Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), a member of “The Squad,” is a vocal advocate of “canceling” rent debts for Americans who fell behind on their rental payments during the pandemic.
But new financial disclosures reveal that Pressley had no problem accepting rent from tenants last year.
What is the background?
Throughout the pandemic, Pressley has led an effort to “cancel” rent. She claims that canceling rent and preventing evictions are “a matter of public health.”
Pressley has even co-introduced legislation — the “Rent and Mortgage Cancellation Act” — to “institute a nationwide cancellation of rents and primary home mortgage payments through the duration of the coronavirus pandemic.”
The bill is true progressive dream. Not only does the bill advocate “a full payment forgiveness, retroactive starting April 2020, with no accumulation of debt for renters or homeowners and no negative impact on their credit rating or rental history,” but the bill would also “establish a relief fund for landlords and lenders to cover losses from the cancelled payments.”
Pressley’s legislation, which she drafted alongside Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), would provide relief to renters and mortgage-carriers with no strings attached. For landlords and lenders, however, the bill would only provide the relief it promised “so long as they agree to abide by a set of fair renting and lending practices for five years.”
But Pressley owns a rental property?
That’s right.
According to financial disclosures filed last week, Pressley reported thousands of dollars worth of rental income from 2020.
Pressley’s 2020 financial disclosure, filed on Friday, disclosed between $5,000 and $15,000 in rental income from a Boston property in her husband’s name. The property was converted into a multi-family apartment after it was purchased, according to Pressley’s disclosure. …
She disclosed the same range of rental income – between $5,000 and $15,000 – in 2020 as she did in 2019, before the pandemic began.
Previously, it was unknown whether Pressley collected income on her rental properties during the pandemic because she called rent cancellation “literally a matter of life and death” in December. The financial disclosure proves her rhetoric was incongruent with her actions.
The Washington Free Beacon first reported that Pressley and her husband own a multi-unit Boston-area home, which they purchased for more than $600,000 in 2019. The property rents for more than $2,000 per month, according to the Free Beacon.
*story by The Blaze
