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Some disgusting US property managers are making the most of the coronavirus crisis by attempting to coerce their cash-strapped tenants into “sex-for-rent” arrangements, according to a troubling brand-new report.
In Hawaii, the state’s Commission on the Status of Women has seen 10 problems of unwanted sexual advances by property owners given that the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, BuzzFeed News reported.
” We have actually gotten 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, informed the outlet recently.
In the Chicago area, Sheryl Ring, the legal director at Open Communities, a legal help and reasonable housing company, said that her company has seen a threefold increase in housing-related unwanted sexual advances complaints over the past month.
” We have seen an uptick in unwanted sexual advances,” Ring informed the outlet. “Considering that this started, [landlords] have actually been benefiting from the financial challenges many of their tenants have in order to persuade their tenants into a sex-for-rent contract– which is absolutely unlawful.”
” We have actually heard some property owners are trying to utilize the scenario where an occupant falls back to press a renter into exchanging sex for rent,” she added.
While proprietors sexually bugging occupants is not a brand-new issue, some renters’ monetary difficulties– and in many cases, joblessness– throughout the coronavirus crisis have actually made them much more vulnerable.
” Of course that’s not the root cause of why it’s taking place, but it makes it easier because now [landlords] have access to individuals at their fingertips,” Jabola-Carolus told the outlet.
Landlords who sexually harass tenants are typically serial offenders who are “benefiting from the scenario to engage in misbehavior they are generally currently being examined or caught for,” Ring described.
Ring urged anyone sexually bugged by a proprietor not to give in to their demands, but to contact their local legal aid or renters’ rights company.
” It is necessary to know what your rights are as rapidly as possible,” she informed the outlet. “Even now, even if courts are closed to most things, it doesn’t indicate you do not have recourse right now and can’t be safeguarded.”
