I swear, someone wrote a musical based on not paying rent in the 90’s, didn’t they?
There is a growing movement in several states that has been brewing on social media. A hashtag #CancelRent has sprouted and there have been online video rallies, and a few in-person protests.
To date, an estimated 30 million Americans have filed for unemployment in the last six weeks. There have been millions more Americans who have tried, yet have been unable to file claims. State unemployment offices are overwhelmed and have been slow to pay benefits. Most of these people don’t have money to pay rent. Millions more still haven’t received their stimulus checks; a payment where in a city like New York, $1,200 barely covers a typical $3,000 one bedroom apartment monthly rent.
This dire situation has led to one of the largest coordinated rent strikes in U.S. history. On May 1, tens of thousands of frustrated, angry, fed up citizens are expected to join together and not pay their rent this month, or for as long as the shelter in place order is in effect. Some tenants who are participating, even though they still have the ability to pay; acting in solidarity with their fellow building occupants. Seeing that “we’re all in this together,” doesn’t that make sense?
Peter Meyer Reimer, an organizer with the groups Five Demands Global and Rent Strike 2020 says, “This isn’t a matter of choice,” “Thirty percent of Americans didn’t pay any rent at all last month, and this month it’s only going to be worse. A lot of those people are involuntary rent strikers. We’re trying just as quickly as we can to connect them up with other people so that they have some political cover, and so they have a chance at getting out of this without being saddled with debt for something that’s not their fault.”
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez jumped into the fray and offered her support of the rent strike. She even wants to go as far as to upend the housing market. She offered a fervent endorsement of the campaign, encouraging her progressive base to embrace a movement to upend the housing market.
“It’s not that it’s impossible to do and it’s not that we can’t do it,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said in a live video on her Facebook page on Monday. “We lack enough politicians with political will to actually help people who are tenants and actually help people who are mom-and-pop landlords.”
Adam Gabbatt wrote in The Guardian:
In New York, more than 12,000 people have pledged to not pay their rent, and progressive state lawmakers have proposed legislation that would suspend or cancel rent payments for tenants who lost income due to the coronavirus. In March, New York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, suspended evictions for 90 days, in a move that prevents landlords from ousting tenants who cannot pay their rent.
But critics say that merely postpones the problem.
“We need a suspension of rent and automatic forgiveness of any rent, mortgage or utility payment owed or accumulated during the length of this crisis,” said Housing Justice for All, which campaigns to increase tenants’ rights and to end homelessness in New York.
I think, once again, no one thought this through. When this is all over, do past due rent bills suddenly become due? What about credit cards, school loans, car payments, mortgages, cell phone bills? It's a disaster, that's for sure, but in the end, there is no executive order in any state saying bills don’t have to eventually be paid. The bills will come due eventually.
What are the unintended consequences of all this government support? The federal stimulus might have been good for one month, but how much longer can this be sustained? When we all have expectations of bailouts, won’t we become conditioned to feel the federal government will come to the rescue every time we’re in a crisis? Why save for a rainy day if we’ll always get a check from Uncle Sam?
Speaking of savings, I often hear that we should have six to twelve months of money saved, just in case you lose your job. Great! What if someone had money saved and they were on month eleven, in February of 2020? Let’s say, that person just got a job working at Radio City Music Hall and was intending on starting their new job March 16th. What happens then?
Let’s apply the fiscal conservative standard to landlords. If landlords want to stay in business during a crisis or economic downturn, maybe they should have saved at least six to twelve months worth of operating costs as well. Owning rental property is insanely profitable, so it would seem as if the only reason landlords would be in trouble during a crisis is because of poor money management. Maybe they budgeted irresponsibly.
The reality is that we are all in a bind, at least those of us who are not allowed to work. Both renters/mortgage holders as well as landlords/banks are going to feel the pain of extended shutdowns.
This is unsustainable.
How can landlords pay for common areas, utilities, taxes, maintenance, etc. with this kind of a culture? How can the average citizen go on living totally dependent on state and federal subsidies? How long can governors destroy our economy to achieve these unscientific "flatten the curve" constantly changing shifting of the goal posts?
Big cities have a huge outlay for social municipal services and the sectors which finance these things are going to be hurting for many years to come. The tax base is sure to shrink and city budgets will take a serious hit if shutdowns are prolonged.
I find so much of what’s going on fascinating. People are striking because they can’t pay rent. Aren’t others relying on those rent payments to take care of their families? Apply this same reasoning to child support payments. People are relying on child support but you can’t go on strike if you don’t have the funds to pay. What happens when you don’t pay child support? Take a look at this:
Clayton Craddock is an independent thinker, father of two beautiful children in New York City. He has written about fatherhood, societal change and parenting over many years and is currently finishing a memoir. Clayton is also the drummer of the hit broadway musical Ain’t Too Proud. He earned a Bachelor of Business Administration from Howard University’s School of Business and is a 25 year veteran of the fast paced New York City music scene. He has played drums in a number of hit broadway and off-broadway musicals including “Tick, tick…BOOM!, Altar Boyz, Memphis The Musical and Lady Day At Emerson’s Bar and Grill. In addition, Clayton has worked on: Footloose, Motown, The Color Purple, Rent, Little Shop of Horrors, Evita, Cats, and Avenue Q.