Landlords Asking For Sex From Tenants Who Can’t Pay
Sounds like a porn intro, but in this case it’s not hot at ALL. According to a woman’s advocate, tenants who aren’t able to afford rent due to Coronavirus-related job loss are experiencing a whole lot of offers of leniency from their landlords…if they’re willing to sleep with them. Yikes.
One woman, unable to pay her April 1 rent after losing her income due to the coronavirus crisis, said she texted a prospective landlord inquiring about a more affordable property. He responded with a dick pic.
Another newly unemployed woman said she asked her landlord if she could pay her April rent once she had work again. He replied by telling her she could come over and spoon him instead.
These are just two of the 10 complaints of sexual harassment by landlords filed with the Hawaii State Commission on the Status of Women since the COVID-19 outbreak began.
“We’ve received more cases at our office in the last two days than we have in the last two years,” Khara Jabola-Carolus, the executive director of the commission, told BuzzFeed News in a phone interview last week.
And it’s not just Hawaii:
“We have seen an uptick in sexual harassment,” said Sheryl Ring, the legal director at Open Communities, a legal aid and fair housing agency just north of Chicago. Ring said her organization has seen a threefold increase in sexual harassment complaints related to housing in the last month.
“Since this started, they [landlords] have been taking advantage of the financial hardships many of their tenants have in order to coerce their tenants into a sex-for-rent agreement — which is absolutely illegal,” said Ring.
Barf! Not only is it illegal, but hooking up with someone you barely know during a pandemic? No bueno.