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Speaker 1: Welcome to Worst Year Ever, A production of I Heart

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Speaker 1: Radio Well Together everything, so don't don't do it's Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Still some might say the worst although early to say,

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Speaker 1: too early to say it's only April. It's only April. Well,

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Speaker 1: I guess to be fair, we have to look at

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Speaker 1: all the other years that come after this year. Really

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Speaker 1: pass judgment on it if this is the worst year ever.

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Speaker 1: But it's shaping up to look that way. Oh no,

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Speaker 1: I mean, Katie. I I actually called earlier in the

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Speaker 1: year and it continues to be my contention that this

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Speaker 1: will be the last year ever. Um, yeah, not next year.

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Speaker 1: I figured, like, this is no worst year, but then

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Speaker 1: the last one, we don't even get one more. Nope, okay,

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Speaker 1: that's something positive to look forward to. Last year ever.

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Speaker 1: Uh Now I can't say if that's because uh we're

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Speaker 1: the world will end or because we're going to finally

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Speaker 1: uh smarten up and go back to using bock tunes

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Speaker 1: to measure the passage of time. I'm maybe maybe the

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Speaker 1: word year just won't have any relic exactly. That's my way.

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Speaker 1: So just like you're just gonna change up some calendars,

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Speaker 1: it's fine. Speaking of fundamental shifts in the nature of

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Speaker 1: society that might be necessary to save our lives, like

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Speaker 1: using anyway, let's talk about rent strikes. There's a rent

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Speaker 1: good transition. Yeah, thank you. I impared myself on that.

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Speaker 1: I hope I remembered accurately what a bock tune is

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Speaker 1: the artful? I don't know. I just kept my mouth

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Speaker 1: shut and smiled. Um, yeah, there is a rent strike.

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Speaker 1: Should we talk about? Yes, so I think that's what

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Speaker 1: I'm prepared to talk about. All right, Well let's do

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Speaker 1: that for between forty minutes and an hour. Um. So, yeah,

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Speaker 1: things aren't great in in the you know, the economy. Um,

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Speaker 1: it's uh, it's not at its best at the moment.

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Speaker 1: The coronavirus has put a lot of people out of work.

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Speaker 1: And for a little bit of context of like just

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Speaker 1: how bad it is, um, In March, the Bureau of

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Speaker 1: Labor Statistics officially noted the economy lost seven hundred and

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Speaker 1: one thousand jobs. Uh, and it was that was that

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Speaker 1: made it the worst month for American jobs since the

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Speaker 1: Great Recession into that's bad. So seven thousand one jobs, though,

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Speaker 1: is just like what actually got registered in the month

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Speaker 1: of March. Obviously, it didn't really hit most of US

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Speaker 1: until right at the end of that month. And so

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Speaker 1: that seven seven hundred one thousand jobs, which is the

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Speaker 1: worst month of job loss since the Great Recession, is

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Speaker 1: actually a tiny fraction of how bad it is. UM.

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Speaker 1: At the moment, we're looking at six point six million

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Speaker 1: UM new claims fire by US workers for unemployment last week,

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Speaker 1: and then three point three million a week before that

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Speaker 1: time we were recording this. We've got to be over

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Speaker 1: ten million UM last week. Yeah, it is, it is

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Speaker 1: a lot. It's dare I say it, unprecedented. Yeah, It's

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Speaker 1: never happened, not like nothing, Nothing on this scale of

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Speaker 1: job loss has ever happened before, which is bad. That's

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Speaker 1: that's bad. Yeah. So obviously, like ten million people out

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Speaker 1: of work, a chunk of those people are going to

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Speaker 1: have trouble paying rent for the next month because Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and you find different statistics based on who you listen to.

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Speaker 1: I found one article from two thousand nineteen during you know,

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Speaker 1: you remember that government shutdown that I barely remember now,

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Speaker 1: but it was the longest one in history, that ridiculous

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Speaker 1: government shutdown, the one from forty years ago. Yeah, but

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Speaker 1: it was two thousand nineteen, right, Yeah, forty years ago

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Speaker 1: or so back back in the before times, UM, when

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Speaker 1: that hit, obviously a lot of people found themselves having

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Speaker 1: trouble paying rent. UM. And during that time, Career Builder

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Speaker 1: put out a survey that suggested about seventy eight percent

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Speaker 1: of U S workers lived paycheck to paycheck. UM. Now

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Speaker 1: there's other that's too many. There's other I I kind

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Speaker 1: of there's a bunch of different daddy here. So UM,

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Speaker 1: there's a Nielsen survey that suggests half of workers who

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Speaker 1: make under fifty grand lift paycheck to paycheck UM, or

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Speaker 1: up to seventy four percent of all employees. UM. That's

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Speaker 1: from an American Payroll Association UH study. So anyway, between

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Speaker 1: fifty and seventy five is a pretty safe guess for

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Speaker 1: the number of Americans who live paycheck to paycheck. UH.

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Speaker 1: At least three and ten Americans have no emergency savings whatsoever. Um.

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Speaker 1: And you know, even one in four families making a

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Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year or more live

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Speaker 1: paycheck to paycheck. Because that's not actually that much money

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Speaker 1: in our current Yeah, depending on where you live, right, Like,

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Speaker 1: it's a shipload of money in rural Ida, yeah exactly. Um, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's a very good point. So, uh, and back into this.

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Speaker 1: In seventeen, there was a wave of stories suggesting about

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Speaker 1: six out of ten Americans couldn't cover a five dollar emergency.

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Speaker 1: So I think it would be safe to say that

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Speaker 1: of that ten million people, at least about six million

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Speaker 1: of them aren't going to be able to cover rent

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Speaker 1: without assistance for this next month. You know, they probably

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Speaker 1: got this month because a lot of people work through

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Speaker 1: all over most of March. You know, really April one

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Speaker 1: is kind of the first month people are getting affected

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Speaker 1: by this, But I think June is going to be

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Speaker 1: when it starts to bite. Yeah. Oh, so it's not

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Speaker 1: gonna be one month and then everything's fine. It's sure

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Speaker 1: not Cody. So, so we're in this situation where, um,

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Speaker 1: you've suddenly got conservatively six million Americans who can't make

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Speaker 1: rent next month, and a lot of people are saying,

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Speaker 1: now is the motherfucking time for a rent strike? Right? Like,

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Speaker 1: what else are we gonna do? And Sophie and I

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Speaker 1: conducted an interview with a young man UM who organized uh,

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Speaker 1: several buildings all the people who are under his landlord. Um,

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Speaker 1: he and a partner organized everybody into a rent strike.

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Speaker 1: UM or at least a sizeable chunk of the of

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Speaker 1: the people living there. And he pointed at a couple

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Speaker 1: of things that I thought were interesting. One of them was,

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Speaker 1: I'm trying to even figure out how to describe this

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Speaker 1: piece of bullshit. It's really fucking shitty. So basically, the

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Speaker 1: landlord sent out a letter announcing a rent freeze, but

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Speaker 1: he wasn't actually freezing the rent. He was just agreeing

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Speaker 1: not to increase rent, and that's what he was calling

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Speaker 1: a rent freeze. But a lot of the people in

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Speaker 1: this this this is like a low income building that

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Speaker 1: this dude, um Ali Khan Pabani lives in um And

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Speaker 1: and that's the guy who organized the strike, And he's

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Speaker 1: like a lot of the people who live here are

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Speaker 1: are um there. They're immigrants, you know, they're folks who

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Speaker 1: don't necessarily understand what's being written in the letter. They

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Speaker 1: see rent freeze. So a lot of folks, he found,

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Speaker 1: mistakenly thought they didn't have to pay um Yeah. Um

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Speaker 1: so like shady ship like that going down um And, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it was. It was an interesting call. So he like,

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Speaker 1: there's individuals who have started doing this. There's a lot

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Speaker 1: of them up in New York to our guy was

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Speaker 1: in Ali cons in uh Toronto. Um, there's people trying

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Speaker 1: to do it in parts of Los Angeles. Um. But

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Speaker 1: there's also like this kind of movement among some groups

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Speaker 1: to try and like this should be a national thing, right,

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Speaker 1: Like it'll some people, Like it'll work out for some people,

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Speaker 1: it won't for others, and nothing will happen for the

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Speaker 1: whole of American workers if they're not some sort of

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Speaker 1: mass movement to actually do this, which has never happened before.

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Speaker 1: There have been big rent strikes, but never like a

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Speaker 1: nationwide one in the United States. UM. So yeah, that's

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Speaker 1: kind of where we are at them. It's a good

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Speaker 1: broad overview here. Um. The mo I like that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I try to keep things fun. It's complicated. What do

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Speaker 1: we think the likelihood of being able to organize a

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Speaker 1: nationwide rent strike looks like? Yeah, and that that's something

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Speaker 1: Alcan mentioned about. Like when you're trying to get organized

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Speaker 1: just a building for a rent strike, there's a certain

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Speaker 1: minimum threshold, you know, of people in the building you

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Speaker 1: need to get. You don't have to get everyone on board,

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Speaker 1: but if you don't get more than a certain number

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Speaker 1: on board, then it's pretty easy for the landlord to

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Speaker 1: just you know kick you all out. Um. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: like you have to get most of you know, the

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Speaker 1: people available to agree to stop to actually have any

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Speaker 1: kind of threat to make. And it's kind of the

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Speaker 1: same looking at nationwide, like a certain number of people

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Speaker 1: needed would need to be a part of this. So

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Speaker 1: my we'll get into this as we get into the

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Speaker 1: episode a bit more. Um. And I looked a little

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Speaker 1: bit into the economics the potential economic fall out of

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Speaker 1: something like this, and you know, there's no answers, there's

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Speaker 1: just ideas of what could happen. But one of the

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Speaker 1: things that occurs to me is that there are a

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Speaker 1: lot of big property management companies. Of course, there are

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Speaker 1: also a lot of properties that are owned by small businesses,

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Speaker 1: by a family that depends upon this income to pay

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Speaker 1: their mortgage, and maybe they don't qualify for mortgage relief.

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Speaker 1: Like my parents they're struggling right now because they're not

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Speaker 1: sure how they're going to come out of this with

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Speaker 1: their house, Like they're not going to get the mortgage relief. Um,

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Speaker 1: but that's a separate issue from this. But uh, and

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Speaker 1: so that to me, it's like, yes, the the idea

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Speaker 1: of a rent strike. Absolutely, I'm I'm behind this, but

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Speaker 1: unless it's on a scale that causes a big enough

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Speaker 1: ripple where the government takes action to protect the homeowners

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Speaker 1: as well in some capacity, you know, like these people

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Speaker 1: that will be losing their entire savings when they lose

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Speaker 1: their home. Um, And and that's what makes me very nervous,

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Speaker 1: is like, how do we get this to the point

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Speaker 1: where it makes a big enough of an effect that

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Speaker 1: the government interjects, do you know what I mean? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: And it is important. So let's talk about some numbers

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Speaker 1: here when it comes to individual landlords. So one of

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Speaker 1: the things that happens whenever there's discussion about a rent

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Speaker 1: strike is, um, you know what about like very few people.

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Speaker 1: Nobody really feels any sort of sympathy for somebody who

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Speaker 1: owns a massive, five hundred room condo, right Like, it's

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Speaker 1: usually some gigantic corporation, and people don't. Really you're not

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Speaker 1: gonna get anybody on board that morally, but you can

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Speaker 1: get people on board with like these little mom and pop.

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Speaker 1: I think there's like the kind of archetypal idea of

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Speaker 1: the little old lady who's running out her basement or

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Speaker 1: something like that, and UM, so I wanted to kind

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Speaker 1: of establish what the scope of that is. How many

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Speaker 1: of those folks there are? So there are between eight

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Speaker 1: they're around eight million individual landlords in the United States. UM.

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Speaker 1: And an individual landlord is somebody who owns between one

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Speaker 1: and ten properties. And so people who fall into this

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Speaker 1: category owner managed half the rental properties in the nation. UM.

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Speaker 1: And how's about forty eight million Americans? Uh? And that's

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Speaker 1: it's that data is simultaneously. UM. That's a lot of data,

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Speaker 1: and it's also almost entirely useless for actually answering this

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Speaker 1: question because you'll notice there's a you say, everyone who

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Speaker 1: has between one in ten properties is um is an

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Speaker 1: individual landlord. That means that you're throwing into the same

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Speaker 1: category people who do literally rent out a spare room

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Speaker 1: in their house and people who own ten buildings, which

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Speaker 1: is probably fifty million dollars in property. And like a

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Speaker 1: reasonable city, you know, that's a big business who has

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Speaker 1: made this decision to to find that between one and

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Speaker 1: time because there's that's such a huge gap. Yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: a vail um, which is a v A I L no. No,

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Speaker 1: I mean like the company that conducted the study. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And there they're a software company. They sell like online

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Speaker 1: rental platforms and stuff. I guess. Uh. So they conducted

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Speaker 1: this study with mom and pop landlords, which again includes

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Speaker 1: people who have a hundred fifty dollar house and a

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Speaker 1: converted garage and a guy who owns ten buildings in

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Speaker 1: midtown Manhattan. Yeah, it range. It ranges from mom and

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Speaker 1: pop to but that also like dozen include like you know,

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Speaker 1: if somebody owns a building with four units versus somebody

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Speaker 1: who owns one, or owns four places with one unit

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Speaker 1: versus somebody who owns one building with four hundred units.

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Speaker 1: These are all like very different. Yeah, it's it's fucking

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Speaker 1: hard to figure out how many people fit in that

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Speaker 1: because my current living situation is actually that sort of thing.

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Speaker 1: I don't have a traditional landlord. I have a friend

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Speaker 1: with a house and they had an empty backhouse, and

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Speaker 1: we worked out an arrangement whereby I pay rent and

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Speaker 1: they it helps cover their mortgage. But like they're not,

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Speaker 1: this isn't most of their income. This is just like

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Speaker 1: you all of a sudden stopped paying them rent right

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Speaker 1: now when they've lost their work as well. That could

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Speaker 1: be a tricky situation for that that would that would suck,

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Speaker 1: and I would feel I would not do that because

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Speaker 1: they're like friends of mine. Um, but that so and

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Speaker 1: and one of the very frustrated Yeah, uh, it's I mean,

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Speaker 1: there's a couple of there's a number of moral complexities here,

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Speaker 1: but I do think it's really clear and important to

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Speaker 1: mention that, like most people don't have a good landlord,

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Speaker 1: I have a lot of landlords, and about twenty of

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Speaker 1: them were people who I care about and don't want

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Speaker 1: to see fucked over at about them were criminalolutely. I

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Speaker 1: mean in any pushback year getting from me right now

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Speaker 1: is not to say that I don't support this or not. No, no, no,

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Speaker 1: vitally interested in it. It's just a a real concern

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Speaker 1: with all of this. I mean, let's run our own

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Speaker 1: internal pole. Robert has renting a backhouse one person. My

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Speaker 1: apartment complex is owned by a big company who sucks.

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Speaker 1: Cody Copy. Did they suck? A lovely A lovely man.

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Speaker 1: This is is a rental property. Do they suck? I

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Speaker 1: do not want to not pay rent great? Yeah, off

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Speaker 1: the record, they're not great. On the record, not great.

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Speaker 1: My place I've been. I've been fighting with them on

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Speaker 1: certain things during this time. Very very very very very

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Speaker 1: strongly and certain different different things. It's it's very frustrating

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Speaker 1: living in a building owned by a big corporation that

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Speaker 1: is not taking care of their residences. Yeah, and my experience,

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Speaker 1: there's there's two kinds of rentals in Los Angeles. Um

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Speaker 1: expensive and run by giant companies UM who do things

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Speaker 1: but are a pain in the ass about it. And

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Speaker 1: then affordable properties that are run by criminals and you

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Speaker 1: will get no maintenance and it will be a fire

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Speaker 1: hazard and that's but you're gonna be able to live

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Speaker 1: on the West Side for nine bucks a month. So

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Speaker 1: criminals are are what you go with. Yeah, I think

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Speaker 1: the numbers are important to get into Katie. It's in

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Speaker 1: it's kind of impossible to say, like how many people

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Speaker 1: will that like people and not giant companies will get

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Speaker 1: fucked over if there's a rent strike, um, but it

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Speaker 1: is worth noting that the people who will get fucked

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Speaker 1: over most within the community of landlords will probably be

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Speaker 1: the small landlord. Yeah. The big companies get have some

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Speaker 1: protections they're going to so they're bigger. They also especially

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Speaker 1: like in the current climate, when the leader of the

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Speaker 1: country is landlord essentially, you know, I like I I

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Speaker 1: took some of this Twitter to try to get some

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Speaker 1: other people's perspective on it, and the answer is kind

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Speaker 1: of like, well, they could probably we renegotiate their mortgage,

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Speaker 1: or you know, maybe you can work out a situation

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Speaker 1: where the renters have um a little bit of money,

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Speaker 1: you know, are now sure make people part owners in

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Speaker 1: their buildings. I think that would be awesome. But but

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Speaker 1: I again, I don't find that to be a realistic outcome,

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Speaker 1: say for your landlord Proberly, Yeah, I think it's a

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Speaker 1: realistic outcome for people whose landlords are giant corporations. If

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Speaker 1: you're like living in somebody's fucking spare room, no that

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Speaker 1: that they may not be on board with that. And

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Speaker 1: I don't think it's necessarily fair. Um. But yeah, it's um,

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Speaker 1: it's it's a problem, and there's a there's another problem

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Speaker 1: that we also need to talk about when we talk

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Speaker 1: about the impact of a rent strike, because it is

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Speaker 1: important as well. About seventeen and a half million people

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Speaker 1: in the United States are directly or indirectly employed by

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Speaker 1: property owners and management companies. UM. And these are everyone

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Speaker 1: from like the guy who wakes you up at seven

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Speaker 1: in the morning with a leafblower, UM where probably shouldn't

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Speaker 1: be there to your your plumber who it provides an

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Speaker 1: incredibly useful uh uh fucking um service in and shouldn't

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Speaker 1: be out on his ass. None of them should be

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Speaker 1: out on their ass. But not to mention the people

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Speaker 1: that work in the offices and whatnot. But yeah, just

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Speaker 1: the maintenance, the staff people that are employed. Yeah, even

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Speaker 1: if and I think it's fair you you you accept

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Speaker 1: plus of of of landlords are doing something shady or

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Speaker 1: fucked up and I hate them. Um. Like there's a

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Speaker 1: lot of just random folks who are going to be

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Speaker 1: affected by this, and then they will be unemployed and

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Speaker 1: then they will and like there are also problems in

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Speaker 1: terms of like if we're a huge amount of any

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Speaker 1: given cities, UM budget comes from the taxes that property

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Speaker 1: owners pay UM, which is what will allow them to

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Speaker 1: provide things like relief to people. I mean, unless you

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Speaker 1: you get the federal government coming in UM. And I

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Speaker 1: guess one of the things Ali can pointed out is

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Speaker 1: that like sort of the point of doing a rent

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Speaker 1: strike is to get all of those people on board

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Speaker 1: and demand. So like there's nothing that says that if

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Speaker 1: you're rent striking and you have a landlord that is

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Speaker 1: a little old lady who has an investment property, Um,

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Speaker 1: then it's in your interest to lobby for her to

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Speaker 1: get mortgage relief too. Like these are both part of

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Speaker 1: the same problem, which is that like we were trying

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Speaker 1: to play by the rules and we got fucked, and

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Speaker 1: it's not fair that we get fucked by this, and

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Speaker 1: we're if you really are that that little old lady

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Speaker 1: who's not going to qualify for federal stimulus because that's

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Speaker 1: going to go to the people who own sixty giant buildings, Um,

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Speaker 1: then then we're in the same We can be on

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Speaker 1: the same fucking side of this advocating for each other

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Speaker 1: to not get fucked. Um. It really is more a

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Speaker 1: matter of it's more of a class thing, right. There's

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Speaker 1: the people who can afford and the people who can't. Ye. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and yeah a lot of people. Yeah, some of those

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Speaker 1: people who are landlords are in that same category. And

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Speaker 1: also it's it's important to note not just the people

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Speaker 1: who can't right now, but the people who can reasonably

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Speaker 1: envision and this includes everyone in this podcast a future

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Speaker 1: in which they might not be able to pay rent.

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Speaker 1: You know, Um, that that's that's uh, where like, And

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Speaker 1: that's one of the points Alikin made is that, like,

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Speaker 1: you also need a lot of people in the building

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Speaker 1: who are still employed and can still make rent to

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Speaker 1: agree to sign onto this thing to protect both their

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Speaker 1: neighbors now and themselves in the future. That's important. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: speaking of solidarity, you know who expresses solidarity and payments

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Speaker 1: to our podcast the products and services that supports am

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Speaker 1: I allowed to say damn straight right before? Now? Yes,

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Speaker 1: damn straight Together, we're back and Cody and I are

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Speaker 1: talking about our Rhona beards and whether or not we

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Speaker 1: should shave them medically. Yes, uh lifestyle, Lee, what about

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Speaker 1: my Rhona pits? Should I save my runa pits? No,

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Speaker 1: you're good, Yeah, unless you put unless you put a

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Speaker 1: respirator on there, in which case I don't think that's

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Speaker 1: going to do much. But yeah, So I think before

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Speaker 1: we get into this, so I put together a little

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Speaker 1: bit of data on historical rent strikes and some fun

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Speaker 1: anecdotes from those. So I want to get in a

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Speaker 1: little bit of history. But before we get into a

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Speaker 1: little bit of history, I'd like to have one election

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Speaker 1: related side conversation, which is Andrew Yang endorsing and infecting

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Speaker 1: American soldiers with the coronavirus to help with readiness. Oh boy,

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Speaker 1: excuse me, but um pardon me? Did you not hear

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Speaker 1: about this? No? Oh my god. Okay, Uh, I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: find the exact text of the quote. This is just

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Speaker 1: like something that fucking happened, and it's awesome. What a

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Speaker 1: bizarre trajectory for this guy. He is having himself a

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Speaker 1: real A real evolution is a character. I love the

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Speaker 1: disruption candidate hopping on CNN and endorsing Joe Biden. Here

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Speaker 1: is the tweet that Andrew yang Uh made on April five,

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Speaker 1: quote an army vet friends suggested that soldiers and vets

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Speaker 1: be allowed to voluntarily get the virus in order to

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Speaker 1: maintain readiness, provide an immune workforce, and research antibodies. These

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Speaker 1: guys and gals are hardcore American Flag eighteen thousand and

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Speaker 1: eight likes. I also like that he's sharing that without

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Speaker 1: actually editorializing on whether or not that is a good

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Speaker 1: or a bad idea. He's just saying now and the

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Speaker 1: the the best response. You have to scroll down a

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Speaker 1: bit to get it, but it's by Miriam Williamson Marian

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Speaker 1: Williamson almost twenty thousand likes, and she just she no, no, no,

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Speaker 1: She's right on this. She just responded, no, Andrew the hero.

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Speaker 1: We didn't know we needed. That's the right response. Just

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Speaker 1: give soldiers the plague herd immunity with the soldiers bringing

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Speaker 1: out well for Boris, I wonder how much that responses

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Speaker 1: dovetails with her vaccine opinions. Yeah, we don't need to

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Speaker 1: get into that. But we don't need to get into that.

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Speaker 1: Let's just celebrate that moment on response way to reply.

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Speaker 1: But but back to the topic of the episode. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: So if we want to think it's valuable to talk

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Speaker 1: about other rent strikes that have occurred in the United

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Speaker 1: States and the rest of the world, to talk about

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Speaker 1: kind of how these things can be organized, um, and

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Speaker 1: what makes them work or not work. And so I

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Speaker 1: want to go I want to go back in time

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Speaker 1: to nineteen o seven Machine Noise please. Yeah, can you

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Speaker 1: get on that, Cody, Jesus Christ, Katie why, I'm sorry.

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Speaker 1: It was just such a set and you know, people

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Speaker 1: would have said something online if we didn't do it. Everyone.

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Speaker 1: I don't always support these things, but I have to

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Speaker 1: be fair. It's done so that was terrible, terrible. Wasn't

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Speaker 1: my idea. It's never my idea, Robert, Please continue with

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Speaker 1: this is exactly how I wanted it to go. So

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Speaker 1: in nineteen o seven, sixteen year old Pauline Newman had

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Speaker 1: been a resident of New York City for six years. UM.

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Speaker 1: She she lived with her sisters um. They were all

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Speaker 1: from Lithuania on Madison Street on the Lower East Side.

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Speaker 1: Uh and they had a tiny tenement with no bathroom

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Speaker 1: or windows. Um. Pauline eventually got a job shoe sewing

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Speaker 1: shirtwaists in a factory called Triangle Waste Company, which not

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Speaker 1: a great story there, but this was about three years

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Speaker 1: before everybody died in a horrible fire. Um. So, as

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Speaker 1: you might guess from somebody who lived in like the

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Speaker 1: the factory that's most famous for being a death trap

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Speaker 1: in the history of factories. UM. She encountered some frustrations

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Speaker 1: visa via the labor class versus the capital holding class,

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Speaker 1: and she became a labor a labor organizer um. And

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Speaker 1: she was also really frustrated about life in the tenements

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Speaker 1: in New York City. Uh And in nineteen oh seven,

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Speaker 1: landlords instituted a rent hike without actually making any improvements

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Speaker 1: to the filthy, um serviceless buildings that were basically just

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Speaker 1: holes to throw human beings into that that they owned.

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Speaker 1: So Pauline got really pissed. He's like, you can't charge

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Speaker 1: us more money and not provide us with anything else. Um.

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Speaker 1: And she got four hundred other working girls together. Um.

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Speaker 1: These were young women who supported themselves in factories. How um.

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Speaker 1: And they went out and started talking to their families um,

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Speaker 1: and trying to get their their fathers and brothers and

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Speaker 1: you know, their family members on board with the idea

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Speaker 1: of collectively bargaining while demanding really rent decrease um. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And this was this was a big deal because in

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Speaker 1: the last two years, rented increased in that neighbor um. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So they were basically just trying to like pull things

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Speaker 1: back down to something vaguely affordable. Yeah. That's yeah, that's

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Speaker 1: the uh man. So many of these stories, there's like, yeah,

428
00:25:35,320 --> 00:25:39,000
Speaker 1: they demanded to get it down to a slightly more

429
00:25:39,040 --> 00:25:43,000
Speaker 1: manageable level. Yeah. It's never like they're demanding a pie

430
00:25:43,080 --> 00:25:44,919
Speaker 1: in the sky. It's like it would be nice if

431
00:25:44,960 --> 00:25:50,960
Speaker 1: our lives didn't suck uh as much. Yeah. Yeah, And

432
00:25:51,040 --> 00:25:53,119
Speaker 1: like the rent strikers now the current rent striker is

433
00:25:53,160 --> 00:25:55,840
Speaker 1: like for the duration of social distancing, we want a

434
00:25:55,880 --> 00:26:00,640
Speaker 1: moratorium on rents. Um. Yeah. And it's not torri um

435
00:26:00,680 --> 00:26:04,879
Speaker 1: being a delay um no, meaning they do not they

436
00:26:04,920 --> 00:26:07,439
Speaker 1: are canceled. Actually, holding a rent strike doesn't mean that

437
00:26:07,480 --> 00:26:09,560
Speaker 1: your end goal is to not have to pay rent.

438
00:26:09,640 --> 00:26:11,960
Speaker 1: You can withhold rent in order to get a decrease

439
00:26:12,000 --> 00:26:13,680
Speaker 1: in your rent. You can withhold rent in order to

440
00:26:13,720 --> 00:26:16,920
Speaker 1: get necessary services, you know, done upgrades on the building

441
00:26:17,000 --> 00:26:20,240
Speaker 1: or whatever. Um. It's just an idea of withholding rent

442
00:26:20,280 --> 00:26:22,160
Speaker 1: to get something out of the people that you pay

443
00:26:22,200 --> 00:26:25,960
Speaker 1: it to. UM. And I think what's cool about Pauline

444
00:26:26,080 --> 00:26:29,439
Speaker 1: is that she she thinks, actually, since we're in a

445
00:26:29,560 --> 00:26:32,160
Speaker 1: plague year right now, she thinks, like a virus where

446
00:26:32,520 --> 00:26:34,520
Speaker 1: you want to get you you you want to pick

447
00:26:34,560 --> 00:26:36,560
Speaker 1: a group of people who are going to be influencers,

448
00:26:36,600 --> 00:26:38,239
Speaker 1: like these young women who are kind of like part

449
00:26:38,280 --> 00:26:40,600
Speaker 1: of the first generation of young women in New York

450
00:26:40,640 --> 00:26:43,400
Speaker 1: City who are like working and supporting themselves. And they

451
00:26:43,400 --> 00:26:46,240
Speaker 1: all have, you know, families, and they're all going into

452
00:26:46,280 --> 00:26:49,400
Speaker 1: those families and trying to spread things that way. Um.

453
00:26:49,640 --> 00:26:51,840
Speaker 1: And so if each of them, you know, convinces two

454
00:26:51,920 --> 00:26:54,040
Speaker 1: or three family members. Then suddenly, like you've got this

455
00:26:54,200 --> 00:26:57,520
Speaker 1: massive sudden increase in the number of people involved. And

456
00:26:57,560 --> 00:27:02,560
Speaker 1: by December, UH, Paul had ten thousand households agreeing to

457
00:27:02,560 --> 00:27:05,879
Speaker 1: pay rent. And so they all went on strike in December.

458
00:27:06,400 --> 00:27:08,960
Speaker 1: UM building code they and they didn't just like stop

459
00:27:09,000 --> 00:27:10,960
Speaker 1: paying rent. They went through all of their buildings and

460
00:27:10,960 --> 00:27:14,480
Speaker 1: they tabulated like building code violations and reported them all

461
00:27:14,520 --> 00:27:16,800
Speaker 1: in an organized fashion. That so there were suddenly mass

462
00:27:16,840 --> 00:27:20,680
Speaker 1: reports coming into this the city against these buildings. UM.

463
00:27:20,840 --> 00:27:23,640
Speaker 1: There were demonstrations in the street. Kids burned an effigy

464
00:27:23,680 --> 00:27:27,480
Speaker 1: of a landlord. UM and Pauline, who became kind of

465
00:27:27,480 --> 00:27:30,399
Speaker 1: the the rent strikes spokesperson, was dubbed by The New

466
00:27:30,440 --> 00:27:35,640
Speaker 1: York Times the east Side Joan of arc Um. And Yeah,

467
00:27:35,640 --> 00:27:37,399
Speaker 1: and there were there were pushbacks from the landlords. They

468
00:27:37,400 --> 00:27:40,840
Speaker 1: shut off water, UM, they ordered evictions, but tenants would

469
00:27:40,840 --> 00:27:44,200
Speaker 1: like gather up and stop people from being evicted. The

470
00:27:44,200 --> 00:27:48,639
Speaker 1: the NYPD obviously refused to recognize the rent strike. You know,

471
00:27:48,680 --> 00:27:51,640
Speaker 1: they were still willing to evict people. So, yeah, they

472
00:27:51,640 --> 00:27:53,480
Speaker 1: hold this rent strike. There's a back and forth that

473
00:27:53,560 --> 00:27:56,760
Speaker 1: goes on. UM and then in early January they come

474
00:27:56,760 --> 00:27:59,679
Speaker 1: together and they uh, they come to an agreement and

475
00:27:59,720 --> 00:28:07,080
Speaker 1: about two thousand families got reduced rents. Um. And the Uh,

476
00:28:07,119 --> 00:28:09,440
Speaker 1: this didn't get them everything they wanted in other words, right,

477
00:28:09,480 --> 00:28:11,880
Speaker 1: like that's that's not nothing, but it's not like most

478
00:28:11,920 --> 00:28:15,840
Speaker 1: of what they were asking for. Um. But it started this, Uh,

479
00:28:15,840 --> 00:28:20,359
Speaker 1: it started this chain of activism that took about twenty years. Um.

480
00:28:20,400 --> 00:28:23,159
Speaker 1: But it led eventually to the passage of rent control laws,

481
00:28:23,320 --> 00:28:25,439
Speaker 1: like the first organized rent control laws like in the

482
00:28:25,520 --> 00:28:28,800
Speaker 1: United States. So that's like where this comes from. Yeah,

483
00:28:28,840 --> 00:28:32,720
Speaker 1: people eventually um. And the the the goal behind those laws,

484
00:28:32,720 --> 00:28:35,600
Speaker 1: by the way, was to cap rent att of a

485
00:28:35,640 --> 00:28:39,600
Speaker 1: worker's income, which obviously we didn't get most most people

486
00:28:39,640 --> 00:28:45,320
Speaker 1: don't live like that and they but we could advocate

487
00:28:45,400 --> 00:28:49,200
Speaker 1: for that. Um. It's a good goal. It's a great goal.

488
00:28:49,320 --> 00:28:54,720
Speaker 1: It sure sounds nice. Yeah. Um, so that's cool. Rent

489
00:28:54,760 --> 00:28:58,160
Speaker 1: controls cool. And Pauline is cool. She wound up running

490
00:28:58,160 --> 00:29:00,560
Speaker 1: for Secretary of State of New York. Is a socialist

491
00:29:01,000 --> 00:29:04,680
Speaker 1: even though women couldn't vote yet. Um yeah, yeah, yeah,

492
00:29:04,720 --> 00:29:07,920
Speaker 1: she was. She was a cool She was a cool activist. So, um.

493
00:29:07,960 --> 00:29:10,720
Speaker 1: There's a lot of cool histories, like during the Great Depression, right,

494
00:29:10,840 --> 00:29:12,960
Speaker 1: farmers out in the middle of nowhere would do this

495
00:29:13,040 --> 00:29:16,920
Speaker 1: really cool thing where um, when somebody who would, like,

496
00:29:16,960 --> 00:29:18,720
Speaker 1: you know, a farmer who had bought their land from

497
00:29:18,720 --> 00:29:20,959
Speaker 1: the bank and couldn't pay their mortgage anymore when they

498
00:29:21,000 --> 00:29:23,880
Speaker 1: got kicked off of the farm. Um, it would be

499
00:29:23,920 --> 00:29:26,400
Speaker 1: auctioned by the bank, and so a group of farmers

500
00:29:26,400 --> 00:29:30,040
Speaker 1: would show up with guns and would using violent force,

501
00:29:30,240 --> 00:29:33,480
Speaker 1: stop anyone else from bidding on the land and let

502
00:29:33,520 --> 00:29:36,400
Speaker 1: the new farmer or let the let the guy who

503
00:29:36,400 --> 00:29:38,240
Speaker 1: had been kicked off of his land put in a

504
00:29:38,280 --> 00:29:41,280
Speaker 1: low bid to get his land back, um, and he

505
00:29:41,320 --> 00:29:43,280
Speaker 1: would be the only person who would bid, because a

506
00:29:43,320 --> 00:29:46,880
Speaker 1: mob would threaten to murder anyone else who did. Um.

507
00:29:46,960 --> 00:29:48,880
Speaker 1: So this happened in some communities as a way to

508
00:29:49,000 --> 00:29:52,600
Speaker 1: like uh uh yeah, I mean it was like kind

509
00:29:52,640 --> 00:29:55,440
Speaker 1: of there, they're equivalent to this, right, It was like

510
00:29:55,440 --> 00:29:57,680
Speaker 1: a mortgage. It was a little bit more of a

511
00:29:57,680 --> 00:30:01,760
Speaker 1: crime than a mortgage strike, but it accomplished the same. Um.

512
00:30:02,120 --> 00:30:06,840
Speaker 1: It was like people, but it's a fun story. So yeah,

513
00:30:07,040 --> 00:30:09,000
Speaker 1: when I was looking into this, I found a really

514
00:30:09,000 --> 00:30:12,200
Speaker 1: cool article from website called crime think um who put

515
00:30:12,240 --> 00:30:15,320
Speaker 1: out a bunch of fun little booklets that people should

516
00:30:15,320 --> 00:30:17,520
Speaker 1: look into. The A lot of great content online. And

517
00:30:17,560 --> 00:30:19,360
Speaker 1: it was a strategic It was actually a copy of

518
00:30:19,640 --> 00:30:22,760
Speaker 1: a Spanish study by some activists that was an appraisal

519
00:30:22,800 --> 00:30:25,719
Speaker 1: of rent strikes throughout history, attempting to analyze all these

520
00:30:25,760 --> 00:30:28,520
Speaker 1: different rent strikes around the world and figure out what

521
00:30:28,600 --> 00:30:32,480
Speaker 1: the key elements of a successful rent strike are based

522
00:30:32,480 --> 00:30:34,440
Speaker 1: on sort of all of the historic data we have.

523
00:30:34,600 --> 00:30:37,440
Speaker 1: It's a really cool study. UM. And before I get

524
00:30:37,480 --> 00:30:39,720
Speaker 1: into their conclusions, there's a couple of neat, little little

525
00:30:39,760 --> 00:30:41,720
Speaker 1: individual stories they want to highlight. They talk about a

526
00:30:41,800 --> 00:30:45,800
Speaker 1: nineteen o one rent strike in Roskaman County, Ireland, UM,

527
00:30:45,800 --> 00:30:50,040
Speaker 1: with the baron who owned the land, uh like, with

528
00:30:50,160 --> 00:30:52,920
Speaker 1: him fighting against all these different local renters who had

529
00:30:52,960 --> 00:30:56,040
Speaker 1: like connected together um as part of like a resistance

530
00:30:56,080 --> 00:30:59,160
Speaker 1: movement to English colonialism UM in a group called the

531
00:30:59,240 --> 00:31:04,880
Speaker 1: United ire League. Uh. And yeah they uh it was

532
00:31:05,480 --> 00:31:08,120
Speaker 1: um like. So in nineteen o one there was this

533
00:31:08,200 --> 00:31:11,720
Speaker 1: horrible um rainy season that destroyed the harvest and drove

534
00:31:11,800 --> 00:31:14,320
Speaker 1: up the price of feed UM and made it impossible

535
00:31:14,320 --> 00:31:16,480
Speaker 1: for these people to make their rents. And the baron

536
00:31:16,520 --> 00:31:18,480
Speaker 1: who was in charge of things refused to reduce the

537
00:31:18,520 --> 00:31:21,600
Speaker 1: rents even in the face of this natural disaster um,

538
00:31:21,680 --> 00:31:23,400
Speaker 1: which put a lot of people into debt and led

539
00:31:23,440 --> 00:31:26,240
Speaker 1: to a bunch of families getting evicted. Um, which doesn't

540
00:31:26,280 --> 00:31:32,320
Speaker 1: sound familiar at all. Um. Yeah, So the people who

541
00:31:32,360 --> 00:31:34,920
Speaker 1: lived in this baron's lands put together a strike in

542
00:31:34,920 --> 00:31:38,560
Speaker 1: November of nineteen o one. Um. They organized clandestine ly

543
00:31:38,840 --> 00:31:41,680
Speaker 1: uh and informally because this was you know, if you

544
00:31:41,720 --> 00:31:43,840
Speaker 1: were a landlord in those days, you weren't against having

545
00:31:43,840 --> 00:31:45,880
Speaker 1: a bunch of people break the legs of people threatening

546
00:31:45,880 --> 00:31:48,360
Speaker 1: a rent strike. Um. And eventually they were able to

547
00:31:48,360 --> 00:31:51,360
Speaker 1: spread until ninety of the tenants on this guy's lands

548
00:31:51,600 --> 00:31:54,240
Speaker 1: took part in the rent strikes. They built barricades, they

549
00:31:54,280 --> 00:31:57,760
Speaker 1: threw rocks at the police, They illegally constructed new buildings

550
00:31:57,880 --> 00:32:01,120
Speaker 1: buildings to service their needs. Um. And it was just

551
00:32:01,160 --> 00:32:03,880
Speaker 1: like kind of impossible for local law enforcement to really

552
00:32:04,200 --> 00:32:06,560
Speaker 1: do anything about it because all of these buildings were

553
00:32:06,560 --> 00:32:10,280
Speaker 1: just like completely filled with people who were resisting um

554
00:32:10,320 --> 00:32:12,920
Speaker 1: their obligation you know what the baron saw as their

555
00:32:12,960 --> 00:32:17,960
Speaker 1: obligation to pay rent um And yeah. Uh. And it

556
00:32:18,200 --> 00:32:20,920
Speaker 1: led to in nineteen o three, the English Parliament adopting

557
00:32:21,000 --> 00:32:23,760
Speaker 1: extensive agrarian reform and putting it into the system of

558
00:32:23,800 --> 00:32:27,680
Speaker 1: tenant farming UM in which people you know, basically lived

559
00:32:27,680 --> 00:32:31,200
Speaker 1: like sharecroppers UM on the land of a landlord. So

560
00:32:31,680 --> 00:32:33,320
Speaker 1: it worked. You know, all they had to do was

561
00:32:33,440 --> 00:32:36,760
Speaker 1: set up barricades and throw rocks at the cops. UM.

562
00:32:36,800 --> 00:32:40,680
Speaker 1: But again you see like kind of the some of

563
00:32:40,720 --> 00:32:43,280
Speaker 1: the characteristics that shares with New York, where you've got

564
00:32:43,320 --> 00:32:46,840
Speaker 1: this clandestine system of organizing that leads to leads you

565
00:32:46,920 --> 00:32:49,400
Speaker 1: very quickly getting a large number of people, like an

566
00:32:49,400 --> 00:32:51,720
Speaker 1: overwhelming number of the people in the property on board

567
00:32:51,760 --> 00:32:54,800
Speaker 1: with the strike. UM. You see like a willingness to

568
00:32:54,840 --> 00:32:57,640
Speaker 1: get out into the street, UM, and in some cases

569
00:32:57,680 --> 00:33:02,200
Speaker 1: to resist physically UM. And that Yeah, it it also

570
00:33:02,400 --> 00:33:04,880
Speaker 1: takes a shipload of you know, months in in this

571
00:33:04,920 --> 00:33:08,000
Speaker 1: case of UM commitment to the cause. You know, it's

572
00:33:08,000 --> 00:33:10,600
Speaker 1: not it's not a simple thing. It's not over quickly.

573
00:33:11,320 --> 00:33:13,560
Speaker 1: So yeah, I don't know. I think that's that's interesting.

574
00:33:13,600 --> 00:33:15,320
Speaker 1: I think the history and this kind of stuff is

575
00:33:16,080 --> 00:33:21,800
Speaker 1: important to talk. It's obviously different, we live in a

576
00:33:21,880 --> 00:33:24,880
Speaker 1: very different world than when these things happen, but it's

577
00:33:24,920 --> 00:33:29,560
Speaker 1: a good foundation and it's it's uh, it shows how

578
00:33:29,600 --> 00:33:34,320
Speaker 1: they can how effective it can be. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

579
00:33:34,400 --> 00:33:36,400
Speaker 1: there's one I really. The last one I really want

580
00:33:36,440 --> 00:33:40,120
Speaker 1: to talk about is nineteen thirty one in Barcelona. Um So,

581
00:33:40,800 --> 00:33:43,600
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty one, Barcelona was the most expensive city

582
00:33:43,600 --> 00:33:48,120
Speaker 1: in Europe and rent regularly was thirty of people's wages

583
00:33:48,320 --> 00:33:50,680
Speaker 1: as compared about fifteen percent and the rest of Europe.

584
00:33:50,720 --> 00:33:52,880
Speaker 1: So that actually kind of sounds like where we are

585
00:33:52,960 --> 00:33:57,920
Speaker 1: right now. Um yeah, uh, and it was. It was

586
00:33:57,960 --> 00:34:00,160
Speaker 1: just a bad situation and a lot of people couldn't

587
00:34:00,160 --> 00:34:02,120
Speaker 1: afford to live in real houses, and they had these

588
00:34:02,160 --> 00:34:05,960
Speaker 1: horrible little these basically pod hotels for workers where you

589
00:34:06,000 --> 00:34:08,680
Speaker 1: would have like a tiny little closets amount of space,

590
00:34:08,840 --> 00:34:11,719
Speaker 1: and a lot of particularly young men in Barcelona lived

591
00:34:11,760 --> 00:34:14,960
Speaker 1: in these hell holes. Um, which again doesn't sound anything

592
00:34:15,000 --> 00:34:16,880
Speaker 1: like what we work, was trying to get billions of

593
00:34:16,920 --> 00:34:21,360
Speaker 1: dollars to provide to people. Uh it's fun. So uh

594
00:34:21,400 --> 00:34:24,000
Speaker 1: it was. It was bad and in April of of

595
00:34:24,160 --> 00:34:27,400
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty one, a rent strike erupted with participants demanding

596
00:34:27,400 --> 00:34:30,200
Speaker 1: a forty drop and the cost of their rent. And

597
00:34:30,280 --> 00:34:33,760
Speaker 1: this strike went on from April until December and involved

598
00:34:33,800 --> 00:34:39,600
Speaker 1: between forty five thousand and a hundred thousand people. Yeah,

599
00:34:39,680 --> 00:34:42,480
Speaker 1: and it was um. The so the group that organized

600
00:34:42,520 --> 00:34:45,200
Speaker 1: This was essentially founded by the CNT, which is like

601
00:34:45,360 --> 00:34:48,200
Speaker 1: the National Confederation of Workers. It was like a construction

602
00:34:48,239 --> 00:34:52,879
Speaker 1: worker union kind of sort of thing. Um. And yeah,

603
00:34:52,920 --> 00:34:57,200
Speaker 1: neighbors again built barricades together. They resisted evictions. Um. And

604
00:34:57,239 --> 00:34:59,000
Speaker 1: when you know, the police would come to evict someone

605
00:34:59,000 --> 00:35:00,960
Speaker 1: they were successfully able to fight the police off. They

606
00:35:00,960 --> 00:35:04,239
Speaker 1: would throw big parties in the streets, and when the

607
00:35:04,280 --> 00:35:07,120
Speaker 1: police won, they would break back into the evicted house

608
00:35:07,120 --> 00:35:10,000
Speaker 1: at night and then throw a celebration inside the house

609
00:35:10,040 --> 00:35:12,680
Speaker 1: once they reopened it. Um. They were helped by the

610
00:35:12,719 --> 00:35:14,560
Speaker 1: fact that the same workers who would shut off the

611
00:35:14,640 --> 00:35:17,640
Speaker 1: electricity or the water in the morning were also strikers,

612
00:35:17,640 --> 00:35:19,160
Speaker 1: and so we'd just come back in the evening and

613
00:35:19,160 --> 00:35:22,879
Speaker 1: turn it back on. Um. So this was all, this

614
00:35:22,960 --> 00:35:25,160
Speaker 1: was all cool. They were also protests in front of

615
00:35:25,200 --> 00:35:31,480
Speaker 1: landlord's houses. Um. It was uh, it was neat um

616
00:35:31,520 --> 00:35:34,200
Speaker 1: and it had there were a lot of times actually

617
00:35:34,320 --> 00:35:38,040
Speaker 1: the series of red strikes. UM. But I don't know

618
00:35:38,080 --> 00:35:40,600
Speaker 1: if this is the right crowd for what I'm about

619
00:35:40,680 --> 00:35:44,080
Speaker 1: to say, But I keep having that song from Rent

620
00:35:44,840 --> 00:35:48,239
Speaker 1: going through my head and about how weren't going to

621
00:35:48,360 --> 00:35:52,400
Speaker 1: pay last year's rent? All of it? Anyway, that I

622
00:35:52,480 --> 00:35:55,680
Speaker 1: just imagined like a big musical party in Barcelona. Yeah,

623
00:35:56,360 --> 00:35:59,080
Speaker 1: I can't imagine a strike in Barcelona that didn't have

624
00:35:59,120 --> 00:36:03,000
Speaker 1: a musical compose on it. Daniel, if you could put

625
00:36:03,040 --> 00:36:07,440
Speaker 1: that track from the musical Rent in this episode, just

626
00:36:07,560 --> 00:36:10,200
Speaker 1: dropped the whole musical Rent in here. That's where two

627
00:36:10,200 --> 00:36:21,840
Speaker 1: hours we'll be back, after the entirety of Rent together everything,

628
00:36:24,840 --> 00:36:27,319
Speaker 1: we're back. Oh my gosh, you guys, there are some

629
00:36:27,480 --> 00:36:32,319
Speaker 1: catchy tunes, choreography. Oh my gosh. I remembered Rent as

630
00:36:32,800 --> 00:36:35,880
Speaker 1: a very long musical um, and was surprised that it

631
00:36:35,960 --> 00:36:40,200
Speaker 1: was a series of ads for toothbrushes, but um, wild

632
00:36:40,520 --> 00:36:46,840
Speaker 1: memories work um, but still worth making a movie version of. Yes,

633
00:36:47,880 --> 00:36:54,080
Speaker 1: nobody's ever disagreed with that, because I'm sorry that so anyway,

634
00:36:54,080 --> 00:36:57,120
Speaker 1: those are some fun historical examples of different rent strikes

635
00:36:57,560 --> 00:37:01,920
Speaker 1: and yeah, there's so crime think you know. They published

636
00:37:01,920 --> 00:37:04,880
Speaker 1: this um this the Spanish sort of analysis of different

637
00:37:04,880 --> 00:37:07,719
Speaker 1: rent strikes throughout history, and it came to some conclusions.

638
00:37:07,719 --> 00:37:10,120
Speaker 1: I don't want to quote those conclusions, um, because it

639
00:37:10,360 --> 00:37:12,880
Speaker 1: notes that to succeed a rent strike requires three elements

640
00:37:12,920 --> 00:37:16,640
Speaker 1: shared dissatisfaction UM, which means that neighbors have to collectivize

641
00:37:16,680 --> 00:37:19,880
Speaker 1: their demands and have to like like agree on what

642
00:37:20,000 --> 00:37:22,359
Speaker 1: the problem is, not be happy with like the status quo.

643
00:37:22,400 --> 00:37:25,120
Speaker 1: You have to have a lot of angry people at once, right, Um.

644
00:37:25,239 --> 00:37:26,680
Speaker 1: And also you know, it has to be shared, which

645
00:37:26,719 --> 00:37:30,040
Speaker 1: is part of building, you know, communication between different groups

646
00:37:30,040 --> 00:37:32,239
Speaker 1: of people who are all affected by this. UH. Number

647
00:37:32,280 --> 00:37:35,319
Speaker 1: two is outreach. UM. Most of these strikes begin with

648
00:37:35,360 --> 00:37:38,840
Speaker 1: a small number of people and then grow rapidly. UH. Therefore,

649
00:37:38,880 --> 00:37:41,000
Speaker 1: they need the means to spread their call to action,

650
00:37:41,080 --> 00:37:43,680
Speaker 1: communicate their complaints, and ask for support and solidarity. In

651
00:37:43,719 --> 00:37:46,319
Speaker 1: many cases, strikers can win with only a third of

652
00:37:46,320 --> 00:37:48,720
Speaker 1: the renters of a property participating in a rent strike,

653
00:37:48,840 --> 00:37:51,320
Speaker 1: but sufficient outreach is necessary to get to these numbers

654
00:37:51,320 --> 00:37:55,240
Speaker 1: and to make the threat that the strikers spread convincing. UM.

655
00:37:55,280 --> 00:37:57,719
Speaker 1: And the the rent striker that we talked to, and

656
00:37:57,719 --> 00:38:00,560
Speaker 1: we'll be publishing that interview unedited as a separate things.

657
00:38:00,640 --> 00:38:01,799
Speaker 1: You can hear the whole thing. But one of the

658
00:38:01,800 --> 00:38:04,200
Speaker 1: things he pointed out with is that, UM, the whole

659
00:38:04,480 --> 00:38:06,719
Speaker 1: plague thing that we're in right now means you have

660
00:38:06,760 --> 00:38:09,800
Speaker 1: to go differently about organizing. You have to be careful.

661
00:38:09,920 --> 00:38:11,480
Speaker 1: You can't you don't want to be just like putting

662
00:38:11,480 --> 00:38:14,239
Speaker 1: papers in people's like mailboxes, because you could spread it

663
00:38:14,280 --> 00:38:17,000
Speaker 1: that way. He had a number of different tactics that

664
00:38:17,040 --> 00:38:19,120
Speaker 1: he used to eventually get the word out to people

665
00:38:19,160 --> 00:38:20,759
Speaker 1: who would reach out to other people they knew, and

666
00:38:20,760 --> 00:38:23,640
Speaker 1: they got each other on online and they communicated mainly

667
00:38:23,680 --> 00:38:25,560
Speaker 1: through like email at that point, and that was kind

668
00:38:25,560 --> 00:38:27,560
Speaker 1: of one of his goals was to get everybody online

669
00:38:27,600 --> 00:38:30,480
Speaker 1: and talking privately as quickly as possible. And of course,

670
00:38:30,520 --> 00:38:32,080
Speaker 1: one of the fun stories that's come out of this

671
00:38:32,200 --> 00:38:34,200
Speaker 1: is that this one building and I think it was

672
00:38:34,239 --> 00:38:37,400
Speaker 1: New York, succeeded in organizing a rent strike because the

673
00:38:37,480 --> 00:38:41,200
Speaker 1: landlord emailed them a letter saying that like, nobody's getting

674
00:38:41,239 --> 00:38:43,839
Speaker 1: any rent relief and he c seed everybody. So they

675
00:38:43,880 --> 00:38:49,320
Speaker 1: suddenly had like, oh, here's everybody who's pissed that story.

676
00:38:49,880 --> 00:38:52,560
Speaker 1: That's a good one. Um, okay. And so the third

677
00:38:52,640 --> 00:38:55,680
Speaker 1: thing that that you need for a successful rent strike

678
00:38:55,760 --> 00:38:58,960
Speaker 1: is support. Um. The people who are actually striking need

679
00:38:59,040 --> 00:39:02,560
Speaker 1: legal support for court procedures. They need housing support for

680
00:39:02,600 --> 00:39:05,560
Speaker 1: people who do get evicted if that happens. Um, physical

681
00:39:05,600 --> 00:39:07,759
Speaker 1: support to fight evictions. This is all the stuff we

682
00:39:07,760 --> 00:39:09,520
Speaker 1: were talking about. You know, you have to have a

683
00:39:09,520 --> 00:39:12,160
Speaker 1: community trying to take especially if it's a large scale

684
00:39:12,200 --> 00:39:14,520
Speaker 1: rent strike. People need to be able to see to

685
00:39:14,520 --> 00:39:17,200
Speaker 1: their at least immediate needs while they fight for the

686
00:39:17,280 --> 00:39:21,439
Speaker 1: chance to have a better life. Um. So so much

687
00:39:21,480 --> 00:39:25,880
Speaker 1: easier when you are a tenant in a building with

688
00:39:25,920 --> 00:39:28,799
Speaker 1: a lot of other people, or you know, again a

689
00:39:28,840 --> 00:39:34,280
Speaker 1: property management company versus people that are renting a home

690
00:39:35,000 --> 00:39:37,879
Speaker 1: or what right. Yeah, and that's gonna be really one

691
00:39:37,880 --> 00:39:39,720
Speaker 1: of the tough things. So a lot of my time

692
00:39:39,960 --> 00:39:42,680
Speaker 1: when I lived in Dallas, we had a wonderful slum

693
00:39:42,719 --> 00:39:45,960
Speaker 1: lord who I actually am very as slum lords go,

694
00:39:46,080 --> 00:39:49,720
Speaker 1: one of the best that you could possibly have. Um,

695
00:39:49,840 --> 00:39:53,320
Speaker 1: which is by which I mean when the roof collapsed

696
00:39:53,320 --> 00:39:56,200
Speaker 1: on me while I was showering, Um, it was fixed

697
00:39:56,239 --> 00:40:03,080
Speaker 1: and only six months. Sorry, I'm sorry. I was taking

698
00:40:03,080 --> 00:40:05,720
Speaker 1: a shower and the roof collapsed on me. That actually

699
00:40:05,719 --> 00:40:08,399
Speaker 1: happened to me one of my places, like years ago,

700
00:40:08,520 --> 00:40:11,719
Speaker 1: to the roof, the roof you know, cut that to

701
00:40:11,960 --> 00:40:17,120
Speaker 1: it was it was taken care of. Actually, Katie fun story. Uh,

702
00:40:17,320 --> 00:40:19,919
Speaker 1: there was a thunderstorm with hail happening. When the roof

703
00:40:19,960 --> 00:40:24,400
Speaker 1: collapsed during hail, it was it was like freezing outside.

704
00:40:24,440 --> 00:40:26,920
Speaker 1: That's what caused it. Oh my god. So I had

705
00:40:26,960 --> 00:40:30,480
Speaker 1: a fun winter of very very cold, hot showers. There

706
00:40:30,520 --> 00:40:32,759
Speaker 1: were sometimes it was actually quite nice once we got

707
00:40:32,800 --> 00:40:36,320
Speaker 1: some of it knocked away, but it took six months

708
00:40:36,320 --> 00:40:41,959
Speaker 1: to actually affect the repairs. But but the repairman did

709
00:40:42,040 --> 00:40:44,160
Speaker 1: come the next day, and while there was nothing he

710
00:40:44,200 --> 00:40:54,400
Speaker 1: could do for months, he sold me weed. So as like,

711
00:40:54,440 --> 00:40:56,160
Speaker 1: I know what the upside of this is going to be.

712
00:40:56,640 --> 00:41:00,719
Speaker 1: So anyway, the situation, this guy, the the slum lord

713
00:41:00,719 --> 00:41:03,160
Speaker 1: who owned my place, owned a bunch of properties. I

714
00:41:03,160 --> 00:41:04,680
Speaker 1: don't know if he owned more than ten, but he

715
00:41:04,719 --> 00:41:07,480
Speaker 1: probably had more than a hundred individual tenants in all

716
00:41:07,480 --> 00:41:09,399
Speaker 1: of his properties, just based on what I was able

717
00:41:09,440 --> 00:41:11,200
Speaker 1: to figure. But we didn't know who each other was.

718
00:41:11,280 --> 00:41:12,880
Speaker 1: He didn't have a he didn't have a sign in

719
00:41:12,960 --> 00:41:15,040
Speaker 1: front of every house that said like this is this

720
00:41:15,120 --> 00:41:19,520
Speaker 1: in such companies? Yeah, and it would have taken I

721
00:41:19,800 --> 00:41:22,080
Speaker 1: think back now, if i'd been interested in really fucking

722
00:41:22,080 --> 00:41:24,600
Speaker 1: with him, which I didn't at the time because I

723
00:41:24,640 --> 00:41:27,360
Speaker 1: had no money and it was very cheap because he

724
00:41:27,400 --> 00:41:30,680
Speaker 1: was a criminal. Um. But if we'd been trying, if

725
00:41:30,719 --> 00:41:34,880
Speaker 1: we'd tried to organize for something like this, um stuff

726
00:41:34,880 --> 00:41:36,720
Speaker 1: that I might have worked would have been like searching

727
00:41:36,719 --> 00:41:39,200
Speaker 1: for the name of the realty company in like past

728
00:41:39,320 --> 00:41:41,640
Speaker 1: Craigslist ads or other sort of like to see like

729
00:41:41,680 --> 00:41:44,040
Speaker 1: what properties were up recently to try to build an

730
00:41:44,080 --> 00:41:47,080
Speaker 1: idea of you know, who lives where and then But

731
00:41:47,160 --> 00:41:49,279
Speaker 1: you've got to be careful like all this stuff, you know,

732
00:41:49,320 --> 00:41:51,279
Speaker 1: not just because of the COVID nineteen. You have to

733
00:41:51,280 --> 00:41:53,040
Speaker 1: be careful. You have to take like the steps we're

734
00:41:53,040 --> 00:41:55,200
Speaker 1: all taking to not spread it. But you also you

735
00:41:55,239 --> 00:41:57,960
Speaker 1: don't want your landlords to know you're trying to organize

736
00:41:57,960 --> 00:42:00,279
Speaker 1: a strike. All these strikes that were successful, by the

737
00:42:00,280 --> 00:42:03,120
Speaker 1: time the landlords realized what was happening, a shipload of

738
00:42:03,160 --> 00:42:05,480
Speaker 1: people were all on the same page, right, Like that's

739
00:42:05,520 --> 00:42:07,799
Speaker 1: an important part of it. Yeah, I imagine a lot

740
00:42:07,840 --> 00:42:10,799
Speaker 1: of them would see this coming now, Yeah, I mean

741
00:42:10,800 --> 00:42:14,600
Speaker 1: they will now everyone's now people are talking about it exactly. Yeah.

742
00:42:14,640 --> 00:42:18,640
Speaker 1: And there's a large petition that's that's going around that's

743
00:42:18,680 --> 00:42:24,319
Speaker 1: with um rent strike and yeah, their demands, uh, they're

744
00:42:24,360 --> 00:42:26,560
Speaker 1: making to governors in every state, every governor of every

745
00:42:26,560 --> 00:42:29,360
Speaker 1: state is to freeze rent, mortgage and utility bill collection

746
00:42:29,400 --> 00:42:32,399
Speaker 1: for two months UM. And they've got about a million

747
00:42:32,440 --> 00:42:34,040
Speaker 1: and a half Americans who have signed on to that,

748
00:42:34,120 --> 00:42:36,200
Speaker 1: and that actually strikes me as just based on historically

749
00:42:36,239 --> 00:42:38,120
Speaker 1: we're looking at, I think that's a pretty good list

750
00:42:38,160 --> 00:42:42,320
Speaker 1: of demands. Um, I think it's reasonable and achievable. Yeah,

751
00:42:42,440 --> 00:42:45,040
Speaker 1: I'm gonna enter Jack with a very similar question to earlier.

752
00:42:45,080 --> 00:42:48,719
Speaker 1: That's a freeze, and a freeze still would mean that

753
00:42:48,760 --> 00:42:51,719
Speaker 1: they would need to pay eventually. No, no, no, no,

754
00:42:51,719 --> 00:42:54,640
Speaker 1: no no no. A freeze you do not pay eventually.

755
00:42:55,480 --> 00:42:57,760
Speaker 1: This is all This is very helpful for me because

756
00:42:57,880 --> 00:43:01,080
Speaker 1: I've heard to find in different ways, know all of

757
00:43:01,120 --> 00:43:04,279
Speaker 1: these things I've heard used in different contexts with people. Yeah,

758
00:43:04,320 --> 00:43:06,799
Speaker 1: and I get you're absolutely right. And that was something

759
00:43:06,800 --> 00:43:09,080
Speaker 1: again that Ali conventioned at the start where the landlord

760
00:43:09,120 --> 00:43:11,759
Speaker 1: was defining a rent freeze as I just won't increase

761
00:43:12,120 --> 00:43:17,200
Speaker 1: your rent. Right. So there's different they're actually demanding is

762
00:43:17,239 --> 00:43:19,520
Speaker 1: that we don't have to pay for these it does

763
00:43:19,600 --> 00:43:22,319
Speaker 1: not accumulate for two months. It seems to me that

764
00:43:22,360 --> 00:43:26,399
Speaker 1: are reasonable, Like this is this understanding of like, yeah,

765
00:43:26,440 --> 00:43:28,920
Speaker 1: I need to pay my mortgage. I also understand that

766
00:43:29,000 --> 00:43:31,120
Speaker 1: you are in a position where you can't pay rent.

767
00:43:31,200 --> 00:43:33,760
Speaker 1: Let's make a deal. I've seen these stories of people's

768
00:43:34,040 --> 00:43:36,880
Speaker 1: in ord interacting directly with their tenants saying can you

769
00:43:36,920 --> 00:43:40,440
Speaker 1: pay two hundred dollars for the next three months, you know,

770
00:43:41,320 --> 00:43:44,360
Speaker 1: with people on a human level, or saying like, okay,

771
00:43:44,400 --> 00:43:48,239
Speaker 1: then let's negotiate the back pay. Let's negotiate what I've

772
00:43:48,320 --> 00:43:50,600
Speaker 1: lost and say like or a payment plan or some

773
00:43:50,680 --> 00:43:52,880
Speaker 1: sort of a situation where you're working with people with

774
00:43:52,920 --> 00:43:54,600
Speaker 1: the understanding that I'm not going to put you out

775
00:43:54,640 --> 00:43:56,680
Speaker 1: on the street. And I'm not saying that I think

776
00:43:56,680 --> 00:43:59,560
Speaker 1: that that is better than the rent strike either, just

777
00:43:59,680 --> 00:44:04,000
Speaker 1: that there has got to be some grappling coming to

778
00:44:04,080 --> 00:44:07,160
Speaker 1: terms of the fact that people cannot pay rent right now,

779
00:44:07,560 --> 00:44:13,880
Speaker 1: and homeless people are a huge drain. Not to stated

780
00:44:13,960 --> 00:44:16,400
Speaker 1: like that, but it's a huge expense for the country

781
00:44:16,480 --> 00:44:20,200
Speaker 1: as well, and and that's a negative effect on our economy. Um.

782
00:44:21,080 --> 00:44:23,400
Speaker 1: I think the way to look at it, and this

783
00:44:23,480 --> 00:44:27,439
Speaker 1: is something I didn't express uh well in the Mark

784
00:44:27,480 --> 00:44:30,080
Speaker 1: Cuban interview, But the fundamental issue I have with like

785
00:44:30,640 --> 00:44:33,280
Speaker 1: kind of talking about this in other ways, like bringing

786
00:44:33,360 --> 00:44:36,040
Speaker 1: like um, I think the thing that we have to

787
00:44:36,080 --> 00:44:38,239
Speaker 1: focus on is that like people have a right to

788
00:44:38,400 --> 00:44:41,680
Speaker 1: not be out on the stress. You know, you can

789
00:44:41,760 --> 00:44:44,000
Speaker 1: choose live on the street if you want to. I'm

790
00:44:44,040 --> 00:44:46,000
Speaker 1: not saying you don't have that right, but you have

791
00:44:46,040 --> 00:44:48,600
Speaker 1: the right. People have the right to shelter. Um we

792
00:44:48,640 --> 00:44:51,200
Speaker 1: haven't we have enough homes, you know, it's not a

793
00:44:51,239 --> 00:44:53,680
Speaker 1: problem of not enough homes have been built. Yeah, people

794
00:44:53,719 --> 00:44:57,680
Speaker 1: have right to shelter. This like, even if there was

795
00:44:57,719 --> 00:45:01,000
Speaker 1: not a plague. Yeah, even if it wasn't a plague.

796
00:45:01,280 --> 00:45:03,640
Speaker 1: But let's take the plague as an opportunity to get

797
00:45:03,680 --> 00:45:06,280
Speaker 1: everyone talking about how people have a right to shelter.

798
00:45:06,440 --> 00:45:08,680
Speaker 1: And so when something like this happens, we have to

799
00:45:09,360 --> 00:45:16,240
Speaker 1: we have to not funk up their ability to stay sheltered. Yeah. Yeah, So, uh, Cody,

800
00:45:16,320 --> 00:45:19,560
Speaker 1: did you want to get to um uh your chunk

801
00:45:19,560 --> 00:45:23,160
Speaker 1: of this, because that's what I got, motherfucker. Oh, I

802
00:45:23,200 --> 00:45:25,719
Speaker 1: do want to. I wanted to state one last thing

803
00:45:26,120 --> 00:45:29,280
Speaker 1: that that came up in our our interview with um

804
00:45:29,520 --> 00:45:32,960
Speaker 1: Ali Khan, which is that his landlord started reaching out

805
00:45:33,000 --> 00:45:35,520
Speaker 1: to people one on one when the rent strike began

806
00:45:35,560 --> 00:45:39,440
Speaker 1: and offering them repayment plans that were like special deals

807
00:45:39,480 --> 00:45:41,319
Speaker 1: he would give them. And once you sign onto a

808
00:45:41,400 --> 00:45:44,719
Speaker 1: repayment plan, you've committed to pay your rent one way

809
00:45:44,760 --> 00:45:47,560
Speaker 1: or the other. But it's also he was Alikan was

810
00:45:47,560 --> 00:45:49,239
Speaker 1: concerned that, like, I think this is an attempt to

811
00:45:49,239 --> 00:45:51,080
Speaker 1: get a bunch of people out of you know, rent

812
00:45:51,120 --> 00:45:55,680
Speaker 1: controlled apartments by setting up a payment plan that because

813
00:45:55,719 --> 00:45:59,479
Speaker 1: they already lived paycheck to paycheck before the coronavirus, they're

814
00:45:59,520 --> 00:46:01,200
Speaker 1: just knock going to be able to make no matter

815
00:46:01,239 --> 00:46:06,080
Speaker 1: how reasonable it seems. And then this landlord's got an

816
00:46:06,080 --> 00:46:07,960
Speaker 1: ability to not just get them out of the place,

817
00:46:08,160 --> 00:46:10,319
Speaker 1: but to stagger it because they're not you know, these

818
00:46:10,400 --> 00:46:12,239
Speaker 1: especially these landlords who want a lot of properties, these

819
00:46:12,239 --> 00:46:14,359
Speaker 1: giant companies, they're not dumb. They know that it would

820
00:46:14,360 --> 00:46:16,440
Speaker 1: be bad pressed to kick a whole building out on

821
00:46:16,480 --> 00:46:19,960
Speaker 1: the street at once. Um, So they're going to stagger

822
00:46:20,000 --> 00:46:22,480
Speaker 1: the evictions like that's their goal is to still push

823
00:46:22,520 --> 00:46:26,520
Speaker 1: people out and raise the rent um and not uh

824
00:46:26,600 --> 00:46:29,720
Speaker 1: not have to take the bad press um. And so anyway,

825
00:46:29,760 --> 00:46:32,919
Speaker 1: that was something like and it's generally this idea because

826
00:46:32,960 --> 00:46:34,919
Speaker 1: I think most people, you know, I've I've never been

827
00:46:35,040 --> 00:46:37,160
Speaker 1: in I've never like worked in a in a union.

828
00:46:37,200 --> 00:46:41,640
Speaker 1: It was never really an option for the places I worked. Um.

829
00:46:41,680 --> 00:46:44,920
Speaker 1: But when you have like a union negotiation, you have

830
00:46:45,000 --> 00:46:48,000
Speaker 1: to stop, like that's the reason for collective bargaining is

831
00:46:48,000 --> 00:46:49,520
Speaker 1: we're not gonna take I'm not gonna try to get

832
00:46:49,560 --> 00:46:52,319
Speaker 1: an individual deal like this is. I'm gonna stand for

833
00:46:52,360 --> 00:46:57,960
Speaker 1: this for everybody. Um. Yeah. Uh So that's anyway, That's

834
00:46:57,960 --> 00:47:00,759
Speaker 1: that's what I had to talk about. And now it's

835
00:47:00,800 --> 00:47:03,719
Speaker 1: I'm going to turn it over to you, Cody. Yeah. Um.

836
00:47:03,719 --> 00:47:06,400
Speaker 1: This so I'm sort of gonna go through a little

837
00:47:06,400 --> 00:47:10,480
Speaker 1: bit about what individual states are doing, uh and what

838
00:47:10,680 --> 00:47:12,840
Speaker 1: is happening on a federal level in regards to rent

839
00:47:12,840 --> 00:47:14,960
Speaker 1: evictions and things. It kind of touches on what you

840
00:47:15,040 --> 00:47:18,200
Speaker 1: just talked about, Robert and Katie, the questions that you've

841
00:47:18,400 --> 00:47:22,640
Speaker 1: keep coming back to. Um, because federally, Uh so Trump

842
00:47:22,640 --> 00:47:27,359
Speaker 1: announced this halt on foreclosures. Um, it's good, it's helpful. Um.

843
00:47:27,400 --> 00:47:29,640
Speaker 1: It's moretant to note that it's an order. The order

844
00:47:29,680 --> 00:47:32,600
Speaker 1: put a moratorium on foreclosures for single family home mortgages

845
00:47:32,880 --> 00:47:35,840
Speaker 1: backed by the Federal Housing Administration or obtained through Fannie

846
00:47:35,840 --> 00:47:38,960
Speaker 1: may or Freddy mac So it's not really saying like

847
00:47:39,000 --> 00:47:42,239
Speaker 1: nobody can get evicted. There these very specific guidelines to

848
00:47:42,320 --> 00:47:46,200
Speaker 1: who it applies to. Similarly, the Stimulus Bill forbids evictions

849
00:47:46,239 --> 00:47:50,759
Speaker 1: and late charges on any property receiving federal aid. So

850
00:47:50,760 --> 00:47:53,960
Speaker 1: again it's very specific to these these these kinds of properties,

851
00:47:54,360 --> 00:47:57,440
Speaker 1: but also in regards to the eviction stops, and basically

852
00:47:57,440 --> 00:48:01,360
Speaker 1: anytime you'll see something about evictions, it is it pertains

853
00:48:01,400 --> 00:48:04,239
Speaker 1: to a certain period usually just a few weeks um.

854
00:48:04,280 --> 00:48:06,759
Speaker 1: That might extend as this continues, as people sort of

855
00:48:06,800 --> 00:48:10,120
Speaker 1: started taking more seriously. Um. But it only stops the

856
00:48:10,200 --> 00:48:14,320
Speaker 1: courts from processing the eviction requests from landlords. The rent

857
00:48:14,360 --> 00:48:18,319
Speaker 1: is still owed, the landlords can still submit requests, um.

858
00:48:18,480 --> 00:48:20,640
Speaker 1: So when this is all over and the courts resume,

859
00:48:21,400 --> 00:48:26,440
Speaker 1: then those requests will be we'll go through the courts. Um. Yeah,

860
00:48:26,520 --> 00:48:29,799
Speaker 1: it's the it's the most like what it actually does.

861
00:48:29,840 --> 00:48:32,400
Speaker 1: The policy, as it stated, just sort of recognizes that

862
00:48:32,480 --> 00:48:36,000
Speaker 1: like we don't want to make the like, we don't

863
00:48:36,040 --> 00:48:38,359
Speaker 1: care about these people. All we care about is just

864
00:48:38,440 --> 00:48:41,799
Speaker 1: like not making the plague worse right now, exactly. Yeah,

865
00:48:41,840 --> 00:48:45,000
Speaker 1: and also not like there's also an element of like,

866
00:48:45,040 --> 00:48:48,440
Speaker 1: here's what we're doing, so everybody calmed down, let the

867
00:48:48,520 --> 00:48:54,200
Speaker 1: market stabilize, you know, like we're the economy is fine,

868
00:48:54,239 --> 00:48:58,480
Speaker 1: we're protecting you when you're not not really yeah, exactly,

869
00:48:58,560 --> 00:49:01,239
Speaker 1: it's not it's not as not as protective, I guess

870
00:49:01,280 --> 00:49:04,240
Speaker 1: as it's sort of being presented um, because yeah, you'll

871
00:49:04,280 --> 00:49:06,239
Speaker 1: still owe that money, and you might be evicted because

872
00:49:06,239 --> 00:49:08,719
Speaker 1: your landlord might have submitted an eviction requests while the

873
00:49:08,760 --> 00:49:12,399
Speaker 1: courts weren't processing them. Um. According to uh ali Asa

874
00:49:12,800 --> 00:49:15,680
Speaker 1: Dorona of the Eviction Lab at Princeton University, it does

875
00:49:15,719 --> 00:49:18,440
Speaker 1: not prevent landlords from filing. It might mean that the

876
00:49:18,520 --> 00:49:21,000
Speaker 1: marshal won't come to your door to physically evict you

877
00:49:21,040 --> 00:49:23,960
Speaker 1: from the house, but your landlord can still initiate an

878
00:49:23,960 --> 00:49:27,520
Speaker 1: eviction process. We call it the scarlet e that eviction

879
00:49:27,600 --> 00:49:31,360
Speaker 1: could prevent them from accessing future housing, trigger future job loss,

880
00:49:31,400 --> 00:49:34,040
Speaker 1: affect their mental and physical health, and their families well being.

881
00:49:34,440 --> 00:49:37,080
Speaker 1: So while these moratoria are important first steps, it does

882
00:49:37,120 --> 00:49:40,040
Speaker 1: not blanketly ensure that renters everywhere are going to stay

883
00:49:40,120 --> 00:49:45,319
Speaker 1: housed um so um. For example, I'm gonna read this

884
00:49:45,400 --> 00:49:48,160
Speaker 1: passage from an intercept article, the title of which I

885
00:49:48,160 --> 00:49:52,640
Speaker 1: will reveal when I'm done quote on March. On March

886
00:49:52,719 --> 00:49:56,920
Speaker 1: twenty five, Westminster Management, a unit of Kushner Companies, filed

887
00:49:56,920 --> 00:50:00,320
Speaker 1: a lawsuit requesting sheriff services to enforce an a fiction

888
00:50:00,360 --> 00:50:02,840
Speaker 1: against a man residing at the company's Harbor Point Is

889
00:50:02,960 --> 00:50:07,360
Speaker 1: State apartment in Essex, Maryland. Days later, on March thirtie,

890
00:50:07,520 --> 00:50:10,840
Speaker 1: this is six days ago, Kushner's company filed a collection

891
00:50:10,920 --> 00:50:15,680
Speaker 1: lawsuit against another man in the same complex. Um So, anyway,

892
00:50:15,719 --> 00:50:19,600
Speaker 1: that article is called coronavirus hasn't stopped Jared Kushner's real

893
00:50:19,680 --> 00:50:24,000
Speaker 1: estate empire from hounding tenants with debt collection eviction lawsuits.

894
00:50:24,480 --> 00:50:28,040
Speaker 1: It's a long title, a long title, very descriptive about

895
00:50:28,120 --> 00:50:32,200
Speaker 1: the president's son in law, Cody. That makes me wonder,

896
00:50:32,400 --> 00:50:36,200
Speaker 1: is Jared Kushner involved in this somehow? It seems like

897
00:50:36,239 --> 00:50:39,560
Speaker 1: it's possible that the real estate mogul's real estate moguls

898
00:50:39,600 --> 00:50:43,480
Speaker 1: step son in law is maybe doing the exact thing

899
00:50:43,560 --> 00:50:46,839
Speaker 1: that he's told not to by the federal government. Um So, yeah,

900
00:50:46,960 --> 00:50:49,400
Speaker 1: just a lot of these, uh the state actions are

901
00:50:49,480 --> 00:50:52,799
Speaker 1: just very similar to what's going on federally. UM Alabama,

902
00:50:52,840 --> 00:50:55,520
Speaker 1: for example, no evictions during a public health emergency. It's

903
00:50:55,560 --> 00:50:58,800
Speaker 1: all sort of like, no evictions during when this state

904
00:50:59,000 --> 00:51:03,719
Speaker 1: declares this and urgency. UM Alaska UH forestall divictions of

905
00:51:03,760 --> 00:51:09,160
Speaker 1: tenants covered by the Alaska Housing Finance Corporations, Specifically UM

906
00:51:09,440 --> 00:51:13,040
Speaker 1: stall diviction hearings until May one. That date is going

907
00:51:13,080 --> 00:51:15,359
Speaker 1: to pop up a lot that general time period. A

908
00:51:15,360 --> 00:51:19,560
Speaker 1: lot of these are just for April UM. Again, I

909
00:51:19,560 --> 00:51:23,480
Speaker 1: assume that these are going to be extended as this progresses,

910
00:51:23,520 --> 00:51:25,400
Speaker 1: But a lot of them have started out being very

911
00:51:25,400 --> 00:51:28,080
Speaker 1: conservative about like, Okay, April, we're gonna take care of.

912
00:51:28,160 --> 00:51:30,319
Speaker 1: But then I guess you know, you're on your own.

913
00:51:31,080 --> 00:51:33,239
Speaker 1: So a lot of these apply only April, except for

914
00:51:33,280 --> 00:51:37,640
Speaker 1: the next state alphabetically, which is Arizona. UM who stalls

915
00:51:38,640 --> 00:51:43,839
Speaker 1: on evictions is supposed to last twenty days since March UM.

916
00:51:43,880 --> 00:51:46,560
Speaker 1: So there are some states that are didn't know how

917
00:51:46,560 --> 00:51:48,200
Speaker 1: long this is going to take, and like, okay, for

918
00:51:48,280 --> 00:51:51,280
Speaker 1: four months, for three months, Uh, this is gonna take effect.

919
00:51:52,520 --> 00:51:56,840
Speaker 1: Uh in California. Oh so in Arkansas they have not

920
00:51:56,880 --> 00:52:01,440
Speaker 1: announced anything. Um, they're good, They're fine, they're good, They're

921
00:52:01,440 --> 00:52:05,160
Speaker 1: they're good. Um, California, all of our advice should be

922
00:52:05,200 --> 00:52:07,680
Speaker 1: except for Arkansas, y'all got this. Yeah, I know you

923
00:52:07,760 --> 00:52:09,320
Speaker 1: can take care of You're good. You're good. I'm not

924
00:52:09,320 --> 00:52:12,480
Speaker 1: eve gonna check in with you. You're you're good. I'm

925
00:52:12,520 --> 00:52:16,839
Speaker 1: just gonna assume that story is ending happily. Um, California

926
00:52:16,960 --> 00:52:21,040
Speaker 1: no evictions through May. Some programs uh exist to differ

927
00:52:21,120 --> 00:52:24,640
Speaker 1: mortgage payments. Again, it's like a variety throughout the states.

928
00:52:25,080 --> 00:52:26,800
Speaker 1: On theme with what we've been talking about. There's a

929
00:52:26,800 --> 00:52:28,880
Speaker 1: piece in the l A Times. L A has a

930
00:52:28,880 --> 00:52:32,680
Speaker 1: coronavirus eviction ban, but landlords are finding ways to demand

931
00:52:32,719 --> 00:52:37,040
Speaker 1: rent and yeah. So one example describes a woman losing

932
00:52:37,040 --> 00:52:41,120
Speaker 1: her job as a bartender and then many many hours

933
00:52:41,880 --> 00:52:45,000
Speaker 1: and her other job and talking to her landlord and

934
00:52:45,040 --> 00:52:48,400
Speaker 1: then quote the company responded with a letter outlining terms

935
00:52:48,440 --> 00:52:52,319
Speaker 1: for it to agree to temporary relief and a repayment plan,

936
00:52:52,920 --> 00:52:55,160
Speaker 1: among them that she turned over any money from a

937
00:52:55,200 --> 00:53:00,680
Speaker 1: federal stimulus check or from a charity within five days. Um.

938
00:53:00,760 --> 00:53:04,840
Speaker 1: The landlord then yeah, yeah, Um the landlord said that

939
00:53:04,880 --> 00:53:07,480
Speaker 1: the letter was a draft and it was not supposed

940
00:53:07,480 --> 00:53:13,360
Speaker 1: to be sent out. Um. So this speaks again to uh, Katie,

941
00:53:13,400 --> 00:53:17,720
Speaker 1: your questions and Robert what you were talking about. Um.

942
00:53:17,800 --> 00:53:20,560
Speaker 1: The the whole article describes how some landlords are being,

943
00:53:20,800 --> 00:53:24,520
Speaker 1: you know, very dishonest about the process of not paying

944
00:53:24,560 --> 00:53:28,000
Speaker 1: rent during this time, about the process of proving that

945
00:53:28,040 --> 00:53:31,640
Speaker 1: you can't and the process of paying it back, which

946
00:53:31,680 --> 00:53:33,279
Speaker 1: for a life of places like up to a year,

947
00:53:34,000 --> 00:53:38,680
Speaker 1: despite the letter having that part that said within five days. Um.

948
00:53:38,760 --> 00:53:40,640
Speaker 1: And despite that letter that was a draft, it was

949
00:53:40,680 --> 00:53:44,320
Speaker 1: not supposed to be sent out. And so I'm actually

950
00:53:44,360 --> 00:53:47,600
Speaker 1: gonna kind of stop there, uh, because we could go

951
00:53:47,640 --> 00:53:51,200
Speaker 1: through all the different states, but none are that different. Uh.

952
00:53:51,440 --> 00:53:55,359
Speaker 1: They all have sort of similar program similar eviction moratoriums. Um.

953
00:53:55,400 --> 00:53:59,960
Speaker 1: I would look into your specific one because those rule

954
00:54:00,080 --> 00:54:03,960
Speaker 1: are important, and like we're saying, uh, they're going to

955
00:54:04,000 --> 00:54:07,040
Speaker 1: try to get you to sign these these contracts and

956
00:54:07,080 --> 00:54:10,319
Speaker 1: these waivers to get you to get on this on

957
00:54:10,320 --> 00:54:12,960
Speaker 1: a payment plan that isn't necessarily what your state is

958
00:54:13,360 --> 00:54:16,480
Speaker 1: uh is a part of or approving. Yeah. I just

959
00:54:16,520 --> 00:54:18,719
Speaker 1: wanted to briefly mention something that I read in the

960
00:54:18,760 --> 00:54:23,200
Speaker 1: Guardian today. Um uh. And it's about Oakland and they

961
00:54:23,200 --> 00:54:25,360
Speaker 1: seem to be doing a pretty doing something interesting at

962
00:54:25,440 --> 00:54:28,360
Speaker 1: least different than the rest of the country. I'm not

963
00:54:28,400 --> 00:54:31,120
Speaker 1: saying it's good enough, but it's something. Um. Anyway, the

964
00:54:31,160 --> 00:54:33,400
Speaker 1: city of Oakland has passed what advocates say was the

965
00:54:33,400 --> 00:54:37,000
Speaker 1: strongest protection in the state, with a moratorium that prohibits

966
00:54:37,040 --> 00:54:40,520
Speaker 1: all evictions and prevents late fees and rent hikes. In

967
00:54:40,560 --> 00:54:44,160
Speaker 1: the next two months. While tenants will owe back rent

968
00:54:44,200 --> 00:54:47,680
Speaker 1: when the emergency is over, the ordinance prohibits landlords from

969
00:54:47,719 --> 00:54:51,799
Speaker 1: evicting them because of nonpayment during that time. Um. And

970
00:54:51,880 --> 00:54:57,200
Speaker 1: that's a move that's meant to encourage people establishing payment plans. Uh.

971
00:54:57,280 --> 00:54:59,960
Speaker 1: And I And I yeah, I'm not saying that that's

972
00:55:00,080 --> 00:55:03,320
Speaker 1: good enough, but it is something saying like not only

973
00:55:03,440 --> 00:55:06,560
Speaker 1: is there a moratorium or whatever, it's saying that you

974
00:55:06,600 --> 00:55:09,799
Speaker 1: can't be evicted because you're struggling to pay this back pay,

975
00:55:09,960 --> 00:55:12,080
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Right, right, Like knowing that

976
00:55:12,239 --> 00:55:16,000
Speaker 1: like these it's not just the moment, but it's not

977
00:55:16,120 --> 00:55:19,960
Speaker 1: like it's not like we're throwing you to the curb

978
00:55:20,280 --> 00:55:22,840
Speaker 1: the second this is over. It's let's work together to

979
00:55:22,920 --> 00:55:25,840
Speaker 1: figure this out. Right. A lot of these situations are like, Okay,

980
00:55:25,840 --> 00:55:28,520
Speaker 1: in may or or June, you're going to start trying

981
00:55:28,560 --> 00:55:31,879
Speaker 1: to evict me again, um. Right. And I think that's

982
00:55:31,880 --> 00:55:34,160
Speaker 1: a good example because I think that there it's less

983
00:55:34,160 --> 00:55:36,160
Speaker 1: about like on the federal level in the States, and

984
00:55:36,200 --> 00:55:38,480
Speaker 1: more like individual cities that are sort of doing these

985
00:55:38,560 --> 00:55:41,759
Speaker 1: kinds of things. Um. There's very little about rent specifically.

986
00:55:41,760 --> 00:55:44,000
Speaker 1: It's all about just sort of you can't get evicted

987
00:55:44,040 --> 00:55:45,720
Speaker 1: during this month. You still have to pay the rent

988
00:55:45,880 --> 00:55:48,000
Speaker 1: in the future. Um, but I wanted to call it

989
00:55:48,239 --> 00:55:52,560
Speaker 1: just a few. In Boise, Idaho, um Public Housing has

990
00:55:52,600 --> 00:55:56,799
Speaker 1: waved rent um as well as any removals. Chicago is

991
00:55:56,840 --> 00:56:00,600
Speaker 1: providing two thousand residents with one tho dollar grants to

992
00:56:00,600 --> 00:56:05,839
Speaker 1: help cover rent. And yeah, I know, I'm like really

993
00:56:05,840 --> 00:56:09,480
Speaker 1: stramping the bottom of the barrel. It's like, I find

994
00:56:10,080 --> 00:56:14,279
Speaker 1: Chicago's nickname the city of exactly two thousand people. But

995
00:56:14,520 --> 00:56:17,200
Speaker 1: at least they're doing that versus other places that aren't

996
00:56:17,239 --> 00:56:25,799
Speaker 1: doing anything exac But it's like the Cuomo argument, like, well,

997
00:56:26,320 --> 00:56:31,239
Speaker 1: he's not shipping his pants and screaming exactly. We don't

998
00:56:31,360 --> 00:56:36,360
Speaker 1: want any cities to be doing that. Screaming isn't helpful.

999
00:56:36,600 --> 00:56:38,680
Speaker 1: We'd have to have a much larger conversation about what

1000
00:56:38,800 --> 00:56:42,280
Speaker 1: a city is and how do they ship itself exactly?

1001
00:56:42,480 --> 00:56:43,920
Speaker 1: How is that possible? What are you going to do

1002
00:56:43,960 --> 00:56:46,600
Speaker 1: with all the ships? You know you can use it

1003
00:56:46,640 --> 00:56:49,000
Speaker 1: for stuff. Yeah, I think there's going to be. If

1004
00:56:49,000 --> 00:56:50,840
Speaker 1: we really want the answers to these questions, we're going

1005
00:56:50,920 --> 00:56:53,040
Speaker 1: to have to start conducting some interviews. And it's only

1006
00:56:53,120 --> 00:56:55,719
Speaker 1: right that we start with should I should I throw

1007
00:56:55,760 --> 00:57:02,239
Speaker 1: some more shade at Cleveland. Go for it, do it. UM.

1008
00:57:02,280 --> 00:57:06,600
Speaker 1: But yeah, so Massachusetts UH is providing five million dollars

1009
00:57:06,600 --> 00:57:09,120
Speaker 1: in rental assistance. These are like rental assistance programs. It's

1010
00:57:09,160 --> 00:57:11,880
Speaker 1: not saying like you can't UM. In Nebraska, actually, a

1011
00:57:11,960 --> 00:57:16,919
Speaker 1: landlord group UH called Metro Omaha Property Owners Association UM

1012
00:57:16,920 --> 00:57:21,400
Speaker 1: has requested it. Sounded excited before they said this. His

1013
00:57:21,480 --> 00:57:24,360
Speaker 1: request is members reduced rents by ten percent in the

1014
00:57:24,400 --> 00:57:32,040
Speaker 1: months of April. UH. So, like I know, solving the problem. Unbelievable. UM.

1015
00:57:32,080 --> 00:57:35,240
Speaker 1: Speaking of Andrew Crow Andrew Cuomo UM, he said he

1016
00:57:35,440 --> 00:57:38,760
Speaker 1: quote took care of the rent issue despite having no

1017
00:57:38,960 --> 00:57:42,080
Speaker 1: policy in place about it. It's interesting phrase to say,

1018
00:57:43,600 --> 00:57:45,800
Speaker 1: I wish there was I wish there was a comparison

1019
00:57:45,840 --> 00:57:48,840
Speaker 1: to a leader that says stuff like that. UM. Just

1020
00:57:48,880 --> 00:57:50,280
Speaker 1: sort of like I did it. I took care of

1021
00:57:50,280 --> 00:57:52,360
Speaker 1: It's a great deal. But then there's nothing behind it.

1022
00:57:52,400 --> 00:57:55,240
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's nice to be light about in

1023
00:57:55,280 --> 00:57:58,640
Speaker 1: the traditional way politicians lie as opposed to being led

1024
00:57:58,720 --> 00:58:07,320
Speaker 1: about about. For example, fake medicine. Yes, backward politicians would

1025
00:58:07,360 --> 00:58:14,240
Speaker 1: take credit for introducing policies that didn't exist and that Yeah,

1026
00:58:14,280 --> 00:58:20,120
Speaker 1: those halcyon days. Uh, let's let's think about about that

1027
00:58:20,160 --> 00:58:26,520
Speaker 1: and do some time machine noises. Uh. Oh so also

1028
00:58:26,680 --> 00:58:32,600
Speaker 1: so quoted today announced seas increasing maximum fines uh if

1029
00:58:32,600 --> 00:58:35,640
Speaker 1: you violate social distancing the social distance or from five

1030
00:58:36,240 --> 00:58:38,680
Speaker 1: to one thousand dollars. I've seen a lot of praise

1031
00:58:38,720 --> 00:58:44,240
Speaker 1: for this, um unbelievable. Like like, so, I guess, like

1032
00:58:44,240 --> 00:58:47,640
Speaker 1: if you're struggling to pay your rent despite the if

1033
00:58:47,640 --> 00:58:50,560
Speaker 1: you're if you're struggling to pay rent despite Cuomo saying

1034
00:58:50,720 --> 00:58:53,040
Speaker 1: he took care of the issue and having no order

1035
00:58:53,080 --> 00:58:56,120
Speaker 1: in place, if you violate social distancing in order to like,

1036
00:58:56,200 --> 00:58:59,040
Speaker 1: let's say, try to pay your rent, enjoy your thousand

1037
00:58:59,120 --> 00:59:03,160
Speaker 1: dollar fine. I mean, Cody, It's not like the the

1038
00:59:03,280 --> 00:59:07,360
Speaker 1: NYPD have any history of enforcing the laws in extremely

1039
00:59:07,400 --> 00:59:10,520
Speaker 1: specific ways to target one chunk of the community and

1040
00:59:10,600 --> 00:59:13,320
Speaker 1: ignore others. That's a good point, and I will not

1041
00:59:13,320 --> 00:59:16,320
Speaker 1: look into it anymore. Yeah, to to find out what

1042
00:59:16,360 --> 00:59:20,360
Speaker 1: you're referencing. This is uh slightly off topic. But did

1043
00:59:20,400 --> 00:59:23,240
Speaker 1: you see uh the l A that the l A

1044
00:59:23,320 --> 00:59:28,520
Speaker 1: mayor mayor is uh doing a snitching thing, rewarding people

1045
00:59:28,560 --> 00:59:32,040
Speaker 1: for snitching on on businesses or their neighbors. Violating the

1046
00:59:32,440 --> 00:59:37,600
Speaker 1: stay at home order. And I read a really good

1047
00:59:37,720 --> 00:59:41,000
Speaker 1: article by a doctor and I think it was it

1048
00:59:41,040 --> 00:59:42,560
Speaker 1: might have been in the Guardian. It wasn't. It was.

1049
00:59:42,640 --> 00:59:47,080
Speaker 1: It was by an Australian like like medical professional talking

1050
00:59:47,120 --> 00:59:49,919
Speaker 1: about what he saw. Is one of the threats of

1051
00:59:49,960 --> 00:59:54,120
Speaker 1: like actually fucking up um social distancing and our response

1052
00:59:54,160 --> 00:59:58,320
Speaker 1: to the coronavirus is to attack people too harshly and

1053
00:59:58,360 --> 01:00:01,840
Speaker 1: put too many limitations on because that makes it like

1054
01:00:01,880 --> 01:00:04,000
Speaker 1: there's parts of Australia where it's like you can't use

1055
01:00:04,000 --> 01:00:06,840
Speaker 1: a public park even if you're obeying social distancing, you'll

1056
01:00:06,840 --> 01:00:09,160
Speaker 1: get ticketed. And it looks like Cuomo's kind of pushing

1057
01:00:09,160 --> 01:00:10,840
Speaker 1: for the same things in New York and it's like

1058
01:00:10,960 --> 01:00:14,400
Speaker 1: if you do that, you will bring more people over

1059
01:00:14,400 --> 01:00:15,760
Speaker 1: to the side of like fuck it, I don't care

1060
01:00:15,800 --> 01:00:19,880
Speaker 1: who dies. I can't look exactly exactly. They're like, I

1061
01:00:19,960 --> 01:00:25,400
Speaker 1: have nothing else thinking everything away from me. Yeahlo slow

1062
01:00:25,440 --> 01:00:28,959
Speaker 1: slide into authoritarianism to deal with this. It's not yeah,

1063
01:00:29,640 --> 01:00:32,600
Speaker 1: I I want serious action to be taken. I am

1064
01:00:32,640 --> 01:00:35,920
Speaker 1: not willing to let the police arrest me for jogging

1065
01:00:35,920 --> 01:00:46,680
Speaker 1: in a public park. Also, don't call it a snitches rule. Yes,

1066
01:00:46,800 --> 01:00:55,480
Speaker 1: it's called it's literally so you guys, I'm sure he

1067
01:00:55,600 --> 01:00:57,680
Speaker 1: got a lot of this announced last week and like

1068
01:00:57,800 --> 01:01:01,240
Speaker 1: last Friday there was like ten in the building next

1069
01:01:01,240 --> 01:01:04,720
Speaker 1: sort whether there was ten guys not wearing masks working

1070
01:01:05,240 --> 01:01:09,600
Speaker 1: on like power drilling the pool for a remodel like

1071
01:01:09,720 --> 01:01:12,800
Speaker 1: that is unnecessary. You're putting those people at risk. Stuff

1072
01:01:12,840 --> 01:01:16,760
Speaker 1: like that where it's like it's like, but people shouldn't

1073
01:01:16,760 --> 01:01:22,120
Speaker 1: be but they're now anyways, but they're incentivizing by saying

1074
01:01:22,160 --> 01:01:27,920
Speaker 1: we will pay there's a reward for snitching people. Yeah, anyway, anyway,

1075
01:01:28,040 --> 01:01:33,560
Speaker 1: I don't like that don't Conversation program. I don't love

1076
01:01:34,120 --> 01:01:37,280
Speaker 1: the phrasing, but I do I do kind of understand

1077
01:01:37,360 --> 01:01:40,400
Speaker 1: them being like, hey, like we want to keep people safe,

1078
01:01:40,440 --> 01:01:44,880
Speaker 1: but snitching, I think you can report businesses. Yeah, in

1079
01:01:44,880 --> 01:01:46,840
Speaker 1: a in a period where people are struggling to pay

1080
01:01:46,880 --> 01:01:50,280
Speaker 1: for food and rent, it's just like it's hard. My

1081
01:01:50,440 --> 01:01:53,080
Speaker 1: my next door neighbor, it does not live their shoes

1082
01:01:53,120 --> 01:01:55,560
Speaker 1: in the middle of renovating a property to be rented

1083
01:01:55,920 --> 01:01:59,560
Speaker 1: and has continued to have workers come in and it's

1084
01:01:59,600 --> 01:02:02,160
Speaker 1: bothered me. But at the same time, I know that

1085
01:02:02,200 --> 01:02:04,600
Speaker 1: she needs that income that she's hoping to be able

1086
01:02:04,640 --> 01:02:07,840
Speaker 1: to rent the property when she can. At the same time,

1087
01:02:07,880 --> 01:02:10,120
Speaker 1: I know that those workers need the money, and it's

1088
01:02:10,120 --> 01:02:13,480
Speaker 1: been like a real camp. Brought up some conflicting emotions

1089
01:02:13,480 --> 01:02:15,320
Speaker 1: in me, but I'm not going to do anything about it.

1090
01:02:15,840 --> 01:02:19,720
Speaker 1: You're not going to quote snitch. I'm not going to snitch. Know.

1091
01:02:20,200 --> 01:02:23,360
Speaker 1: The primary moral thing that we all need to keep

1092
01:02:23,360 --> 01:02:27,919
Speaker 1: in mind is don't call the cops. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

1093
01:02:27,960 --> 01:02:29,360
Speaker 1: I think that's that can be that can be a

1094
01:02:29,360 --> 01:02:33,360
Speaker 1: constant during the plague. Yeah, don't don't call the cops. Yeah.

1095
01:02:33,720 --> 01:02:36,760
Speaker 1: But yeah. So to sort of close this out, I

1096
01:02:36,760 --> 01:02:39,080
Speaker 1: I did want to highlight one thing because again, this

1097
01:02:39,240 --> 01:02:43,360
Speaker 1: is like not states aren't really doing rent freezes, um

1098
01:02:43,520 --> 01:02:46,480
Speaker 1: or anything like that. It's all about just like not

1099
01:02:46,600 --> 01:02:50,720
Speaker 1: processing evictions that can still be filed during this month. UM.

1100
01:02:50,760 --> 01:02:54,240
Speaker 1: But there's this piece in York Times recently about um

1101
01:02:54,320 --> 01:02:58,440
Speaker 1: Mario Salerno. He owns eighteen buildings in Brooklyn and he

1102
01:02:58,480 --> 01:03:02,280
Speaker 1: waived rent for all of his ten it's for April's

1103
01:03:02,320 --> 01:03:04,360
Speaker 1: good for him, um, And I just wanted to point

1104
01:03:04,360 --> 01:03:08,600
Speaker 1: that out and say good for him. UM. Maybe happened

1105
01:03:08,600 --> 01:03:11,800
Speaker 1: like statewide or like on a national level, who knows, UM,

1106
01:03:11,840 --> 01:03:14,200
Speaker 1: But yeah, so if if you're dealing with any of this,

1107
01:03:14,440 --> 01:03:17,960
Speaker 1: I would say definitely look up your specific state, UM,

1108
01:03:18,040 --> 01:03:21,000
Speaker 1: and also don't like sign those payment plans that your

1109
01:03:21,080 --> 01:03:23,800
Speaker 1: landlord might be offering you because chances are the fucking

1110
01:03:23,880 --> 01:03:31,600
Speaker 1: lying to you. Yeah. Yep. UM. I'd looked into uh

1111
01:03:31,800 --> 01:03:37,320
Speaker 1: potential economic impact of of you know, rent strikes, and

1112
01:03:37,440 --> 01:03:40,520
Speaker 1: I've kind of peppered in things throughout this episode, So

1113
01:03:40,520 --> 01:03:43,120
Speaker 1: I don't have this big section prepared here, especially since

1114
01:03:43,160 --> 01:03:46,200
Speaker 1: it's hard to know. UM. The stuff that you find

1115
01:03:46,200 --> 01:03:49,920
Speaker 1: online written up are usually just about all o eds

1116
01:03:49,960 --> 01:03:53,479
Speaker 1: and generally particular like it would be terrible, it would

1117
01:03:53,480 --> 01:03:57,600
Speaker 1: be terrible. UM. This is an interesting quote, uh from

1118
01:03:57,840 --> 01:04:03,040
Speaker 1: Carol Galante. UH. She's um okay, faculty director for the

1119
01:04:03,080 --> 01:04:06,880
Speaker 1: Turner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley. UH, and

1120
01:04:06,920 --> 01:04:10,560
Speaker 1: she says those mortgages are often securitized, their package up

1121
01:04:10,560 --> 01:04:13,520
Speaker 1: into bonds and they're sold as investments, and those investors

1122
01:04:13,520 --> 01:04:16,880
Speaker 1: are expecting a certain interest payment off of those securities

1123
01:04:16,920 --> 01:04:19,360
Speaker 1: on an ongoing basis. If they don't get those then

1124
01:04:19,400 --> 01:04:23,200
Speaker 1: those investors suffer. And Okay, so we're like, so what

1125
01:04:23,320 --> 01:04:26,080
Speaker 1: you know their investors And then she goes on to say,

1126
01:04:26,160 --> 01:04:29,720
Speaker 1: so you say, well, who cares about the investors? But

1127
01:04:29,840 --> 01:04:32,600
Speaker 1: the fact, the fact is that many of those investors

1128
01:04:32,600 --> 01:04:35,920
Speaker 1: are things like pension funds, and those pension funds support teachers,

1129
01:04:35,960 --> 01:04:38,600
Speaker 1: first responders, and other and others in ways that may

1130
01:04:38,600 --> 01:04:42,480
Speaker 1: not be initially imparent. Every time tenants or homeowners right

1131
01:04:42,480 --> 01:04:46,280
Speaker 1: out their rentom mortgage checks, there's just some interesting things

1132
01:04:46,280 --> 01:04:48,480
Speaker 1: to to to think about. You know, I think that's

1133
01:04:48,560 --> 01:04:53,280
Speaker 1: the most well articulated thing that I've seen. Um. You know,

1134
01:04:54,520 --> 01:04:57,160
Speaker 1: there's the argument, like I've put out of you know,

1135
01:04:59,120 --> 01:05:01,800
Speaker 1: smaller business is a property owner, people that that don't

1136
01:05:01,840 --> 01:05:05,320
Speaker 1: have a lot of capital, they're not huge companies, or

1137
01:05:05,440 --> 01:05:09,120
Speaker 1: what Robert mentioned earlier about all of the people that

1138
01:05:09,160 --> 01:05:14,120
Speaker 1: are employed via property management or either directly or indirectly

1139
01:05:14,240 --> 01:05:18,680
Speaker 1: as as contractors and all of that. Um. But the

1140
01:05:18,680 --> 01:05:22,280
Speaker 1: truth is is, like like I was suggesting earlier, it's like,

1141
01:05:22,360 --> 01:05:25,960
Speaker 1: if this is at a broad enough scale, wouldn't that

1142
01:05:27,360 --> 01:05:29,760
Speaker 1: it would probably trigger some sort of a response from

1143
01:05:29,760 --> 01:05:34,000
Speaker 1: the government, some sort of you know, help on the

1144
01:05:34,040 --> 01:05:38,760
Speaker 1: mortgage end of things. It's just it's really that's kind

1145
01:05:38,760 --> 01:05:40,760
Speaker 1: of the goal of a rent strike on the national

1146
01:05:40,840 --> 01:05:42,520
Speaker 1: level is to get this to be big enough that

1147
01:05:42,600 --> 01:05:44,920
Speaker 1: like it has to be a government response, you know,

1148
01:05:45,520 --> 01:05:49,200
Speaker 1: but there there's no other option, you know, like none

1149
01:05:49,200 --> 01:05:51,720
Speaker 1: of the individual rental companies, there's nothing they can do.

1150
01:05:52,000 --> 01:05:54,600
Speaker 1: It's out of you know, local law enforcement's hand. It's

1151
01:05:54,640 --> 01:05:57,520
Speaker 1: something that like there has been a federal response because

1152
01:05:57,560 --> 01:06:01,080
Speaker 1: it's been forced. So we're at the end of this

1153
01:06:01,480 --> 01:06:07,640
Speaker 1: and I don't know, it's uh yeah, the long and

1154
01:06:07,680 --> 01:06:09,800
Speaker 1: the short, and this is what I the rent strike

1155
01:06:10,720 --> 01:06:12,480
Speaker 1: going around. Part of what I like about that is

1156
01:06:12,480 --> 01:06:15,360
Speaker 1: it does focus on it. They're trying to be like

1157
01:06:15,400 --> 01:06:17,160
Speaker 1: a broad base, like we're going to freeze rent, and

1158
01:06:17,200 --> 01:06:19,640
Speaker 1: we're going to freeze mortgage. And if you freeze mortgage,

1159
01:06:19,680 --> 01:06:23,400
Speaker 1: then you a lot of these folks, um, you don't

1160
01:06:23,440 --> 01:06:27,040
Speaker 1: have as much to claim or as much to complain

1161
01:06:27,080 --> 01:06:31,200
Speaker 1: about UM now from the landlords. Now that still leaves there,

1162
01:06:31,200 --> 01:06:33,000
Speaker 1: you know, there is still the point of like without rent,

1163
01:06:33,000 --> 01:06:34,960
Speaker 1: then these landlords aren't going to have the funding that

1164
01:06:35,040 --> 01:06:38,640
Speaker 1: is necessary to actually maintain buildings, which means people go

1165
01:06:38,920 --> 01:06:41,880
Speaker 1: without jobs, which means you know, I think if you're

1166
01:06:41,880 --> 01:06:46,280
Speaker 1: actually talking about what kind of national rent strike movement

1167
01:06:46,280 --> 01:06:48,000
Speaker 1: could gain steam, it would have to it would have

1168
01:06:48,040 --> 01:06:50,600
Speaker 1: to take care of those people too, not only just

1169
01:06:50,640 --> 01:06:55,520
Speaker 1: it would have to be well, yeah, Katie Golden responded

1170
01:06:55,560 --> 01:06:57,680
Speaker 1: to me on on Twitter, and I might be missed.

1171
01:06:58,280 --> 01:07:00,720
Speaker 1: I'm not directly quote because I don't have it in

1172
01:07:00,720 --> 01:07:03,640
Speaker 1: front of me. But you know, there's you know that argument,

1173
01:07:03,680 --> 01:07:06,080
Speaker 1: you know, employing all those people that do maintenance and

1174
01:07:06,080 --> 01:07:10,000
Speaker 1: stuff like that. If there's some collectivized you know, the

1175
01:07:10,040 --> 01:07:12,360
Speaker 1: tenants are getting together to pay for those things, that's

1176
01:07:12,400 --> 01:07:20,120
Speaker 1: certainly significantly cheaper than the rent. Yeah, extra level of organization. Yeah, yeah,

1177
01:07:20,160 --> 01:07:23,840
Speaker 1: I think that is, Like, I don't know, I I

1178
01:07:23,880 --> 01:07:26,960
Speaker 1: think it's it's not impossible, you know, um to do,

1179
01:07:27,120 --> 01:07:28,920
Speaker 1: and I think it would be necessary if you're going

1180
01:07:28,960 --> 01:07:31,040
Speaker 1: to try it. But it is. It is like, this

1181
01:07:31,120 --> 01:07:32,920
Speaker 1: is a big thing. We're talking about a rent strike.

1182
01:07:33,000 --> 01:07:36,200
Speaker 1: We're not just like, it's not just we agree not

1183
01:07:36,280 --> 01:07:39,640
Speaker 1: to pay rent um. There there need to be structures

1184
01:07:39,680 --> 01:07:42,040
Speaker 1: set up within the strike in order to make it sustainable,

1185
01:07:42,080 --> 01:07:48,080
Speaker 1: otherwise it won't be yep. Yeah, so all right, we

1186
01:07:48,160 --> 01:07:54,080
Speaker 1: solved it. That's cool. So that's cool. It's yes, sir.

1187
01:07:55,280 --> 01:07:59,920
Speaker 1: Are you gonna firebomba leasing office? Did you text me

1188
01:08:00,000 --> 01:08:01,920
Speaker 1: saying you wanted to fire bomber leasing office? Is that

1189
01:08:01,960 --> 01:08:04,120
Speaker 1: a conversation we had or is this another one of

1190
01:08:04,160 --> 01:08:09,440
Speaker 1: my fantasies. Yeah, so on the record, on the record,

1191
01:08:09,520 --> 01:08:15,840
Speaker 1: off the record, both at the same time. Yeah. Um, okay,

1192
01:08:15,920 --> 01:08:20,120
Speaker 1: so I guess my answer would be stop it's answer.

1193
01:08:20,320 --> 01:08:26,320
Speaker 1: Oh my god, how dare you today? Actionable answer? Yeah,

1194
01:08:26,800 --> 01:08:32,600
Speaker 1: you guys can check us out online at worst Year, Pod, Instagram,

1195
01:08:32,640 --> 01:08:37,800
Speaker 1: and Twitter and we'll be there. Will not be making

1196
01:08:37,840 --> 01:08:41,160
Speaker 1: those sounds. You can't type those out and not be square.

1197
01:08:41,200 --> 01:08:44,320
Speaker 1: We could type that, we can't. I would type it

1198
01:08:44,400 --> 01:08:49,840
Speaker 1: out as p F l U b B. Also, I

1199
01:08:49,920 --> 01:08:52,320
Speaker 1: just want to put out there if you are have

1200
01:08:52,520 --> 01:08:56,200
Speaker 1: a landlord story or a rent striker situation going on

1201
01:08:56,320 --> 01:09:00,200
Speaker 1: that you're dealing with, tweet at us. Yeah, tweet at

1202
01:09:00,240 --> 01:09:02,559
Speaker 1: us and check out will be posting the interview that

1203
01:09:02,680 --> 01:09:06,400
Speaker 1: we conducted with Ali Khan Pabani, the the rent striker

1204
01:09:06,760 --> 01:09:10,439
Speaker 1: who uh chatted with us. Um, it'll be a whole

1205
01:09:10,479 --> 01:09:13,479
Speaker 1: fun interview. Um. And you know he kind of gives

1206
01:09:14,240 --> 01:09:16,680
Speaker 1: he gives you a very granular look at like here's

1207
01:09:16,800 --> 01:09:18,519
Speaker 1: how we started things out. Here is who we like,

1208
01:09:18,560 --> 01:09:20,639
Speaker 1: got people together in the building. Here's like how we

1209
01:09:21,040 --> 01:09:23,920
Speaker 1: you know, organize our messaging campaign. If it's something if

1210
01:09:23,920 --> 01:09:25,560
Speaker 1: you're looking to do this yourself, if you're in the

1211
01:09:25,600 --> 01:09:27,720
Speaker 1: position of wanting to do this in your neighborhood, you

1212
01:09:27,800 --> 01:09:33,880
Speaker 1: might find it really useful. Um yeah, so yeah, yeah,

1213
01:09:34,000 --> 01:09:42,760
Speaker 1: all right, have do what Cody's unsettling noises have told you,

1214
01:09:42,920 --> 01:09:57,720
Speaker 1: which which actually translates Please watch. Every Worst Year Ever

1215
01:09:57,840 --> 01:10:00,439
Speaker 1: is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts

1216
01:10:00,439 --> 01:10:02,679
Speaker 1: from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,

1217
01:10:02,800 --> 01:10:05,719
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.