Some important reasons for the missing back rent:
Many tenants began withholding rent because they had been dealing for years with unsafe conditions, while others fell behind because they could not afford their monthly payments, according to the tenant union. They may now get a blank slate.
Kuo said tenants dealt with a range of problems in their buildings including caved-in ceilings, heat outages and, at times, darkened hallways after Con Edison cut the common area electricity due to the landlord’s unpaid bills.
He should have arrested him instead.
Edit: them
He should have arrested whom? Which employee or officer of which of the two companies in the article are you referring to?
The Persons responsible for the state those buildings are in and then deciding to rent them out. They were aware of the situation since the renters withheld their payments. So why does this matter to you?
Okay, so to be clear then, you’re not talking about the same entity that was forced to forgive the back rent. “He should have arrested him instead” implies “He should have arrested him instead of forcing him to forgive the back rent,” when in fact the back rent was incurred under one company that went bankrupt and then forgiven by a different company that subsequently purchased the properties and has fixed 3,500 of the 12,500 known code violations in a short span of time.
Now, how do you determine the persons responsible for the state those buildings are in? Is it the maintenance staff, the property managers, the C-suite, the equity holders? Responsibility is shared by many people and it flows in multiple directions. I would love for there to be a proper investigation and I hope one is underway, but it’s not as simple as “Zohran Mamdani, you should have personally arrested that man!”
So why does this matter to you?
It matters because it chafes me to see a complex issue reduced to pointing fingers at an imaginary slumlord with a twirly black moustache. We’re talking about a large company on which many people depended for their livelihood and even more people depended for safe, well-maintained housing - and that company became financially insolvent. There are so many potential failure points to be investigated.
These recent events are a major win for the Union of Pinnacle Tenants, but without even reading the article, you decided that the mayor should have personally arrested “him/them” instead of providing relief to the people affected. Not even “arrested him too,” but “arrested him instead.”
You are right. I didn’t readmore than the article and am not familiar with the situation and it was a gut reaction. My bad.
On a broader point regarding companies in general and housing in particular:
I live in Germany and what the us calls socialism or communism is just common sense for people that would describe themselves as slightly left of center. And the center here is more in line with the majority of the worlds country, so not an outlier. There are cooperations here of course and its not common to find people that subscribe to the idea of class war but still there is a distaste in half of the populations people when we hear about quarterly gains that are made by exploiting workers or consumers or suppliers.
We also have housing cooperation that own large amounts of units all over Germany and especially in larger city’s. And people hate them. More than just the left, but a all affected. Even though the conditions that are described in the article are magnitudes worse than the occasional mold or broken heating. Its the idea that housing should not be controlled by such a powerful entity. Vonovia is one of the big ones if you want to read up and compare.
There even was a volksentscheid, a formalized and official non binding vote by the voters, of the city district of Berlin to disown the whole company or at least put it under state control because of the higher rent and conditions of the units. That is now being deliberated for the past years by politics and will be for years to come and nothing of consequence will happen.
If there was a situations there were units like the ones described In the article it would be a riot. Everybody, Not just the left would rally to get those people to prison or burn the company down. Literally.
The situation seems to be in part because the company who was responsible for the units in NYC went bankrupt. That’s a feat in itself given the rent prices there and I am sure that somebody with a twirly black moustache made of with some nice cushion
But the real problem is the real estate market in general that creates these problems. I don’t like renting but that’s a reality. Property is a reality since socialism isn’t anywhere to be found here. Or nowhere for that matter (military regimes that call them self that don’t qualify).
In consequence I’d like to see people arrested. In that case the politicians that allowed this yo happen in the first place. So many ways to change the situation people are in. Nothing done. Good luck to the new Mayor in the fight against the real power: establishment
A landlord with 5100 units? Yikes
Fuck these people. They have to be forced to do the right thing. We should be voting to tax the wealth of these fucks.
Agreed
The right thing would be fucking off and giving the inhabitants of these homes equity for every cent they paid in rent.
One guy owns enough dwelling for 5000 people.
It just says 5000 of their apartments have back rent. Maybe they have 100000 apartments.
Is there only one person per apartment?
I mean…it is in mine. Although I’m not in NYC.
You’re also not 5000 different people
I’m a million different people from one day to the next.
Would any of you like to go on a date? ʕᵔᴥᵔʔ
A percentage yes, but the hivemind must agree and all collectively attend the date together. Good luck getting any reservations for a group that large.
Hope you’re not expecting anything after the date.
You don’t know me! Errr… Us
Where do you get “one guy” from
From not reading the article but rushing here to share their golden opinion
The company Summit Properties purchased the 93-building [rent-stabilized] portfolio in March after its previous owner Pinnacle Group went bankrupt
A surprising amount of people don’t realize that the most prevalent landlords by ownership are companies
i love how much he’s been able to do with housing; now just keep holding his feet to the fire to also not turn his back on trans kids by caving to the federal governments threats too.
Don’t fuck with Zohran the Destroyer!
Yeaaaaahhhhhh… unfortunately anything less than “Mamdani publicly executes Slumlord exploiting tenants for profit to set example to others” is not uplifting news, just more Hurray for Minor Inconveniencing the Orphan Crushing Machine
Which specific employees and/or officers of Pinnacle Group and/or Summit Properties should be summarily executed by the mayor of the city, in your opinion?
Should he execute the CEOs? The entire C-Suites? The Boards of Directors? The property managers? The maintenance staff? Anyone who has any stock or any other form of equity in either company since they’re technically the ones paying everyone from the CEO down to the most junior employee to do this? Just how much of a bloodbath do you think Zohran Mamdani should personally carry out? How much carnage do you need an elected official to unilaterally enact before you feel “uplifted?”
Or did you expect the Slumlord to be a single individual with a twirly black moustache and a villainous laugh?
