Is there? Maybe there is, I don’t know, but it wasn’t presented in this article or in the linked article. People say things like this all the time like it’s supposed to be common knowledge when it’s really just more assumption than anything. I suspect it’s more “Well it’s entirely possible that some people abused this situation, so, Q.E.D, some people must have abused this situation.” And that’s just not how proof works.
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My favorite example for the ACAB crowd
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As Voltaire wrote at the conclusion of Candide, all we can do is tend to our own garden, but I’m glad to have made a positive impact. Trust me when I say that it took me a long time to learn that very lesson, and even longer to understand what Voltaire was on about.
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That’s one instance. That is not clear evidence that this occurs often enough to be a problem. That’s an anecdote. Evidence would be numbers. How often does that happen? What percentage of non-payment of rent cases during the pandemic were fraudulent? Not, “Here’s a bad cop who did a bad thing.”
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There is a real paucity of good data on covid rent fraud in the States. I suspect we’ll get some good data in the second half of this decade through analysis of housing court cases, but considering the backlog in housing courts I honestly don’t think it could be properly done right now nationwide. My gut says that the end result will be pretty low, under 1% of rentals fraudulently did not pay rent. But of course each state has a different definition for what would constitute COVID-era rent fraud.
It really all boils down to a true data nightmare that just results in people believing what they want to believe.
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And yet you made the claim that the evidence was clear. Now you’re saying the opposite. Interesting.
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I made the claim that there is clear evidence that there was fraud. There is clear evidence there was fraud.
What is decidedly not clear is how much fraud there is.
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i just came here to say, Time Bandits is one of Terry Gilliam’s best.
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You keep saying evidence exists, then there is a “paucity” of it, but then there is clear evidence again? All these posts, and you’re still at step one.
Argue in good faith and present new information or perhaps:
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A lot of problems would disappear if they instituted rent control- like Somerville, MA is working towards. Cambridge should bring it back.
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Even with rent control, there’s a lot of money to be made for landlords as long as they’re competent business professionals who understand the costs and risks as well as the profits and benefits. It’s usually the amateur-hour small-timers who thought owning a few income properties would be an easy passive investment who object most vociferously to rent control as a matter of principle.
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Berkeley has rent control. It doesn’t consider pandemics and massive shutdowns of the economy. Los Angeles has rent control and I’ve never seen a worse group of landlords. Rent control needs to be improved to service the tenants a lot. It is just a price gate here.
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Indeed, I had neighbors in San Jose that stopped paying rent when San jose had its own eviction moratorium. Then again those people were just not nice folks. Those are the only people I know of that stopped paying specifically because they couldn’t be evicted. I know one other person that stopped paying because he could no longer afford it (lost one job, and the replacement job paid much less). He did admit that if he knew he could be evicted he would struggle more to make ends meet, take a third job maybe find a cheaper place to live. So there, that’s two. However I assure you I know far more than two people, so I don’t think my idea of “many” matches the landlord association’s idea of “many”.
Nope, I prefer having people not thrown out in the streets during a pandemic even if it had resulted in a near 100% non-payment of rent. Long term that sort of thing would sort itself out, even if all the landlords defaulted on mortgages and all the banks repossessed all the homes used for rentals…as long as the banks were prevented from foreclosing on mortgages over the same time period (if they weren’t then we still would have had the non-rent payers kicked out because eventually the landlords would have folded and then the banks would kick the former renters out so they could “protect” the properties by keeping them empty until they could sell them).
…where was I, oh yeah, if the banks all foreclosed at the end of the rent protection era they would put the houses back on the market, and either people who had been renting but wanted to own might have a chance of affording them (glut in the market makes it easier to buy), or we would get a new set of landlords likely no worse then the last set who would make rental property available again.
So short term we keep the pandemic from getting worse and long term we might improve home ownership rates, or maybe have no real change. I’ll take a short term win that doesn’t have a long term cost (or might pair with a long term win).
They have a pretty good framework, though. And some of those fraudsters happen to be landlords, according to indictment reports around the country. Go figure. 
ETA: Just for frame of reference, asshole-ishness knows no specific demographic.
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These are the people the guillotine was invented for.
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We are celebrating the end of the tenants who could have paid rent, and chose not to
When you’re so privileged you’re incapable of even imagining anyone who isn’t sitting on a big pile of money that they’re deliberately choosing not to draw from. They’re so rich and self-centered the very concept of poverty can’t penetrate their thick, gold-plated skulls.
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… because if nearly 100% of renters refused to pay at the same time there would be a revolution?
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So you have access to your neighbors’ bank statements?
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Right?!?
A group of property owners got together to drink cocktails to celebrate the fact that they’re again able to legally cast tenants out into the streets.
I don’t really know what level of “evidence” of renter fraud or anything else would make this seem at all seemly. It’s just gross. And cruel.
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