NY Renews joins calls to cancel rent payments during the COVID-19 pandemic
***FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE***: March 30, 2020
Contact: Arielle Swernoff | (646) 450-5461 | arielle@nyrenews.org
Web: @NYRenews | www.nyrenews.org
NY Renews joins calls to cancel rent payments during the COVID-19 pandemic
NY Renews, a coalition of nearly 200 environmental justice, labor, faith, and multi-issue organizations joined the calls to cancel rent payments and sent the following letter to members of the New York State legislature and Governor demanding a suspension of rent, utility, and mortgage payments for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The full text of the letter is below:
NY Renews, a 200-member coalition of environmental justice, climate, labor, faith, and multi-issue organizations, is standing in solidarity with our allies in the housing justice movement and the Housing Justice for All coalition and calling on you to cancel rent for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic. Poor people have limited access to health care and recovery resources, and hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers cannot go to work, and thus cannot afford groceries, medicine, or rent. The first of the month is fast approaching, and many New Yorkers who have (rightly) been kept home to minimize the spread of the virus are unable to pay their rent.
Our response to the current COVID-19 crisis is a harbinger for what to expect from future climate disasters. The issues of health, housing, and climate are intimately related. It is eminently clear that environmental degradation has compounded COVID-19 for so many vulnerable New Yorkers. There is every reason to believe that profound changes to the planet’s ecosystem contribute to viral pandemics such as the one we’re experiencing now. In addition, air pollution from power plants, highways, waste transfer stations, and landfills has clearly caused increased asthma and heart disease in low-income communities and communities of color — factors that increase the risk of suffering severe harm or even dying from COVID-19.
Poor housing stock, exacerbated by environmental harm, is also a contributing factor. Drafts and black mold that remain unaddressed in many public housing developments and apartments owned by slumlords increase risk of prior lung damage that could mean the difference between life and death in a COVID-19 patient. That low-income communities of color live in poorly maintained housing near polluting infrastructure, and are uniquely vulnerable to health and climate disaster, is the result of centuries of racist housing and environmental policy, much of which is still on the books today.
Just like climate disasters such as Superstorm Sandy, the COVID-19 pandemic would be dangerous and life-threatening even if we had a robust social safety net. But without real investments in keeping New Yorkers safe and housed, we open the door to more death and trauma. In order to weather this crisis, and the ones to come, we must keep people in their homes. NY Renews member organizations such as PUSH Buffalo have already stopped collecting rent from their tenants. We’re calling on you to cancel rent payments for all and house the homeless for the duration of the pandemic.
We can get through this crisis, but only if we make real investments in keeping vulnerable New Yorkers safe.
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