Free Republic

The New York state attorney general’s office has notified Capital Tonight it has filed a notice of appeal in the state Supreme Court’s ruling in March that a state law requiring landlords to accept Section 8 vouchers is unconstitutional. In its decision, the court ruled it’s a violation of a landlord’s Fourth Amendment rights because it forces landlords to consent to governmental searches of their rental properties and records. The housing voucher program helps those who are low-income, older New Yorkers, veterans and disabled families rent or buy affordable housing. “I don’t agree with the basis of the claim,” said...

🚨 BREAKING: The "experts" are in a state of SHOCK after local news is forced to report rent prices are PLUMMETING in Arizona Apartments are even offering up to 3 MONTHS FREE Glendale: -8.3% Tempe: -7.6% Chandler: -6.4% Scottsdale: -4.6% Phoenix: -3.2% We voted for this! 🇺🇸

CHICAGO - Tenants at Chaney Braggs Apartments, at 65th Street and Stony Island Avenue, held a rally Thursday morning, protesting possible rent increases and the threat of losing their homes as construction continues at the Obama Presidential Center a few blocks away. Residents say a California investor wants to buy the building and either gut and rehab it or demolish it. According to tenants, the buyer is offering a $2,000 cash payment for each family to move out. Most tenants currently pay $700 to $800 a month in rent, and many have lived in the building for 30 or even...

In New York’s large suite of self-destructive public policies, it’s hard to choose which one is the very worst. But an excellent candidate is the regime for regulation of residential rents, mostly going by the name of Rent Stabilization. Because of rent regulation, New York’s rental housing stock is older, more outdated, and less well-maintained than the housing of any other American city. If you got yourself into one of the regulated apartments a few decades ago, you likely enjoy a significant bargain on your monthly rent versus comparable space, to go along with your 30- or 40-year old kitchen...

Virginia 2026 Bills — Key Points in Plain English Eviction & Tenant Protections SB 48 — More Time Before Eviction Tenants get 14 days instead of 5 to pay late rent before a landlord can file for eviction. SB 273 — Easier Access to Eviction Diversion Program Tenants only need to pay 10% upfront (not 25%) to enter a payment plan. No longer need to be employed — just need income to make payments. Courts must give tenants info about the program. Localities can set their own rules. SB 313 — Limits on Landlord Fees Landlords cannot charge extra fees...

On Los Angeles streets, tents aren’t just signs of homelessness — they’re where gangs openly deal drugs and collecting rent. Whether its RV rows choking Compton Boulevard, Skid Row’s packed tent maze or the once-quiet pockets of the Westside, encampments have morphed into open-air drug markets. This isn’t chaos — it’s control. Gangs blend into the population, hiding in plain sight, running street commerce behind tarps and inside RVs while City Hall looks the other way. Nowhere is it clearer than Compton Boulevard, where more than 100 RVs sit bumper-to-bumper, windows blacked out. Outreach workers and residents say many are...

There's one utterly reliable thing about socialism: It fails, every time it's tried. It may fail on the national scale, like the Soviet Union, or it may fail on the municipal scale, like New York City is in the throes of doing right now. The "democratic socialist" mayor of the Big Apple, Zohran Mamdani, has never seen a commie policy he didn't like.One of those policies is freezing rents in the city. That's already producing predictable results: Landlords are selling out and leaving.When Zohran Mamdani ran for mayor of New York City, he made one promise unmistakably clear: he would...

President Donald Trump’s mass deportation policies are not the only reason for the decline, but they are a big contributing factor. Enforcing immigration law and allowing more homes to be built are doing more for renters than slogans and rent control ever did. I

THE TERM "EXTREME WEATHER CONDITION" SHALL MEAN: (A) (I) ANY PERIOD FOR WHICH THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE HAS ISSUED AN OFFICIAL WARNING OR ADVISORY FOR EXCESSIVE HEAT, DEFINED AS A FORE- CASTED HEAT INDEX OR REAL-FEEL TEMPERATURE OF NINETY DEGREES FAHRENHEIT OR HIGHER; OR (II) ANY PERIOD FOR WHICH THE GOVERNOR HAS DECLARED A STATE OF EMER- GENCY UNDER SECTION TWENTY-EIGHT OF THE EXECUTIVE LAW RELATED TO EXTREME COLD, STORM, FLOOD, WILDFIRE SMOKE, OR OTHER SEVERE WEATHER EVENT; AND (B) THE SEVENTY-TWO HOUR PERIOD FOLLOWING A PERIOD UNDER PARAGRAPH (A) OF THIS SUBDIVISION. 2. (A) IN A PROCEEDING TO RECOVER...

Who could have guessed that prices have anything to do with supply and demand? Not me. I used to think so, but after I got into an argument with a liberal friend of mine after I suggested that the housing crisis was related to the surge in illegal immigration, and he exploded at me, I changed my mind. His emotional response was very convincing. Well, it turns out that reality really doesn't respond as one would expect to emotional outbursts, and when demand drops due to fewer people seeking limited resources, prices really do fall. Los Angeles is one of...

She Pays $0 Rent and STILL Loses Her Section 8 Home?

Mayor Zohran Mamdani Makes a Housing-Related Announcement

That our people should live in their own homes is a sentiment deep in the heart of our race and of American life,” said President Herbert Hoover, perhaps the most important advocate of mass homeownership in the country’s history, in 1931. “They never sing songs about a pile of rent receipts.” But a ballad about the rental market is overdue. When rich-world interest rates began to surge in 2022, renting became a better deal than buying. House prices have since stagnated or slumped in many places, and rates are falling. Even so, there is reason to think that the winning...

How Does Society Readjust its Direction in Case of Deviation from its Law? "If an instrument of governing is dictatorial, as in political systems in the world today, the society's vigilance towards deviation from law will have only one way to gain readjustment. That is violence, which means revolution against the instrument of governing. This violence or revolution, even if it is an expression of the feeling of the society against deviation, is not carried out by the whole society. It is undertaken only by those who have the initiative and boldness to proclaim the will of the society." The...

New York Councilwoman Vickie Paladino is sounding the alarm about a line in Mayor Zohran Mamdani's inaugural speech. There was a lot in Mamdani's remarks to parse, including his assertion that New York will move toward the "warmth of collectivism" rather than "rugged individualism." As many pointed out, collectivism has a pretty high body count.But socialists like Mamdani don't care. They'll do whatever it takes, and stack as many bodies as necessary, to achieve their utopia. Mamdani made a boatload of promises in his address, including free universal childcare, free buses, and a $30 minimum wage.There was also another line...

Zohran Mamdani used his first day in office Thursday to hit the ground running with new executive orders targeting city landlords and housing development. And he said the city will take what he called "precedent-setting action" to intervene in a private landlord bankruptcy case he said was tied to 93 buildings. "It is inauguration day. It is also the day that the rent is due." Speaking at a Brooklyn apartment building, Mamdani framed the moves as an early test of whether city government will directly confront landlords over housing conditions and step into court cases that could determine whether tenants...

Move over, Tim Walz, because Joe Biden looks to be giving you a run for your money when it comes to fraud. In the final year of the Biden administration, federal officials sprayed billions of taxpayer dollars meant to keep struggling families in their homes around the country like confetti, sending a shocking slice of that money to dead people, ineligible non-citizens, and tenants collecting more than the law allows. “A US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) report found more than $5 billion in taxpayer funds went to ‘questionable’ rental assistance recipients during the final year of the...

Mission-driven groups will get an early chance to make offers on properties that can be rehabilitated and preserved as affordable. he New York City Council passed a revised version of the Community Opportunity to Purchase Act (COPA), a law that gives certain nonprofits an early right to bid on available properties that could be rehabilitated and preserved as affordable housing. As Jeanmarie Evelly explains in City Limits, the law “specifically targets buildings with poor conditions or where an affordability provision is expiring.” The law allows “qualified entities” to purchase properties, make repairs, and maintain affordable rents. First introduced in 2020,...

That’s one hell of a markup. Whoever moves into NYC Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s rent-stabilized apartment in Queens will be shelling out an extra $800 — or 35% — more per month than what the socialist “nepo baby” did, The Post has learned. The Astoria apartment — which has quietly attracted interest from potential tenants for the past few weeks — is now commanding $3,100 per month while still remaining rent stabilized, sources said. Mamdani — who’ll be moving into Gracie Mansion with his “aloof” artist wife Rama Duwaji sometime after being sworn in Jan. 1 — caught a break during...

Summers in the city could get a little cooler for apartment dwellers with the recent passing of a New York City Council bill. Intro 994, also known as the Cool Homes For All legislation, passed the City Council on Thursday, paving the way for tenants to get free cooling systems from landlords at their request. “All tenants deserve a safe, livable home, and as our summers get hotter, that means guaranteeing access to air conditioning,” said Council Member Lincoln Restler, who sponsored the bill. The legislation will require building landlords to provide cooling systems capable of maintaining 78 degrees in...