closer to Nijjar.
“I just politely walked up to him and put my hand on his shoulder, and I said, ‘You know, we’re going to continue,’ ” Jones recalled of the only time she met Nijjar.
” ‘Your tenants would really like to have a conversation with you. Do you think you might be able to have a conversation?’ He kind of shook my hand politely and nodded yes, and I kind of patted him on the shoulder, and said, ‘OK, have a good evening.’ “
Jones, who has been hounding the 77-year-old Nijjar for nearly a decade to listen to tenant complaints about allegedly inferior housing conditions at the 425-unit Chesapeake Apartments in Baldwin Hills, said she’s never been able to schedule a follow-up conversation.
But she’s remained a thorn in Nijjar’s side.
Over the years, Jones has been involved in lawsuits with the Nijjar businesses over conditions of their apartments. She also played a part in the dismissal of a complex lawsuit that claimed excessive gang activity at the Chesapeake Apartments — a move that stopped evictions from proceeding.
“Their model is to get people in at the highest rent possible, and then ignore all of their repairs until it gets out of hand,” Jones said of the Nijjar real estate empire. “The way they treat tenants is all the same.”
The Nijjar family and their related companies own and manage more than 22,000 rental housing units statewide, primarily in low-income neighborhoods in Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino and Kern Counties — and spanning up to Sacramento and San Joaquin counties.
Catching Bonta’s attention
Now, Nijjar’s business practices have caught the attention of California Attorney General Rob Bonta.
In June, Bonta filed a 143-page lawsuit in Los Angeles County Superior Court against Nijjar, his sister, Daljit “DJ” Kler, and other family members and their companies, alleging widespread tenant exploitation. The lawsuit, which followed an investigation launched by the state Department of Justice in late 2022, was filed against Nijjar and his family-run businesses, known as PAMA Management.
Tenants may know PAMA by the names of their current and recent property management companies: I E Rental Homes, Bridge Management, Equity Management, Golden Management, Hightower Management, Legacy Management, Mobile Management, Pro Management and Regency Management.
His companies have previously been cited by code enforcement offices across the state and the target of lawsuits by the Kern County District Attorney’s Office and the city of Los Angeles — the latter of which has an ongoing case. Nijjar’s companies have failed to comply with basic real estate licensing requirements since 2020.
While others have cited Nijjar and his companies for a garden variety of code enforcement issues over the years, Bonta’s lawsuit is the first time the state has brought action against Nijjar, said Joanne Adams, deputy press secretary for his office.
It’s the biggest slumlord case ever brought against a real estate owner in California, Adams said.
Some observers aren’t surprised.
“I don’t think I’ve ever encountered something of this scale, and just the impunity with which he carries on shocks me,” said Ryan Bell, the Pasadena-based Southern California regional coordinator for Tenants Together. “He doesn’t seem to care. He gets cited and fined, and he’s been in court over and over again, and he just keeps going.”
The suit alleges PAMA egregiously violated numerous state laws by subjecting tenants to unsafe living conditions, including cockroach and rodent infestations, leaking roofs and outdated plumbing, overflowing sewage, structural damage caused by water leaks and deferred maintenance.
The lawsuit also alleges the companies discriminated against applicants with Section 8 housing vouchers, overcharged some tenants for rent and relied on leases that deceive tenants about their legal rights.
“These violations are not just a mistake, they are part of ongoing business practices,” Bonta said in announcing the lawsuit. “PAMA defers necessary investments in maintenance in favor of quick and cheap repairs; uses unskilled handymen even for specialized work; provides little to no training to staff, many of whom have no experience in property management; and fails to track maintenance requests in any systematic, routine fashion — requests are often lost or never completed.”
PAMA is aware of these issues and knows their operations lead to uninhabitable conditions, yet these business practices have persisted for years, Bonta said.
Code enforcement officers in the communities where Nijjar’s businesses operate routinely cite the Nijjar family’s properties for violating minimum habitability standards, according to the lawsuit. In recent years, the family’s companies have settled dozens of lawsuits alleging habitability defects and unsafe conditions involving hundreds of tenants.
In 2016, an infant died in a fire in Oildale at a substandard mobile home owned by PAMA, which investigators said was occupied without permits and smoke alarms.
In 2017, tenants in Jones’ complex were threatened with evictions after former Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer filed a nuisance abatement lawsuit claiming excessive criminal gang activity as the cause. The residents were able to get the suit tossed out.
In 2022, Jones and other tenants at the housing complex declared victory over one of Nijjar’s companies after persuading city and county health and code enforcement officials to inspect conditions of their apartments. Tenants alleged a growing list of slum-like conditions, including mold, rats, broken tubs and showers, no screens on windows, and electrical outlet shortages.
Bonta’s suit is seeking a court order barring Nijjar and his companies from continuing its unlawful business practices, penalties for violating tenant laws, restitution for tenants and “disgorgement” of profits obtained illegally.
Day in court
Nijjar’s attorney disputed the state’s lawsuit.
“The allegations in the complaint are false and misleading, and its claims are legally erroneous,” attorney Stephen G. Larson wrote in a statement to the Southern California News Group. “We look forward to demonstrating in court that Mr. Nijjar and his companies are not only compliant with the law, but they provide an extraordinary service to housing those disadvantaged and underserved by California’s public and private housing markets.”
Much of what is known about Nijjar comes from tenant advocacy reports, the family’s involvement with nonprofits, and county and state documents.
According to the tenant alliance group, the Nijjar family has amassed a $1.5 billion real estate empire over the last 40 years, collecting more than $100 million in “affordable housing rental profits” from low-income families throughout California. He also has expanded to Nevada and Texas, according to ACCE in a video dating to November 2022.
Nijjar’s wife, Patty Nijjar, is a board member of the USC Arcadia Hospital Foundation — formerly known as the Methodist Hospital of Southern California in Arcadia. The billionaire couple lives in a 12,196-square-foot mansion in a gated community in Bradley, a Los Angeles suburb in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, sandwiched between Monrovia to the west and Duarte to the east and south, according to county records.
The 24-year-old estate on 5.757 acres is owned by Villa Bellefontain LLC, a limited liability company with a headquarters at 4900 Santa Anita Ave. in El Monte, which lists as owners Mike and Patty Nijjar and the Nijjar Family Trust. Mike Nijjar is listed as “manager” for Villa Bellefontain, according to state corporation filings.
Speaking up
Several tenants interviewed by SCNG underscored the concerns raised in Bonta’s lawsuit.
Deirdre Larson, who lives in an accessory dwelling unit along 33rd Street in San Bernardino, is providing in-home care for her disabled ex-husband. She lost her job last fall as a property manager, had her 2017 Ford Explorer repossessed, and moved to the ADU behind a single-family home in a residential area in September after staying a few days at a Motel 6 in Riverside.
Nijjar’s Bridge Management moved to evict the 53-year-old by Aug. 1 after she fell a few months behind on her monthly rent of $2,295 earlier this year. She’s trying to catch up with a patchwork of federal and state funding sources, and a new job.
She complained Tuesday, July 8, of having bad electrical wiring throughout the house, forcing her to hook up a microwave and other cooking appliances by running extension cords to other rooms of the house from her kitchen. She’s complained to local code enforcement officials, as well as filled out maintenance requests forms for Bridge Management, but nothing happens.
Other maintenance requests also have gone unfilled.
Larson also rigged a drainage system of clamped hoses so her washing machine could drain into her bathtub in the master bedroom. There’s no water drain in the appliance’s closet.
Installed solar panels also aren’t connected to the grid, leaving her with a high monthly power bill.
“I’m going to fight this,” said Larson, who plans to join in Bonta’s lawsuit. “They are bullying their way throughout these low-income properties by taking them over and just kicking the residents to the curb because they don’t know how to speak up for themselves, and no one’s trying to help them.”
Shonnette Mosley, who lives in the Virginia Circle Apartments in San Bernardino, can’t get Nijjar’s Hightower Management to fix the security gate in front of the apartment complex where she lives, or properly vent ductwork for her oven where a pigeon entered the apartment, or repair electrical outlets and replace screens that are gone. She recently had to buy a bottle of bleach to clean up human waste left in the unlit hallway that leads to her third-floor, two-bedroom apartment.
“They’re all worried about the money, not the tenants who live here,” said Mosley, who has complained at the property management’s main office at 248 E. Highland Ave. “They always tell me they’ll work on it, but nothing ever happens.
Since moving to her North Arrowhead Avenue apartment in January 2024, Ashley Dial has complained about an infestation of roaches invading her apartment, mold under her kitchen sink, no screens on windows, electrical outlets that spark when a cord is plugged in, a leaky roof and an air conditioner that cooled only half the apartment in San Bernardino’s 100-degree heat wave on Tuesday.
“When we ask questions, we’re always met with they’ll get to it next week. They have other obligations,” Dial said.
Bridge took over ownership of her complex in May and immediately added a $53 monthly rental increase on top of the $1,800 that she already pays for the two-bedroom apartment.
Looking out her front living room window, she pointed at a red rental sign down 16th Street, across from her building.
“That’s another Bridge property. You drive around, you’ll see a lot of them signs. It’s really sad in San Bernardino, because I feel like it’s a dark cloud,” Dial said. “I tell my kids to acknowledge (human rights activist) Malcolm X, who has a quote that helps me deal with this. ‘Education is the passport of the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.’ “