CoronaDomino

40% of N.Y. Tenants May Not Pay Rent This Month. What Happens Then?

Published March 31, 2020
The true economic toll of all but shutting down New York City to stem the spread of the coronavirus is likely to become clearer on Wednesday when April rent is due.

In just a month’s time, the lives of millions of New Yorkers have been turned upside down, many of them losing their jobs and now worrying about paying their bills.

“It’s gotten to this point where I really cannot pay rent because doing so would jeopardize my ability to buy food or basically survive,” said Henry True, 24, a musician and freelancer who pays $600 a month for a bedroom in a shared apartment in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. “I’m really just holding on to whatever penny I have.”

No one knows for sure how many renters in New York City will have a hard time paying, but landlords and the real estate industry say they are bracing for perhaps as many as 40 percent of tenants, if not more, skipping their April payments.