Some landlords are taking advantage of the coronavirus outbreak, soliciting sexual favors in lieu of rent payments from economically vulnerable tenants, according to advocates.
Khara Jabola-Carolus, executive director of the Hawaii State Commission on the Status of Women, said her office has received more reports of landlords sexually harassing their tenants in the last two weeks than it had in the two years since she started working there, including cases of landlords offering to move in with tenants and sending sexually explicit photos to them after they communicated concerns about paying April rent.
"Landlord coercion has always been a reality, but we've never seen anything like this," Jabola-Carolus said. "The coronavirus creates the perfect conditions for landlords who want to do this because not only are people being instructed to stay home, but the virus has added to the economic stress with people losing their jobs.
Around 5 million more people filed first-time unemployment claims last week, bringing the total of unemployed Americans to nearly 22 million. While some states have enacted eviction and rent moratoriums, experts caution that these policies may not be enough to keep low- and middle- income renters in their homes. Only 69 percent of apartment tenants had paid their monthly rent by April 5, down from 81 percent the previous month.
"Landlords have all the leverage in the landlord-tenant relationship and in these types of situations, they especially prey on women who are vulnerable, who are housing insecure, have bad credit or who don't have anywhere to go," Renee Williams, a senior staff attorney at the National Housing Law Project said.
"Under the federal Fair Housing Act, sexual harassment by landlords is illegal," Sandra Park, senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberty Union's Women's Rights Project, said. "Many states also have laws that ban sexual harassment and discrimination."
Source: NBC News
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