After hurricane Sandy, many residents needed a place to live. Landlords and homeowners came to their rescue. (Some homeowners had illegal apartments and/or occupants.) Long Beach tenants and homeowners that were displaced could continue to live in Long Beach while their homes were and still are being raised and/or repaired. Displaced homeowners continued to pay real estate tax on their vacant property while their structures were being repaired. Their children did not need to start in a different school or live in a different neighborhood. While Landlords (and homeowners) helped their neighbors, something Jesus would do, other residents searched the City for illegal occupants, hunting them down like Nazi War criminals. Almost a year after Sandy, there are still many families helping their relatives, friends, and neighbors as their homes are being repaired while the whiners race to “rat them out” to the building department for illegal occupancy prosecution (usually after an illogical rant of fairness deprivation). The whiners wrongfully believe that Landlord profit is the equivalent to a community cancer.
Some Landlords make money; some lose money. There are good landlords and there are bad landlords. There are good tenants and there are bad tenants. There are good illegal tenants and there are bad illegal tenants. Believe it or not, some illegal apartments are not garbage dumps, brothels, or drug dens. [One illegal tenant I knew ran two blocks, entered a burning house, ran up the stairs, and saved a baby from being burnt to death.] It is unfair to portray all landlords as evil. I often find that people that call others crazy are usually crazy themselves; that people who complain about their extra burden of taxes are moochers, and so on. Landlords don’t want bad tenants. Landlords are sometimes unable to promptly evict bad tenants because voters [non-landlords] pass laws making it impossible. Landlords buy properties, fix them, and rent them. If they did not, many neighborhoods would turn into slums. On the other hand, some landlords never fix their property and are only concerned with maximum profit.
Some Long Beach residents, fixated on pusillanimous minutia, are unaware that HUD could unilaterally dismantle local zoning so communities have what government considers the right mix of economic, racial and ethnic diversity. Westchester County is currently facing the building of 750 affordable-housing units to comply with HUD demands. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323623304579056721426092030.html
Of course landlords should not be put on a pedestal—but it is unfair to constantly bash them indiscriminately. The wholesale hammering of Landlords is just as discriminatory as any other targeting of a societal group.
