12 MAY 14, 2020 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
Rent crisis in NYC only tip of the iceberg
From the beginning of the coronavirus
crisis, there has been a
persistent call to “cancel rent” in
New York state and provide a muchneeded
break to cash-strapped, out-ofwork
New Yorkers. That call has been
kept on infi nite hold.
Back in March, Governor Andrew
Cuomo enacted via executive order a
moratorium on eviction proceedings,
guaranteeing that landlords cannot
boot their tenants for nonpayment of
rent due to the pandemic.
On May 7, he announced an extension
of the moratorium through
August, and also cleared the way for
landlords to use security deposit payments
in lieu of rental payments.
But these are not long-term solutions
for the turmoil at hand.
The rent is still due for thousands of
tenants whether they can aff ord to pay
it. If you lost your job in March, have
just enough for the necessities but not
enough for your $2,000 monthly apartment
rent, you’re now on the hook for
April and May rent, at $4,000.
Factor in missed payments for June,
July and August, and by the time the
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It isn’t enough to just “cancel the rent.” Both tenants and landlords in New York City need fi nancial help to sustain
themselves while also preventing the city’s economy from collapsing even further. REUTERS/Mike Segar
moratorium ends, you would wind up
owing your landlord $10,000 in back
rent.
That’s unfair not only to the tenant,
but also the landlord.
It’s easy to think of every landlord
as a faceless, multimillion-dollar corporation,
but the truth is there are
plenty of landlords who live below
their tenants and count on rental income
to pay their own mortgages.
If they can’t aff ord their mortgages,
the banks will foreclose. Resulting
short sales and foreclosure auctions
will drive down the value of
their buildings, and that will have a
ripple eff ect on the entire real estate
market.
Does that matter? Yes, because the
city assesses property taxes based
on property values. Decreased values
lead to decreased property tax
revenue, which will compound the
already staggering $9 billion budget
gap at City Hall.
We’ve got a fi nancial disaster on
our hands — one that, combined
with the current fi scal situation, may
drive New York City back to the nearbankruptcy
era of the 1970s if we’re
not careful.
So it isn’t enough to just “cancel
rent.”
Tenants need cash to pay their
rents; landlords need their cash to
pay their mortgages. If the government
can’t provide that in the interim,
New York City will be in even deeper
trouble.
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