by Ponderer on August 27, 2021 9:55 am
And if all those landlords were able to go ahead and kick out all those who lost their jobs and only source of income and couldn't come up with rent, there'd be millions more on the streets than are there now.
EVERYONE who wasn't already tremendously wealthy before this started has been hurt by this pandemic. Do you know how many restaurant owners lost everything because of the pandemic? Should the government not have stepped in and made regulations that were going to result in that? Given the inevitable outcome of having not done it?
When I said it was a pragmatic emergency action, that's exactly what I meant it was. Pragmatically, comparing the financial loss that landlords were going to take against the living hell that would have been caused for and by all those many millions of people being thrown into the street with nowhere to turn was a no-brainer, I am sorry to say. But if you think sparing a few million landlords financial hardship is worse, pragmatically, than the living hell that would have been experienced by the tens of millions who would have been thrown into homeless destitution, I'd like to see your math.
I have yet to see a single story about a landlord thrown out into the street because his tenants stopped paying them rent.
I don't think the moratorium should go on forever. But just stopping it all of a sudden isn't the right way to go about it.
by Donna on August 27, 2021 10:45 am
Good point, hon.
In the best world, the government would be reimbursing everyone who's been financially ruined by COVID, including landlords, but since we don't live in that world, the logical and most compassionate thing to do would be to take the course of action that would help the most people.
If we had a needs-driven economic system instead of a profit-driven one, no one would have to worry about being ruined financially, but we don't live in that world either.