I have built, owned and managed a duplex in Cle Elum for 33 years. This year I am going to have to sell it due to Gov. Jay Inslee’s new regulations about renters not having to pay rent during the eviction moratoriums. Your new decree has irreparably harmed me as a small rental owner who has helped low-income renters for many years with this property.
I moved a low-income renter in this year in March and due to covid is did not vet him the way I usually would have because I could not travel to the property. I had not heard about the eviction moratorium either. The new renter has paid only one month’s rent because there is no way I can ask him to leave. He is also employed full time and is not paying his rent because he doesn’t have too. He is taking advantage of the covid rental deferral in such a way that he can never pay back the rent when the decree is over. His rent deferral plan was never followed up on. I am left with a legal and financial mess.
The thought of relieving renters from paying rent is good. But the ability for landowners to subsidize their rent I feel very unfair and not thought out very well. Perhaps if you had decreed that the state would implement a tax to pay for the moratorium it would have been sustainable. But having me and other owners go under is not a good way to help low-income renters I feel.
I have put my 33-year-old rental up for sale and am waiting 60 days for this to be legal. If Inslee truly cares about people like me, I feel he will need to help make this right and fair for all who live and own property in Washington state.
Steven Oravetz
Camano Island
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