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‘Rent Strikes’ Increase, Asking Government For Yet Another Form of Stimulus

Rent Strike

A Queens, N.Y. resident is gathering communal support by asking her neighbors to join her on a rent strike. Ysvelia Silva lives in a 17-building community in Queens, comprised of “five-story brick buildings of mostly affordable housing” reports the Wall Street Journal. 66-year-old Silva was forced to close her small leather-importing business because of COVID-19. “Life has changed completely here,” said Silva who is calling her neighbors pleading for them to join her in not paying rent May 1.

Silva says the majority of residents in the complex are running out of money and that they are “not paying rent out of necessity.” Those who can afford to pay rent will not in order to bring solidarity and awareness, say, organizers. The goal is to get lawmakers to offer rental assistance as part of their economic efforts to combat COVID-19. Silva is not the only one advocating for refusal to pay rent. “A number of New York-based tenant groups that have had some recent success pushing for rent-related reforms, including the Upstate/Downstate Housing Alliance and New York Communities for Change, called for a statewide strike of 1 million renters earlier this month” reports The Wall Street Journal.

New York’s rent strikers have released a document called the “Rent Strike Toolkit” which asks even those who can afford to pay their rent to forego doing so in order to force state lawmakers to impose a “universal cancellation of any rent, mortgage, or utility payments owed or accumulated during the length of this crisis” reports WSJ.

Landlords rely on money from their renters for their own bills as well as mortgage payments, maintenance, and upkeep for their property. Unfortunately, the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies says about “one-third of U.S. households are renters, and nearly half of them were paying more than 30% of their incomes on rent and utilities before the coronavirus pandemic struck.”

Although there is a suspension on all evictions until late June in New York, the repercussions and consequences for those behind in rent are unknown. Managing director of the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies Chris Herbert speaks specifically to what options renters and landlords have once courts reopen and evictions are allowed again. “I’m not sure there are too many housing-court judges that are going to look kindly on someone not paying rents because they felt it was unfair,” said Herbert. Herein lies the exact predicament of government intervention or bailout. Helping one class of victims often just shifts victimization to another group who then take on the burden of the original group.

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