The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/landlords/)
Ithaca activists and politicians fight for city to opt into the Emergency Tenant Protection Act, a 1974 New York State rent stabilization and tenant protection law.
The powerless student body has been victim to horrible housing conditions, insane prices, and predatory leases they cannot escape. Cornell offering upperclass students veritable housing is a godsend, although extremely overdue.
As Cornell’s shift to online classes and students’ departure from Ithaca continues to impact the local economy, Ithaca mayor Svante Myrick ’09 called for a rent and mortgage freeze on Thursday.
Three students in the school of Industrial and Labor Relations have created the Ithaca Tenants’ Union to combat imbalanced power dynamics among tenants and landlords.
Renters across the country face a particular set of burdens unique in how close they are to home. Tenants face difficulty maintaining their homes, as they rely on landlords to carry out refurbishment and repairs, which the landlords have little incentive to do in a timely fashion. Secondly, not owning one’s house naturally creates instability, as there is little guarantee of where to call home from one year to the next. Finally, the rent is too damn high. In Ithaca, a striking 73% of households are renters, compared to 44% nationwide.