Thousands of tenants in New York City are organizing for the city’s largest rent strike in decades, according to multiple reports online. The strikers are demanding that Gov. Andrew Cuomo cancel rent and mortgage payments for four months or for the duration of the coronavirus pandemic, whichever is longer.
The strikers recently got a high-profile supporter. “People can’t pay,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive Socilist Democrat from the Bronx, who is co-sponsoring a national bill to cancel rent, said on a call with strikers Monday.
“You cannot coerce someone into doing something that they cannot do. There is no money in the bank.”
“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.”
Renters account for about 68 percent of all households in New York City, compared to 36 percent nationally.
According to the NY Times, to cancel rent and mortgage payments, the federal government would have to take sweeping and possibly unconstitutional intervention in the housing and financial markets, interceding in private contracts and ordering banks and landlords not to collect money.
In response to rent strikes, some landlords are threatening a strike of their own.
According to The Real Deal, an online petition headlined “Property Tax relief or Tax strike” has collected nearly 1,400 signatures supporting a call for landlords to withhold their New York City property taxes. The Change.org petition blasts politicians for enabling tenants to not pay rent even if they can.
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13 Responses
The landlords are 100% correct
Why should they pay taxes if they’re not getting income from their property (I not the property tax isn’t an income tax but AOC isn’t effected with a rent strike)
Contrary to the headline, AOC isn’t from Southern California.
It’s amazing marketing by the right-wing news outlets. AOC gets way too much credit. Most liberals see her as too radical, and ignore her. She just happens to be a rep in NYC.
This is the GOP marketing the Liberals as socialists.
I think it makes too much “us vs them” mentality, no matter how much liberal social policies are abhorrent.
yehudayona: the headline says nothing about Southern California.
Another spark of wisdom from a brain dead socialist. She has proven herself to be a menace to the public with her push to give everyone everything for free. So now, she’s ripping off landlords to give their apartments and real estate to others free. Is she this generous with her own money? Or is she just focused on taking mine? Either way, I wish her a legacy of disgrace, as a single term representative, with a lifetime of poverty and failure wherever she goes.
Domino Effect: If tenants don’t pay their rents, landlords can’t pay their mortgages, real estate taxes, and maintenance for their properties. Guess who loses in the end? Ever been in the South Bronx.
Maybe the politicians can explain why people can’t pay, as I’m confused. Are they not wlig
Wait, are people not getting big checks for free from the government already? Are they not eligible for unemployment which is more than regular paycheck for many lower class workers? So why do they have no money? unless they are undocumented and don’t pay taxes, in which case, why should they get free rent from tax paying landlords?
In any case, if there are a small amount of individuals who for some reason CANNOT get the very generous unemployment checks, perhaps the city can help them privately like through HUD. But to make a citywide strike? Nonsense. The government has already arranged to help the people who need money for living expenses. Rent is a living expense.
Hmm I wonder if she would advocate for that if she owned real estate.
lowerourtuition, read the headline carefully. Nice get by yehudayona (also a “yy”).
Sariray, lots of people haven’t received the stimulus money. Many people don’t have bank accounts, so they have to wait for the paper checks. A one-time payment of $1200 per adult doesn’t go very far in paying NYC rents. The $500 per child doesn’t apply to children over 16. Gig workers like Uber drivers have difficulty getting unemployment.
Buying a Wall sized tv is more important than paying rent duhhh!
adar29, have you seen people buying TVs lately?