LETTER: The pandemic and free rent
The Thursday letter to the editor (“Rent due”) from Robert Steven Hirst threw me for a loop. He writes that, in response to COVID housing issues, the answer from Democrats “was to give tenants money to pay the rent.” He goes on to say that many of those tenants spent that money on everything but rent, as opposed to paying landlords.
Setting aside whether it was right to use taxpayer money to help people stay in their residences, we received three stimulus checks during the pandemic. Two of them were from the Trump administration. In fact, I remember a kerfuffle because Donald Trump was demanding that his name appear on the free government money provided to us.
It is false to say that Democrats gave “tenants money to pay the rent.” That money went through various state programs, such as CHAP here in Nevada. And the money, if paid, was paid directly to landlords. The majority of “free” money, to be used however we saw fit, was handed out by Mr. Trump.
