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Comment by buscoquadnary | Hacker News Reader

I have to wonder how many of these people were supposed to be evicted earlier but hid behind the COVID rules to avoid it.

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It strikes me as pretty dismissive, heartless even, to refer to people so hard up that they can't afford a roof over their head or stable place to sleep as "hiding behind" COVID-related eviction moratoriums.

This strikes me as pretty naive.

Could you elaborate?

A significant number of individuals using this rule use it in bad faith. E.g subletting the place without paying the landlord rent because they cannot be evicted. The landlord will never be paid and take a loss

Many people capable of paying rent declined to do so during the moratorium. Now they’re being evicted, not because their income is too little to afford housing, but because they made a series of truly reckless financial decisions.

Empathy is good, and perhaps we could use more of it, but dismissing someone as “heartless” for questioning the intent of some renters also strikes me as naive.

It's not dismissive because having someone else provide you a free roof over your head is not a birthright in this country. The way things are set up, you are taking that roof from someone else, so you have to pay for it, and if you refuse to do so, you are essentially stealing from the other person/company, who may have circumstances of their own. These weird "moratoriums" were one-off rules where the government has forced an arbitrary group of people to subsidize the living of another group of people, but that model was clearly unsustainable, and once it ran out, predictably all kinds of ugliness ensued.

> having someone else provide you a free roof over your head is not a birthright in this country

Pretty tough being a baby in the US I suppose, gotta learn to walk, talk, and pay the rent.

Might come as a surprise, but eventually, yes, one needs to learn to pay the rent.

I think perhaps we should look out for children as a society.

If you think that's a worthy cause you're welcome to suppport bringing back the homestead act and allow people to build their own roofs on properties they develop and subsequently own.

Landlords are not social security, and should not be expected to subsidize your wants.

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