Real Estate
Helping renters, homeowners get through COVID-19 crisis
BY CATE CORCORAN
If someone is out of work thanks to the
coronavirus crisis and can’t pay the rent
or mortgage, what can they do?
The situation is changing rapidly so
what works today may not apply tomorrow.
Already 29 percent of New York City
residents have lost their jobs, according to
the latest weekly survey from CUNY of
1,000 locals taken March 20 to March 22.
And those numbers are likely to climb as
business closures and work slowdowns due
to government mandated social distancing
and illness ripple through the economy.
Elected offi cials and others are scrambling
to prevent mass evictions and
foreclosures, which would only intensify a
growing public health and economic crisis.
The Crown Heights Tenants Union has
heard from members who fear they will not
be able to pay their rent April 1, including
a taxi driver, an airport worker who
is being laid off from his job at JFK, and
three roommates who all lost their jobs,
said member Sara Duvisac.
A 90-day state-mandated halt to
A shuttered business in the wake of the coronavirus crisis.
evictions took effect Friday. Lenders have
also been ordered at the state and federal
level to suspend mortgage payments for at
least 90 days to homeowners who can’t
pay because of COVID-19. The missed
payments will be added to the back of
the mortgage, extending its time period,
without credit reporting, fees or interest.
PHOTO BY CRAIG HUBERT
Homeowners in danger of missing a payment
should reach out immediately to their
lender online rather than by phone because
of recent staff reductions, according to the
Housing Policy Council, a group of lenders
whose members include JPMorgan Chase,
Wells Fargo and Citigroup. The group is
working to streamline procedures so lenders
are not overwhelmed and requests can be
quickly processed, in many cases without
requiring immediate proof of need. “And
fi nally, it is critical that we continue to message
that all those who can pay their mortgage,
should pay their mortgage,” reads the
group’s COVID-19 statement on its website.
But temporarily halting evictions is
not enough to bail out renters, housing
advocates said. “If there is no organized
structure, people will be really vulnerable,”
said Crown Heights Tenants Union member
Joel Feingold.
Tenant groups are calling for a statewide
halt to rents during the crisis, measures to
ensure landlords will not demand back rent
and evict people after the eviction moratorium
has ended, and direct subsidies to
tenants out of work. Some are also in the
early stages of planning a rent strike.
Help for tenants is “not just for tenants
but really a bailout for landlords too,” said
Judith Goldiner, Attorney-in-Charge of the
Civil Law Reform Unit at The Legal Aid
Society. “It helps everybody. It’s in no one’s
interest if all these people who’ve lost their
jobs now lose their apartments.”
10 March 26, 2020 Schneps Media