Kushner Squeezes Tenants While Lining Up for Bailout Money

[babylonsister]

This is from March 30 but no less disgusting.


Kushner Squeezes Tenants While Lining Up for Bailout Money
Despite eviction bans in New York, the real-estate firm owned by the president’s son-in-law is telling tenants to pay up.
by Alexander Sammon
March 30, 2020

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New York has locked down, operating under a shelter-in-place order for over a week. Numerous businesses and restaurants have shuttered, resulting in scores of layoffs. The Jacob Javits Convention Center has been transformed into a massive makeshift hospital. With untold thousands of people out of work, and the first of the month approaching, that sets up an impending crisis for a city of nearly ten million people where roughly two-thirds are renters: What happens if they can’t make rent?

That question is also on the minds of the city’s landlords, who are facing down the possibility of losing the monthly rent checks they’d otherwise expect to receive. Some landlords have offered rent forbearance to their tenants amid the escalating economic crisis. But others, like official White House son-in-law Jared Kushner, whose Kushner Companies owns over 30 buildings just in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, are not feeling so generous.

According to reporting from Mother Jones, verified by the Prospect, Westminster Management, a subsidiary of Kushner Companies that is responsible for more than 20,000 apartments across six states, has spent the past handful of days sending residents in New York City’s East Village neighborhood new notices about rent collection. The flyer, which featured no mention of the rapidly evolving coronavirus crisis, encourages them to use a new online platform to pay their impending rent check, rather than delivering payments in person. That new portal accepts e-check or money order, as well as credit or debit card payments, for a fee. “There has been no forbearance mentioned to them,” said Brandon Kielbasa, director of organizing and policy at the Cooper Square Committee, a local tenants’ rights group. “Many are concerned about how they will afford their rent.”

But the absence of an offer of forbearance goes beyond stinginess. Because of an executive order from New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, all tenants, both residential and commercial, are protected under a state eviction moratorium that is in effect until at least June 20. Meanwhile, New York Chief Administrative Judge Lawrence Marks announced a suspension on court eviction proceedings, which, despite some early confusion, means that no new eviction cases are being brought before the courts until at least late April.

That means that Kushner Companies has no grounds or recourse to evict its tenants, whether or not they pay rent on April 1. Instead, the company is using repeated notices (tenants were sent multiple alerts over the past few days) in an attempt to badger low-information renters, those unaware of the state’s ban on evictions, into paying them in full.

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https://prospect.org/coronavirus/kushner-squeezes-tenants-while-lining-up-for-bailout-money/?fbclid=IwAR2ee1S6BqH8fiuNT4zQBbOIouZTwQoq2vpeqwO1zxL4aI4SUb4H3rqjKlE#.Xp34W0s2qAw.facebook