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Comment by dredmorbius | Hacker News Reader

Rent and mortgage moratoria, and eviction bans, are also active initiatives. Several already imposed, more proposed, regionally andnationally.

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That's the silver lining here. With sheriffs and legislators not enforcing evictions, we can pretty much squat in our apartments until the situation changes if rent money completely dries up. The landlords are out-numbered by the tenants and can't reasonably expect to find another tenant while on lockdown.

The lessors won't take not receiving rent quietly, and will certainly pull every card to threaten tenants, but they're ultimately empty threats. The landlords' hands are tied.

Keep in mind that if you get an eviction notice in your record, that can make it harder to find a place to stay the next time you want to get a new place. In 2009 when I could no longer afford to pay rent, I chose to leave my apartment voluntary to avoid getting an eviction notice. That was critical a couple months later when I got a dumpy-but-better-than-nothing place to stay that checked to see if I had previously been evicted.

> The lessors won't take not receiving rent quietly, and will certainly pull every card to threaten tenants, but they're ultimately empty threats. The landlords' hands are tied.

Or...they'll just resign themselves to "we're all in this together" and accept they will have to suffer a bit too.

I just can't imagine an SF landlord passively resigning themselves to not getting paid rent, apocalypse or not.

Why not?

I was just reading about Arizona evictions (for, umm, a friend) and it seems the courts are just not going to serve any notices for the foreseeable future so they can't really do anything about it no matter how they feel.

Things will get sorted out, landlords will get a bailout, everyone will be happy.

I'm not saying the courts and police will be evicting people if ordered not to, I'm saying I doubt the landlords will be happy about their income suddenly getting slashed. And furthermore, believe that they will still threaten evictions with their trademark red, bolded nastygrams and loanshark-level harassment, even if it doesn't have any legal teeth.

Or are you earnestly suggesting that slashing someone's income will not result in them vocally trying to recover that income? We're under pandemic, not in a bizzaro universe. Landlords are gunna landlord.

> Or are you earnestly suggesting that slashing someone's income will not result in them vocally trying to recover that income?

Pretty much, yeah.

The states are declaring state of emergency, calling up the National Guard and other various things so any landlord who starts in with the heavy-handed tactics is going to end up on the news --> https://kfor.com/health/coronavirus/norman-renter-says-he-is...

That kind of proves my point. Even with the bad press, landlords are gunna landlord.

Most landlords face personal bankruptcy if they don't get the rent. This doesn't just apply to the landlords who are still paying mortgages on their properties. Insurance, maintenance, and taxes are all large expenses.

A lot of people in San Francisco seem to think landlords are evil, but they provide the majority of the housing.

Any law that protects tenants from eviction but does not protect landlords from their expenses is going to set people against each other in a struggle for survival.

This won’t apply to private rentals. You’re out on the street if you can’t make your rent.

Their $1,000 offer doesn’t go very far in California. It only pays for 2 weeks of rent. Or maybe 3 months of grocery for one person.

And, if you make too much money, you won’t get any assistance. You’re screwed both ways.

Housing courts will likely not be processing evictions. You'll be incurring some nasty debt (and so will your landlord, probably) but not physically transferring possession.

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