Letter to the Editor: The Trojan Family must oppose USC Board Member Jerome Fink’s predatory development

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In Feb. 2020, real estate development company VF Developments issued 60-day eviction notices to the tenants of 920 Everett, a Los Angeles Chinatown building home to many older Southeast Asian refugees. Forced out of their ancestral homelands by war, these tenants face displacement once again, this time during a global pandemic.

While the coronavirus has prompted Los Angeles County to freeze evictions temporarily, this is hardly a permanent solution. The temporary moratorium only protects those who are unable to pay rent due to the coronavirus, and 920 Everett’s tenants have already been paying rent. Moreover, the real issue is a loophole in the California Tenant Protection Act, which allows for no-fault evictions if the landlord claims to make “major renovations.”

In other words, these tenants are being thrown out of their houses even though they did nothing wrong.

Enter Jerome Fink, a VF Developments co-founder and executive committee member on the board of USC’s Lusk Center for Real Estate. Fink and founding partner Victoria Vu have made a career out of purchasing housing in L.A., pushing out the original tenants and selling it at remarkably higher prices, a practice symptomatic of gentrification. Vu’s LinkedIn account, in fact, proudly proclaims VF Developments’ mission: “gentrifying areas of Los Angeles and Orange County Class A building design finishes at accessible market rents to future tenants.”

These market rent prices are hardly accessible to victims of gentrification, who are most often low-income and members of marginalized communities who look to ethnic enclaves such as Chinatown for safe havens. Such neighborhoods have historically served as hubs filled with familiar people, cultures and communities, all at relatively affordable rates.

However, such enclaves have become increasingly attractive to corporations and real estate development companies like VF Developments, which purchase property in these areas to build profitable real estate ventures. The changes are obvious: sterile minimalist architecture, whispers of a “safer” neighborhood and boba that suddenly costs twice as much as before. 

The ramifications, though, extend far beyond wood-panel finishes and $6 jasmine milk tea. They look like local businesses forced to shut their doors, their closure rooted in surging market rates. They look like people ripped from their homes, composing the larger trend of displacement all across America’s urban landscapes.

VF Developments promises pretty apartments at prettier prices, but they leave countless tragedies in their wake. And Fink, as the bridge between VF Developments and USC, shifts the weight of his injustices onto our shoulders as well.

Though Fink is not the face of VF Developments, his actions show that he is still involved in its operations. Using PropertyShark and California Secretary of State Business directories, we found at least 10 properties registered in his name. Moreover, Fink, as co-founder, is responsible for creating and perpetuating a predatory business model, one that destroys the affordable housing stock in communities of color. 

When one of our own is responsible for exploiting vulnerable people, they bring shame to the name of our university. We call on the Trojan Family to rally together against Fink’s exploitative practices in support of the tenants of 920 Everett. We must ensure that VF Development rescinds the 60-day eviction notices or that the management of 920 Everett falls into safe hands.

We ask the Trojan Family to sign and share our petition to demand that Fink to stop predatory evictions in Chinatown. We’re nearing 1000 supporters, but the full support of the USC community would tell Fink that he does not represent our values and aspirations.

We ask the Trojan Family to contact Fink to tell him that he cannot clothe his wrongdoings in the cardinal and gold. He must safeguard the housing of the 920 Everett tenants.

We ask the Trojan Family to contact the USC Board of Trustees and Lusk Executive Board to tell them that they must hold Fink accountable.

We must “Fight On” for the tenants of 920 Everett.

Student Coalition for Asian Pacific Empowerment

Joyce Jang (Class of 2021), Melissa Tungare (Class of 2022), Joan Lee (Class of 2022), Antonia Le (Class of 2022), Alexander Yeh (Class of 2022), Joseph Cho (Class of 2022)

Note: Joseph Cho is a staff writer for the Daily Trojan.