RENT RIPOFFS

You’ve heard the expression, no good deed goes unpunished.  In New York, no well-intentioned program goes un-scammed.

During the COVID lockdown, so many renters needed help.  People in the service and hospitality industries, restaurant workers, hotel workers, low and moderate income folks, people who were already struggling to make ends meet in this very expensive city, suddenly found themselves stuck in their apartments with no money, no work. 

So in stepped New York State and with lots of Federal cash, more than two-billion dollars, to cover unpaid rents if both the tenant and the landlord agreed to sign on.  The program was called ERAP, the Emergency Rental Assistance Program. 

Once tenants and landlords accepted funds from ERAP, rents couldn’t be raised for a year.  Once tenants merely applied to ERAP, landlords could not evict them.  And when I say could not, I mean like, never.  

New York State Attorney General Tish James said, “This program was created to support struggling tenants and keep New Yorkers in their homes during the pandemic” (emphasis mine).  

That’s right, during the pandemic. 

Well, in November, the program’s money ran out.  But a judge ruled the program needed to be kept open, so tenants kept on applying.  

According of the agency that runs ERAP, the Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, almost 350-thousand ERAP applications have been filed as of the end of June.  But New York State has paid fewer than half of them.  Oh, and one other thing.  The program covers 15 months of arrears. Some tenants are delinquent in paying their rents for a lot longer than that. 

So here’s the bottom line.  The funding may or may not come.  In the meantime, New York’s landlords, and I’m not just talking about the big boys, are out lots of money they need to keep their buildings going and, heaven forbid, to actually make a little money.  They still have to pay utilities, real estate taxes, fuel to heat their buildings etc. etc.  And those expenses sure aren’t going down.

New York renters aren’t stupid and some take advantage.  They know how to work the system.  Don’t pay rent, be on the verge of being evicted, then apply for ERAP and freeze the whole process. 

Governor Kathy Hochul doesn’t want to go anywhere near this mess. Landlords were hoping for a change in leadership in Albany but that went down the sewer on election day.

There needs to be a solution.  Building owners can’t continue to operate with renters not paying to live in their apartments.  New York State must come up with the cash to pay the landlords or stop taking applications. 

This is so screwed up for everyone.  Renters have been given false hope they’ll get rent relief.  Landlords are left holding the empty rent bag.  Swindlers and con artists give truly deserving tenants a bad name.

Listen to this story of a guy who has reportedly taken a rent ripoff of ERAP to new heights, actually penthouse heights. 

Jude Onicha lives in an 82-hundred dollar a month penthouse in the swank Mercedes House on Manhattan’s far west side. 

He signed a one year lease in August of 2019.  The owners of the Mercedes House are now suing him because not only does he owe almost 250-thousand dollars in back rent, according to an article in W42st.com, Jude’s been renting his penthouse for up to 15-hundred dollars a night on AirBnB and VRBO for two years. 

Jude says the back rent should be paid by ERAP!  A quarter of a million dollars?  Hey Jude, are you kidding?

What allegedly is taking place at the Mercedes House is obviously an extreme abuse of the system.  It is wrong to smear all renters as scammers.  But it is equally as wrong to smear all landlords as blood suckers, champing at the bit to evict their tenants.  Not only are the rents too damn high in this city, the cost of owning and operating a building, is too damn high as well.  The City keeps raising property taxes and demanding more and more expensive inspections and upgrades. When building owners can’t collect rents, it not only puts their buildings in jeopardy, but it also puts entire neighborhoods at risk.

In the Empire State, shortsighted politicians set up programs without even thinking them through or closing loopholes.  They pander for votes or view capitalists as satan.  

Everyone needs a rent assistance system that works, not a system that is an open invitation for rent ripoffs.