LANSING, Mich. — The number of people struggling to pay rent continues to go up but landlords are sounding the alarm too saying they simply cannot pay bills. Some landlords are everyday people who tell Alicia Nieves they’re not in favor of putting anyone out on the street and instead say there’s another option.
Jerry Cheslow and his wife have spent the last 25 years slowly acquiring a handful of properties in new jersey, each property an affordable home for another family and the Cheslow’s version of a pension plan.
“I wanted them to provide retirement for my wife and myself.” The Cheslow’s put most of their savings into each property and now eviction moratoriums have put much of what they’ve worked for at risk.
“When the eviction moratorium went into place i saw it as extremely temporary. I thought two months and it is gone. Two month’s was something I could weather ”but it’s been 6 months, and Cheslow is not receiving rent from three out of his eight properties, one tenant has not paid since the first moratorium went into place in March.
“How concerned am I? I am very concerned, because this was suppose to be my retirement and suddenly it unravels.”
”Me and so many other landlords like me, “we are forced to carry the weight of everybody’s living expenses on our backs.” For a 72 year old, who was about to retire this year, it is too much.
“This was suppose to be part of my retirement and right now it is drain. it’s not fair. and it will destroy the backbone of affordable housing in the United States.” Brookings Institiute estimates that individual small property owners, like Cheslow, own 40% of all residential rentals in the U.S. more than half (58%) of these landlords entered the pandemic without enough saved up money to pay mortgages in a situation like a pandemic.
“There really needs to be some form of direct rental assistance. Both to get these tenants out from the huge debts they are accruing for not paying rent over several months, and to also pay the landlords.” Derek reed is a new jersey lawyer who represents small and large property owners in the state. He has been advocating for congress to fund the eviction moratorium with stimulus money for rent but just this week President Trump ordered his negotiators to halt talks over a new stimulus bill.
“When you are not talking about it, it is real people. People who don’t have enough food, people who don’t have a place to live, and it is housing providers who may not have enough to pay the mortgages or may not have enough to keep the properties they worked 25 years to acquire.”
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