Comments

2

Sawant has the brain of a pea. Who will pay the mortgage? Who will pay the property tax?

3

"If you don't suspend rent payments, we'll stop making rent payments" might not be the strongest bargaining position I've ever seen, but hey take your shot as the kids used to say.

5

Very irresponsible idea. Very irresponsible reporting Rich. Doesn't anyone think about both sides of the rent equation? More drivel from the Stranger.

8

@6 You're as big a moron as Trump.

9

My first question would be: did you pay your rent this month and do you plan on paying your May rent?

11

Lose your job and your credit rating?

That won’t look like a very smart choice in a year from now.

18

Bwahhahhhaahhhaaa!!!! I hope every last one of the "strikers" ends up homeless. Sawant can feel good about herself then.

19

Wow...anyone following her on this deserves what they will end up getting..

21

@2 - it's obvious to me that the actual goal of Sawant's movement is to make it unprofitable enough to own rental property that prices for it will crash. The idea is to make housing cheaper by removing any incentive to treat it as an investment.

The fact that this will also destroy the value of many middle-class families' only real source of wealth (their homes) is unfortunate collateral damage.

24

4:

It is a monstrous thing, isn't it? Why do you think she does everything possible to hide it? This is what happens when you leave no Gulab Jamun behind.

25

Who could possibly think this is a good idea? If someone refuses to pay rent, the landlord has a choice, keep someone who won't pay rent or get someone who will, even if it takes a few months. Which do you think every landlord on Earth is going to choose. Faced with 100 tenants refusing to pay rent, the choice is really the same. There really isn't some kind of strength in numbers here. Especially when you consider that 80% of people paid their rent in full for April and a sizable chunk of the rest probably has something worked out with their landlord.

Here's an idea for Mrs. Sawant, start with nationalizing health care. There are models of where that works well, or at least way better than the US.

28

@2 The owners. They should be able to afford to go without income for at least 90 days. I mean, everyone is telling workers who live paycheck to paycheck they need to have savings to cover being jobless for 90 days. Funny how that rule only applies to the little people, and not landlords or businesses.

@12 Without a progressive income tax, we can't cut any of those taxes, and keep government functioning at all. Most of Seattle's problem's stem from having most of its revenue come from sources that yo-yo with the economy.

29

@28- if you really believe taxes will be cut with the implementation of an income tax you are either naive or irretrievably stupid. I'm betting it's the latter.

30

@28 Yes, we are all supposed to have that "rainy day fund" to get us through hard times. And if all of us followed that advice, people would be able to pay their rent for three months, right? People seem to think "landlords" are some category of wealth removed from other realities. Landlords frequently look and sound a lot like renters. They have mortgages, kids to feed, taxes to pay. They are "people." Their business just happens to be that of being a landlord. The product they sell is an apartment or business space. They are no different than other businesses in that they provide a valuable service for a fee. I'm a landlord with one tenant. I count on the income from that property to pay for food every month. Yes, I have put money aside for tough times, but I'm also responsible for maintaining that property. I put tens of thousands into a rough last year. And I've knocked 50% off the rent. We are in this together. The actions of Ms. Sawant sound great, when you hear them in a void.

31

People should put money aside for a rainy day. They should but they often cannot. It's just more complicated in this city with it's out of control cost of living, static wages in non-tech sectors, and the fact that most people have huge student debt loads because it's the only way you can access a college education. It's a lot more systemic and complicated than screaming 'Bootstraps!' at people.

I literally don't know anyone who wants to be in this position, so shaming them and talking down to them does nothing but make you look an incredible asshole. It doesn't materially solve any problem but at least we now have clarity that you're a big old piece of shit.

That all said, Sawant is a terrifying example of how Marixism looks great on paper but in practice leaves a trail of destruction in it's wake. It's interesting how in this time of chaos and terror, her focus has been not on materially helping people. It's grabbing power for her idea of state.

35

So renters are expected to have extra money on hand for crises. Why arent landlords and businesses expected to as well? Oh right, America. Shithole country #1.

37

36 those "protections" are already happening. You people are scum and should all be fed through a wood chipper.

41

@37 - What is wrong with pricing your product to take into account the costs of doing business? I don't condone @36's ideas about discriminating against minorities, single moms, etc., but if the City is going to force landlords to take on more risk by not letting us try to figure out who is going to hold up their end of a deal (which is all that paying rent really amounts to; it is not some heinous imposition on one's inalienable rights), then the amount that one asks for taking on that increased risk is going to increase.

I agree that the ordinary risks (mainly the amount of time an apartment stays empty in between tenants) is baked into the rents as it should be. I don't think that we are going to have an epidemic of "deadbeat tenants" out of this (at least I hope not) as that really would make things tougher for lower-income tenants going forward. The harder and riskier it gets to rent to those at the bottom, the more landlords will choose not to offer that kind of housing. At some point it becomes worthwhile to put a bunch of money into a building to make it much nicer and start renting to a more affluent crowd. And that will not help the working class here one bit.


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