Tenants and businesses are getting ready to stiff their landlords.
Rent strikes are relatively rare in the U.S. and are mostly reserved for slumlords who don’t provide services like heat or extermination. But they have an important history: A wave of rent strikes in New York beginning after the First World War led to the nation’s first rent control law.
Circumstances today are different. In Philadelphia, Tenants Union president Barry Thompson said he was discouraging tenants from withholding rent. “If you have it, pay it,” he counseled. “I suggest tenants be very, very careful—we’re encouraging people to communicate with their landlords, pay something, and get it in writing.” Paying even a little, he reasons, may help tenants when eviction courts, in which landlords very rarely lose, are bombarded after the crisis.
Generally, COVID-19 emergency laws up to and including this week’s federal aid bill have been more generous to homeowners and landlords than to renters, with more comprehensive guidelines for mortgage deferments than for rents. But not everyone thinks landlords are in such a strong position here, especially those, like malls, that depend on vanishing income from retail and restaurants.
And if residents are reluctant to challenge landlords, restaurants and bars may feel they have less to lose, even with the passage of a coronavirus aid package that offers. “My plan is to not pay the rent,” says Anthony Ramirez, who runs the Bronx Beer Hall. Ramirez had to lay off his staff this week but is betting his landlord won’t want to evict. “Rent ends up being the lowest thing on the list,” he said. “Everything before rent.
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