re: #30 Charles Johnson

We’re talking about making more than 3 million people homeless.

re: #52 JC1

Behind on rent doesn’t mean can’t afford to pay it. It’s rational for renters not to pay rent and get a free ride. What’s the downside?

Yeah, they’re probably using their “free ride” to pay for food, electricity, heating (okay not right now) bills, medicine, and other things that are equally necessities.

So the real question here, is who does the federal government want to leave in the lurch here. An owner of rental property? A utility company? The owner of medical debt?

Are we going to have a moratorium on cutting off electricity and/or gas for non-payment of bills. Are we going to have a moratorium on medical bill collection? Are we going to have increased WIC for those who need it?

Now. if we actually had generous, means-tested federal government rental assistance, with an assurance that rents are kept stable, and give priority to individual owners who own less than a certain number of rental units* (or units with a total value), then we’d manage to keep people in their homes and not screw over people who may own a small number of rental properties.

*This is the tricky part. We need to make sure Thomas Barrack’s firm doesn’t get assistance, but need to make sure that Joe who owns a single rental property can still get paid.