1is May is New York rent payment day, but Jacob Bernard has no intention of checking out. This former bartender, who found himself unemployed in mid-March when the Covid-19 hit the city, prefers to keep the $ 1,750 he owes to its owner – a large company that manages dozens of buildings – in anticipation of difficult times.
He is not the only one in this case: more than half of the occupants of his building in Brooklyn, where 34 tenants live, will not pay their due, either by inability to pay, or in solidarity with their neighbors. “We have considered similar operations in the past, but the context is completely different today. We want to put pressure on banks and elected officials to take measures to support tenants, ”he explains.
Rent strikes
Elsewhere in the United States, other tenants will do the same. National and local petitions have emerged in recent weeks, launched by tenant advocacy groups calling for a freeze on rents and cancellation of payments for several months. These calls, which are organized under the keywords #RentStrike (“Rent strike”) or #CancelRent (“Write off the rents”) on social networks, have received the support of hundreds of thousands of people and several elected Democrats from the left wing of the party, such as parliamentarian Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The elected Bronx also supports a bill to cancel rents nationally.
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In New York, where 67% of homes are rentals and nearly half of tenants spend more than 30% of their income on rent, a result of very high house prices and stagnant wages, residents of at least 57 buildings , representing nearly 2,000 people, are planning to strike, according to the Housing Justice For All association. But their number could be even greater, given the delays in payment of unemployment benefits. By early April, a third of renters in the United States had not paid their rent for the month.
“This kind of action does not hurt the great actors”
“There are a lot of concerns about what’s going to happen,” says Michael Johnson, spokesperson for Chip (Community Housing Improvement Program), a group of homeowners. He warns that non-payment of rents could affect “small” landlords more than large real estate companies. “This kind of action doesn’t hurt the big players who brew millions of dollars. He is also worried about the impact on the municipal budget: the property tax (property tax), levied on owners, is the city’s largest source of income.
His group pleads for direct aid granted to tenants in difficulty in the form of vouchers. New York City and the State are not considering this lead at this time. New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo only indicated in March that tenant evictions will be suspended for three months. A decision that does not satisfy the strikers, who fear a wave of expulsions at the end of this moratorium. “He ignores a big part of the problem, according to Jacob Bernard: We can no longer afford the rent. “
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