# Rent strike in the USA **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 1, 2020, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rent-strike-in-the-usa/852981 "2020-05-01T14:42:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Manwich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e480ec/32.png) [@Manwich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manwich)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2020, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rent-strike-in-the-usa/852981/1 "2020-05-01T14:42:55Z")
> **[Thousands of Americans to take part in biggest rent strike in decades](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/01/coronavirus-america-rent-strike-protest)** > > State leaders urged to cancel rent for duration of crisis while figures show nearly 4m Americans lost their jobs last week Debate: I take the position that now is a good time for workers to show how much they have to sacrifice in normal circumstances. Is now a bad time for workers to seek more control? Or should they allow capital to maintain control of their working conditions? ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2020, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rent-strike-in-the-usa/852981/2 "2020-05-01T14:58:13Z")
What does a rent strike have to do with workers? Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2020, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rent-strike-in-the-usa/852981/3 "2020-05-01T15:01:45Z")
Is the idea to punish your landlord and/or mortgage company so that employers will hire people back despite being closed or in limited operation mode? I don’t get what it is you want to debate and how one gives you leverage/control over the other. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2020, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rent-strike-in-the-usa/852981/4 "2020-05-01T15:02:00Z")
> [@Manwich](#): > > [Thousands of Americans to take part in biggest rent strike in decades | Coronavirus | The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/01/coronavirus-america-rent-strike-protest) > > Debate: > > I take the position that now is a good time for workers to show how much they have to sacrifice in normal circumstances. Is now a bad time for workers to seek more control? Or should they allow capital to maintain control of their working conditions? Um, the rent strike is an entirely separate issue from protests against working conditions. Which did you want to debate? ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2020, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rent-strike-in-the-usa/852981/5 "2020-05-01T15:25:48Z")
From your cite - > [@](#): > > Activists in New York, Pennsylvania and California are encouraging tenants to withhold rent, whether they are able to pay or not, to draw attention to the plight of those unable to pay. > > … > > The New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is among those voicing support for the strikes, which are being coordinated by an array of housing groups. > > “People aren’t striking because they don’t feel like paying rent, they’re striking because they can’t,” Ocasio-Cortez said. One would hope that Ms. AOC could get her story straight. Hope, not expect. Not clear on what this is supposed to accomplish. Is the idea that landlords will reduce their rents? The article mentions a moratorium on evictions for people who cannot pay their rent. That is apparently not enough for the activists, who want the landlords to provide free housing during the crisis. The problem being, as always, TANSTAAFL. The landlords need income, for maintenance and as a return on their investment and so forth. It is very difficult to get people to abide by laws that say, in essence, “you have to lose money”, which is why there is so much abandoned housing stock in cities with rent control. I am not sure how this demonstrates how renters can get control. After the moratorium is up, they can either start paying rent, or get evicted. If the idea is not to evict people who don’t pay rent, good luck finding people who are willing to rent housing. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2020, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rent-strike-in-the-usa/852981/6 "2020-05-01T15:45:35Z")
This isn’t going to make landlords sympathetic any more than a campaign of “Shoplift from your grocery store next time in order to bring attention to the plight of those who can’t afford groceries.” All the landlords are going to see is, “I was/am owed rent money but am not being paid it.” ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2020, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rent-strike-in-the-usa/852981/7 "2020-05-01T15:54:26Z")
I have always thought this should be a trickle-up problem: renters cannot pay rent due to coronavirus job loss (and can’t be evicted), landlords not collecting rent cannot pay the bank for their loans, banks cannot collect non-existent money from landlords. Why not take all this off the backs of the renters and landlords, and just have the banks tally what they were supposed to get from the landlords and then apply for funds from the Government (yes, another bank bailout) - just short-circuit this process? The stimulus checks to individuals should maybe be for keeping them fed during the crisis, and paying rent with stimulus money only transfers money to the banks anyway. I am not a banker or finance person, but this seems way easier and more efficient than letting the banks do business-as-usual while everyone else has to figure out some way to stay in the equation. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2020, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rent-strike-in-the-usa/852981/8 "2020-05-01T16:20:39Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > This isn’t going to make landlords sympathetic any more than a campaign of “Shoplift from your grocery store next time in order to bring attention to the plight of those who can’t afford groceries.” All the landlords are going to see is, “I was/am owed rent money but am not being paid it.” It’s not meant to make landlords sympathetic; it’s meant to be an act of radical protest. It’s a middle finger to modern capitalism, and it’s not going away. And the reason it’s not going away is that greater wealth inequality will be the legacy of the recession, just as it was the legacy of the last recession. It’s becoming more and more impossible for the average person to realize socioeconomic mobility. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2020, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rent-strike-in-the-usa/852981/9 "2020-05-01T17:28:44Z")
I don’t understand why a rent strike makes any more sense than excusing nonpayment of groceries, transportation, or anything else. And do landlords get to avoid paying THEIR rents/mortgages? ---
**Author:** ![Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/do_not_taunt/32/2968_2.png) [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Do_Not_Taunt)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2020, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rent-strike-in-the-usa/852981/10 "2020-05-01T17:43:01Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > It is very difficult to get people to abide by laws that say, in essence, “you have to lose money”, which is why there is so much abandoned housing stock in cities with rent control. I’m not a huge rent control fan, but I’d love to see a cite that shows that abandoned buildings increase with and result from rent control. > [@snowthx](#): > > I have always thought this should be a trickle-up problem: renters cannot pay rent due to coronavirus job loss (and can’t be evicted), landlords not collecting rent cannot pay the bank for their loans, banks cannot collect non-existent money from landlords. Why not take all this off the backs of the renters and landlords, and just have the banks tally what they were supposed to get from the landlords and then apply for funds from the Government (yes, another bank bailout) - just short-circuit this process? What about small landlords who own their properties outright, like say a retiree who is renting out their old house for retirement income? They’re just fucked? ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2020, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rent-strike-in-the-usa/852981/11 "2020-05-01T17:55:27Z")
> [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](#): > > What about small landlords who own their properties outright, like say a retiree who is renting out their old house for retirement income? They’re just fucked? Well, if they own the property, there is no bank to pay and there is no pressure there. But, if they cannot evict people for not paying rent during the crisis, then yes, pretty much they are fucked, unless landlords can apply for relief money same as banks. ---
**Author:** ![Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/do_not_taunt/32/2968_2.png) [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Do_Not_Taunt)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2020, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rent-strike-in-the-usa/852981/12 "2020-05-01T18:09:14Z")
> [@snowthx](#): > > Well, if they own the property, there is no bank to pay and there is no pressure there. No pressure from the bank. But if they were relying on the income to live on… ETA: or pay taxes, do maintenance, etc… > [@](#): > > But, if they cannot evict people for not paying rent during the crisis, then yes, pretty much they are fucked, unless landlords can apply for relief money same as banks. AFAIK, there is no relief for landlords, other than mortgage forbearance. Perhaps I’m wrong and they would be eligible for something as a small business, though there have been significant problems with actual small businesses accessing that money. ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2020, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rent-strike-in-the-usa/852981/13 "2020-05-01T18:16:35Z")
So, how far up the line does this go? Does it mean that the landlords who have loans with the financial institutions no longer have to make their payments? Do they get relief too? Because these property owners have invested money, likely borrowed, and they have to pay all the bills that they have. A renter has a place to live only because someone invested the money to make that possible. Or are all landlords now viewed as evil corporations? Let them default because who cares. Let the banks end up with the property. We have seen in the past economic downturns that the banks always get their money. The renter is at the bottom, landlord in the middle, and whatever happens, only the banks will be the ones who end up taken care of. Too big to fail, you know. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2020, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rent-strike-in-the-usa/852981/14 "2020-05-01T19:08:46Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > It’s not meant to make landlords sympathetic; it’s meant to be an act of radical protest. It’s a middle finger to modern capitalism, and it’s not going away. And the reason it’s not going away is that greater wealth inequality will be the legacy of the recession, just as it was the legacy of the last recession. It’s becoming more and more impossible for the average person to realize socioeconomic mobility. I’m not getting it. Are you advocating that landlords just allow people to live in their housing without rent, and somehow magically pay for taxes, maintenance, etc…? Or is this more of a short-term thing to try and point out something… that people have to pay rent? That rents are high in some areas? That some people don’t have a lot of choice? Fundamentally, the only thing this would be a useful protest against would be obnoxiously high rent, or poor maintenance. As a protest against low pay or something like that, it’s pretty bad, because the landlords aren’t the people paying, and probably don’t even know the people who pay. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2020, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rent-strike-in-the-usa/852981/15 "2020-05-01T19:23:47Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I’m not getting it. Are you advocating that landlords just allow people to live in their housing without rent, and somehow magically pay for taxes, maintenance, etc…? > > Or is this more of a short-term thing to try and point out something… that people have to pay rent? That rents are high in some areas? That some people don’t have a lot of choice? > > Fundamentally, the only thing this would be a useful protest against would be obnoxiously high rent, or poor maintenance. As a protest against low pay or something like that, it’s pretty bad, because the landlords aren’t the people paying, and probably don’t even know the people who pay. I wouldn’t assume that the COVID recession is the proximate cause of their distress; it’s more likely that this is the straw that is breaking the camel’s back. But both rent and mortgage costs have been outpacing incomes for quite some time in a lot of major cities. But to answer your questions, I see this as partly raw anger over current circumstances. Beyond that, it’s a broader indictment of modern capitalism, with disproportionate wealth going to investors who already have money and use that money to leverage more of it away from people who are on fixed incomes. And contrary to popular belief, a great many wage earners are essentially living on fixed incomes themselves, even though they work for a living and aren’t living off of retirement withdrawals and annuities. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2020, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rent-strike-in-the-usa/852981/16 "2020-05-01T19:38:51Z")
> [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](#): > > I’m not a huge rent control fan, but I’d love to see a cite that shows that abandoned buildings increase with and result from rent control. > [@](#): > > Rent control has destroyed entire sections of sound housing in New York’s South Bronx and has led to decay and abandonment throughout the entire five boroughs of the city. Although hard statistics on abandonments are not available, William Tucker estimates that about 30,000 New York apartments were abandoned annually from 1972 to 1982, a loss of almost a third of a million units in this eleven-year period. Thanks to rent control, and to potential investors’ all-too-rational fear that rent control will become even more stringent, no sensible investor will build rental housing unsubsidized by government. [Cite](https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/RentControl.html). > [@](#): > > Rent-control does, however, lead to abandonment. In San Francisco, a combination of rent control and strict eviction laws force many landlords to accommodate long-time tenants who pay well below market rate, leaving little revenue available to cover expenses. This has caused landlords to abandon an estimated 31,000 units—or one-twelfth of the city’s stock. [Cite](https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottbeyer/2015/04/24/how-ironic-americas-rent-controlled-cities-are-its-least-affordable/#77ead30b48c6). > [@](#): > > Thousands of owners, many of them small landlords, lost their buildings to lenders, or simply walked away from them. One former Bronx landlord, Gertrude Schneider, told City Journal in 1990 that she and her husband had accumulated 15 small rental buildings that they hoped to use for their retirement. They lost all but one. Values declined to the extent that one of their buildings—carrying a $65,000 mortgage—could sell for only $12,000. The city took control of more than 100,000 units of abandoned housing, spending $5 billion to rehabilitate many of them. [Cite](https://www.city-journal.org/self-defeating-effects-of-ny-rent-regulation). Simply saying that you can’t evict for not paying rent is a pretty extreme form of rent control, and the longer and more extreme it is, the greater the likely effects. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![spifflog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@spifflog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spifflog)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2020, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rent-strike-in-the-usa/852981/17 "2020-05-01T19:55:20Z")
Two years ago my cousin bought a four family house. He, his wife and his 2 year old live in one of the units, the other three are rented out. He’s mortgaged out of his butt to buy this thing. And as a brick layer, be does all the maintenance. He’s sometimes out of work due to the industries in and outs, but he’d like to have this paid off so he can sell it in 20 years to pay for his children’s education. His wife isn’t working because she’s a hair dresser and they can’t work right now. He recently asked me to borrow some money because two of his tenants don’t feel they should have to pay rent now. He thinks they have it, but don’t think they should have to pay. Is this “the man” that the OP thinks we should all stick it to? ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2020, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rent-strike-in-the-usa/852981/18 "2020-05-01T20:18:40Z")
> [@spifflog](#): > > Two years ago my cousin bought a four family house. He, his wife and his 2 year old live in one of the units, the other three are rented out. He’s mortgaged out of his butt to buy this thing. And as a brick layer, be does all the maintenance. He’s sometimes out of work due to the industries in and outs, but he’d like to have this paid off so he can sell it in 20 years to pay for his children’s education. His wife isn’t working because she’s a hair dresser and they can’t work right now. > > He recently asked me to borrow some money because two of his tenants don’t feel they should have to pay rent now. He thinks they have it, but don’t think they should have to pay. > > Is this “the man” that the OP thinks we should all stick it to? Why does he think they have it? Maybe they actually do have that money now, but having money in the bank now isn’t what drives financial decision-making; people make purchases now based on how much money they expect to have next month, and the month after, and so on. It’s not at all irrational to look around, see that half of all households have a family member that’s out of work, and assume they might not have money 2 or 3 months from now to buy food. I mean, yeah, if your cousin’s tenants are hanging out in bars and eating out at fancy restaurants (not likely now, is it?), okay, maybe I could see the concern. But your tenant shouldn’t assume the worst of everyone’s intentions. That being said, your cousin’s probably not ‘the bad guy’ here. And I do feel for him and other smaller tenants who have made modest investments so they could have some cash flow. They’re probably not the problem. It’s the investment capital groups that dominate some markets, swooping in with cash to take advantage of depressed housing prices in one area of town, gentrifying communities, and then making neighborhoods unaffordable and driving out blue collar wage earners. And if that’s not bad enough, some of these companies, as well as neighborhood homeowners associations, band together to block efforts to build affordable housing. ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2020, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rent-strike-in-the-usa/852981/19 "2020-05-01T20:41:42Z")
If a landlord can’t collect rent, he can sell his property. If a tenant can’t pay rent,he can sell a kidney. I’m exaggerating, of course. But this emergency is causing a LOT of financial distress. Tens of millions of people are laid off, and millions of them will never get their jobs back. It is not unreasonable to ask landlords to share in some of the economic pain. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2020, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rent-strike-in-the-usa/852981/20 "2020-05-01T20:54:46Z")
> [@chappachula](#): > > If a landlord can’t collect rent, he can sell his property. > If a tenant can’t pay rent,he can sell a kidney. > > I’m exaggerating, of course. > > But this emergency is causing a LOT of financial distress. Tens of millions of people are laid off, and millions of them will never get their jobs back. > It is not unreasonable to ask landlords to share in some of the economic pain. It would be better if they’d support the working class landlord and instead make the capital groups pay back some of the money that they’ve forced tenants and ordinary people to cough off over the years by inflating real estate prices. I’m not suggesting that I pray for investors to become insolvent, but if we’re going to provide relief to capitalists it ought to be people like spifflog’s cousin first, and making the big banks and massive investment realty funds wait and sweat it out a little. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rent-strike-in-the-usa/852981.md?page=2)