Free Republic

Nonprofit on boards in the city of Seattle are facing huge bosses because tenants in the city are not paying rent. Following the pandemic eviction moratorium, a lot of tenants became used to someone else paying their bills for them and continue to not pay to this day. This has hurt the revenue of the nonprofits

The state is awarding just over $15 million in bonds and subsidies for a project that will create 78 affordable homes in Ontario County. Sunlight Lane Apartments in Geneva will be for low-and-moderate low-income households. The net-zero development will be fully electric and feature rooftop solar panels. The financing is allocated through the New York State Homes and Community Renewal program.

Housing advocates say easy public access to landlord-tenant complaints hamstrings renter efforts to find new housing, but pulling records from public view also raises concerns. The Strip District woman would feel a lot more confident about apartment hunting if her tenant history was not marked by three recent court complaints filed against her by her current landlord. “Honestly, it makes me feel like a criminal,” she said. The tenant, whose name is being withheld for privacy reasons, faced a health crisis last year and an ongoing disability that slashed her income, even prompting a GoFundMe plea for help with medical...

The rent’s too damn high in New York — but the broker fees are really murder. City dwellers wanting to score a place to live at a reasonable price are finding that out the hard way — as they are being socked with outrageous fees of up to $20,000 just to be able to rent an apartment. One home shopper claims he almost lost it when a broker tried to soak him for a $15,000 fee for a $1,100, rent-controlled apartment in a run-down brick building in Flushing recently. “I never replied because not in a million years would I...

A San Diego law would force landlords to allow their tenants operate childcare facilities in their units. Not only that, but landlords have to notify tenants of their right to do so. This law brings with it a lot of liability for landlords if a child is hurt.

Governor Kathy Hochul of New York announced a substantial $46 million grant initiative aimed at supporting more than 1,400 households in achieving affordable homeownership. This financial aid will primarily assist low- and moderate-income families, facilitating essential home repairs, safety modifications, and replacing older manufactured homes. Additionally, the program includes providing down payment assistance for first-time homebuyers. Governor Hochul emphasized the importance of this investment in the face of rising housing costs, positioning it as a crucial step in New York’s battle against the housing crisis. This move aligns with the Governor’s ambitious $25 billion Housing Plan, which intends to create...

It’s already very expensive to rent in a hot housing market like Southern California. Now landlords have found a way to make things even worse. A growing number of property owners and managers are hitting tenants with extra fees each month — a nickel-and-diming of people that the airlines, for one, have made a core aspect of their business model. It’s been common for years for landlords to charge more for a parking space or having a pet.

The ACLU and a taxpayer-funded group are “demanding a federal crackdown on landlords who don’t rent to tenants with eviction records,” reports Reason Magazine.They are arguing that it is racist and sexist not to rent to people who have histories of being evicted, because blacks are more likely than whites to be evicted, and black women apparently have the highest eviction rates.In a complaint filed with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) last week, the HOPE Fair Housing Center, which gets taxpayer money, “argues that such policies amount to illegal discrimination based on race and sex, given...

Legal aid groups in Chicago filed a lawsuit and a complaint with the Department of Housing Preservation and Development on Tuesday against corporate landlords for automatically rejecting prospective tenants with “any prior connection to an eviction case.”

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) — On Wednesday, a ribbon-cutting ceremony celebrated the completion of a new housing development for sustainable homes in Rochester. Governor Hochul announced the completion of the $49 million mixed-use affordable housing development, Edna Craven Estates, which creates 164 sustainable homes and a new community center in Northeast Rochester, consisting of seven separate buildings along Clifford and Joseph Avenues. The newly constructed Edna Craven Estates features ground-floor commercial space and a new community center.

MONROE – A federal lawsuit filed by a group of landlords, including Pamela Lee, who own rental properties, says that a Monroe town law passed earlier this year is discriminatory against landlords and violates the federal Fair Housing Act. The lawsuit also alleges that families with more than two people cannot reside in a one-bedroom rental unit. The lawsuit, filed by six LLCs that own rental properties and Pamela Lee, a member of all of the LLCs and owner of properties in Monroe personally, asserts that the town is attempting to prohibit them from enjoying their constitutional right by depriving...

Now, a New York State Supreme Court judge has ruled for Ithaca Renting, agreeing with the local business’s position that the Section 8 program’s inspection requirement was a violation of the Constitution’s protection against searches. In his ruling on June 27th, Hon. Mark G. Masler says the Attorney General’s argument “is fundamentally flawed for the simple reason that, as set forth above, a landlord cannot accept a Section 8 housing voucher as payment for rent without agreeing to participate in Section 8, which, in turn, requires that the landlord authorize warrantless searches.” Judge Masler’s ruling points out that the Housing...

SAN FRANCISCO -- Retiree Pamela Haile has paid property taxes, insurance and other bills on a house she lets out in Oakland, but for more than three years her tenants have paid no rent thanks to one of the longest-lasting eviction bans in the country. The eviction moratorium in the San Francisco Bay Area city expires next month and Haile can't wait. The 69-year-old estimates she is owed more than $60,000 in back rent, money she doubts she will ever see. Moreover, the tenants have trashed her house and it will cost tens of thousands of dollars to make it...

Albany must include “good-cause eviction” once it finally passes the stalled state budget, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other progressive electeds said at a Wednesday rally in Astoria, Queens. “Fighting to pass good-cause eviction is essential,” the Democratic congresswoman, who represents a swath of the Bronx and Queens, told a crowd in Athens Square. “We have to push Gov. Hochul to make sure that she includes this in the budget.” The good-cause evictions bill, first introduced in 2019, would bolster protections for tenants in non-rent regulated apartments by barring landlords from kicking them out without “good cause,” such as failure to...

The Biden administration has become notorious for pushing clearly unconstitutional bureaucratic rules in hopes of causing maximum damage before the court system has time to work.The White House’s “eviction moratorium” comes to mind. Thousands upon thousands of landlords were harmed by a federal power grab barring evictions of long-delinquent renters. Eventually, the Supreme Court stepped in to shut Biden down, but while the moratorium went away, many landlords were left financially ruined in the process.Was there even an apology given to landlords who watched lifelong investments be destroyed by non-paying renters that squatted for years on end in some states?...

Ideas that start on the progressive fringes have a way of becoming government policy these days, as President Biden’s $400 billion student loan cancellation shows. Lo, Democrats in Congress are now pressing the President to impose rent control nationwide. The White House is considering a series of executive actions that are ostensibly intended to protect tenants. Rents on average increased 17.6% in 2021 and another 3.8% last year. One culprit was near-zero interest rates while they lasted, which inflated housing prices and made it harder for young people to buy a home. The result: More demand for rental housing. Landlords...

They voted themselves in a couple of gems, these New York City folks did. Between actually electing Kathy Hochul to continue her reign of incoherence and incompetence, coupled with their already in-situ fashion plate, empty-suit city chief executive, Big Apple dwellers might as well save time and just beat themselves up.Emboldened by the election of state and local politicians, a NYC Council bill that had seemed doomed to ashes is experiencing a Phoenix-like rebirth. To his eternal shame, New York City mayor Eric Adams has signaled he is willing to sign it.What is Mayor Adams willing to sign? THIS abomination.A...

The new Kingston Rent Guidelines Board made history Wednesday for the second time this year, approving New York state’s first rent rollback for stabilized tenants. The 15 percent reduction applies to renters of 1,200 apartments in 64 rent-stabilized buildings with leases between Aug. 1 of this year and Sept. 30 of next. On top of that cut, the board set a three-year lookback period for tenants to challenge their base rent if they believe it was higher than the fair market price. If a challenge succeeds, future adjustments would be applied to that lower rent. In July, Kingston became the...

Outside Gov. Kathy Hochul’s Murray Hill office, small landlords traded war stories Monday morning about New York’s rent relief program. “Three years and 18 months,” said one, double-fisting protest signs denoting how long he’d shouldered his tenants’ arrears. “I’m out $75,000 right now,” another said. “Three years. One house.” Terri, an organizer of the “landlords rights protest” who asked that her last name be omitted for fear of retribution, said her tenant hadn’t paid rent since November 2020. Tired of waiting, she’d agreed to settle, eating $40,000 of arrears in an agreement that should have seen the renter evicted in...

Tenants and advocates across the country are begging the federal government to implement a permanent rental assistance program and permanent eviction protections.