when da Boss
make de Narrative
why da Boss Always
gotta be de Victim? Can't
da Boss ever get an Even Break?

it's a Fine Thing
da Bosses always
OWN de Means of
Communications* other-
wise they be as poorly off
as de Rest of us. & that'd be

sad af.

*WHY
is that?

That house is right by the Rainier Ave Bartell's. The street is sketchy as all get-out. Just a few houses north there's a burned out house that the city is apparently content to let rot.

As#2 correctly points out, there is lots of ‘sketch’ alongside and adjacent to Rainier Ave S.
the arsoned houses and businesses eventually get torn down, and magically become expensive boxy apartment buildings. Who will actually pay to live there is anyone’s guess.

“The media wanted a story that fit an idea, and the mere appearance of this story fit that idea.”

Yes, because The Stranger has never, ever done the same exact thing.

pat L dear, the idea is that when the Judkins Park station of the East Link extension opens, it will be a hot neighborhood - and from the arsons.

What a bizarre mud-slinging attack on a small property owner who hasn't been paid rent since last spring and likely won't be until well past next spring -- because why?!

Owning a house via LLC is common. Raising personal funds for purchase via friends/family is not a crime (and has nothing to do with the problematic tenant and eviction proceedings; it's simply an ugly political distraction). He worked on it for years, offering cheap housing to roommates along the way ('house hacking' is a common and healthy source of affordable housing in a city with functional regulations), but got very unlucky in handing off control to a slick, unstable firm like Loftium, in hopes of helping fund his way to pilot school while he cut back to part-time mechanic work. Then when he stepped back into managing the house directly, the tenant didn't abide by Airbnb & city rules, nor the lease terms ... and continues to reside without paying a lick of rent or utilities, with an endlessly 'free' Housing Justice lawyer eating up legal costs without any funding going toward paying rent. Why attack a small landlord for sharing how stressful and destabilizing that has been.

It's gross seeing how Katie Wilson, a leading proponent of social housing, thinks this kind of gleefully misrepresentative attack is a way to shine some kind of light of truth on tenant advocacy. Good luck in figuring out how to fund and operate mixed-income social housing! Sounds like scammers will have a hey-day and be glorified in their contractual abuses while those trying to follow the rules will be attacked based on 'privilege.'

Something about the Roth story just didn't smell right. I had not followed the details (beyond the TV news spots) but at about the same time, a local news station aired a Seattle Police bust of some tenants who had overstayed their welcome. Pound on the door, man and woman escorted out, charged with trespassing, into the back seats of a couple of cop cars. From the looks on their faces, they didn't seem to expect any sort of tenant/landlord/police action. So no ongoing court hearings or legal maneuvering. Just surprise, you're busted.

If it was this easy, what was Roth still doing in his van? Bad legal counsel? Or better jurisdiction shopping (call SPD, not King County). Or, more likely, we didn't have the full story.