Without
respect to the fact that states have the authority to regulate housing
contracts, Ilhan Omar uses a viral smokescreen to begin implementing
some of the worst features of Agenda 21, the leftist promise that the
government will provide affordable housing for everyone. On March 11,
she introduced H.R. 1847, a bill “To suspend obligations of residential
renters and mortgagors to make payments during the COVID-19 emergency,
and for other purposes.” So far only a draft of the text is available.
Essentially,
the bill says that real property tenants can stop paying their
landlords. Our country was not founded on the moral code that one is not
responsible for one’s obligations and debts. However, these socialists
would make it so.
Unsurprisingly, this bill
is full of problems. It provides for a COVID suspension period ending
April 2022 (Sec. 8(3)), but the landlord relief fund runs for five years
(Sec. 5 (c)(1)). It seems as if it’s planning to extend for up to five
years a tenant’s freedom from rent obligations, should the bill become
law.
Under H.R. 1847,
tenants may simply stop paying their rent, without restriction, for a
period of one year (for now). There is no means-testing to determine if
rent relief is warranted. In fact, the bill doesn’t even require that
the tenant notify the landlord. However, our taxpayer money will go to
notify every renter in the country of this provision (Sec. 3(c)). No
mention is made of notifying every landlord, yet landlords can be held
responsible, to the point of forfeiting their property if they
ignorantly, but in accordance with their lawful contract, pursue their
tenants for rent (Sec. 4).
While
tenants can just withhold money, landlords must apply for relief of
unpaid rent (Sec. 5). The requirements are onerous and include freezing
the rent for a period of five years regardless of the market – a
provision that could cut both ways. The owner must agree to rent vacant
units to HUD and other tenant-assistance grantees, even if it is
apparent that the tenant cannot afford usual utilities. In some
localities, landlords are on the hook for unpaid utility bills in
occupied dwellings.
Potential
tenants cannot be rejected for their arrest and conviction history,
presumably including a history of arson, running a brothel, destroying
rented housing, cooking meth at home, drug dealing, or pedophilia even
if the unit is across the street from a school. Too bad, landlords, when
your insurance rates triple due to this law, but your ability to charge
rent is still frozen.
Applications for rent relief must include Personally Identifiable Information for any person with any
ownership interest in the property, except for shareholders in a
publicly-traded company; an unrestricted list of all their assets and
liabilities; and comprehensive info on all rentals in which they have an
interest, not just the one on the application. This, of course, is
specifically designed to give the federal government a complete listing
of all rental housing in America, and a basis for implementing a wealth
tax.
The
communism begins to sneak in in Sec. 5(e), where priority for landlord
reimbursement is tiered based on income. Non-profit owners and those
with the fewest assets get the highest priority.
Rental
property owners get totally trashed if they own a multi-family (five or
more dwelling units) structure (Sec. 7). For five years, they cannot
sell or transfer their property -- presumably, this includes transfers
via a trust to one’s heirs -- without the permission of HUD, which will
notify all eligible purchasers that the property is available. This is a
prima facie violation of the Commerce Clause of the Constitution.
The
first right of purchase will go to non-profit or other such housing
organizations, at a sale price that HUD approves. We the People…er,
sorry, HUD will pay for this housing. We will also pay for operations
and maintenance costs, seemingly in perpetuity (Sec. 7(f)(2)). Nothing
in this draft bill prevents these guv-funded purchasers from turning
around and selling the property. There’s no reimbursement provision at
all. Not a bad gig, but on the other hand….
New
owners of multi-family facilities face life-of-the-facility-long
restrictions, including no refusing housing based on criminal history or
immigration status (Sec. 7(d)(4)). Hide your teenage daughters,
you other tenants, because that means that these private, public, or
quasi-governmental organizations must rent to MS-13 if they show up at
the door. This provision also abrogates the short-term public charge
requirements of immigration law for most legal immigrants -- a feature
of immigration statutes that pre-dates Trump, going back to 1882.
Tenants
must be provided with comprehensive social services, regardless of
whether they are already provided with these services in the community
outside the facility (Sec. 7(d)(5)).
The coup de gras is found in Sec. 7(d)(6) “Tenants of the project shall have control of living and operating conditions…”
But
here’s what Omar’s bill doesn’t mention: H.R. 1319 – the American
Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (i.e., $1.9 T boondoggle bill) – which Biden
signed into law on March 12, contains a provision for housing
assistance, essentially for every category of need, under Subtitle B
Housing (sections 3201 – 3208). This assistance continues for 18 months.
What
this means is that there is no need at all for Omar’s little one-year
bill. Her bill is a trap to get We the People to pay for everyone’s
housing and it’s the opening gambit to bring all housing under the
control of the federal government.
And there’s your Agenda 21 “affordable housing for all.”
