All Forum Posts by: Gail Travers

Also read Manufactured Insecurity by Dr. Esther Sullivan so you can learn why investors are so destructive to the families that live in manufactured home communities and why there is a national movement to get investors out of manufactured home communities. Available on Amazon as well. 

Ask yourself how you would like to hear the news that your rent/mortgage/taxes were being doubled.  Then you can answer your own question. 

I understand that science has not eradicated disease - rather it has controlled it through various methods through the ages like indoor plumbing and vaccines.  This is indeed a pandemic - a disease that is spread world wide.  This discussion reminds me of the very beginning of this in March of last year.  People were saying, "We are all in this together."  But of course we aren't and never were.  We are not united and this constant tug between us all about who is deemed deserving of anything has grown poisonous for everybody.  The only thing I can see from all of this discussion is this:  your core values drive the decisions that you make as a business person.  Your business will flourish or flop and in the end, you only have yourself to blame.  It is the same for all of us.  

I clearly stated the threats to both landlord and tenant are real and fear provoking. It's the demonizing of people in these situations that I find objectionable.  Why be in a business when the customers you are trying to attract are seen as less than people - just payments?  COVID has changed everything and created tremendous stresses on a housing situation that was already strained.  Apparently there was little anticipation on anybody's part besides that old nugget - have 6 months worth of money in the bank in case of an emergency...Turns out that was a drop in the bucket for what we have here with COVID.    

I am  not accusing anybody of hate.  Housing is a basic human need, right?  And by owning homes and charging people money to live there, you are providing this basic need for a price and a commitment to fulfill certain obligations - on both of your parts. There are some built in protections for everybody but basically  you are looking for decent tenants and they are looking for decent landlords. People who see this relationship as math might not want to rent homes or apartments to others but consider other types of investments like storage units or office space.  

These are more than math problems - these are people problems.  The primary emotion is fear.  

The difference is this:  Eat anything you want, drink yourself to death, wear what you want, etc.   You get into problems with freedom when your freedom intersects with mine - like when all the smokers got kicked outside to smoke when the product of their addiction to nicotine - smoke - was proven to cause  health issues for those around them who don't have that particular addiction.  Other people shouldn't die as a result of your freedom. What astounds me is that breaking the chain of infection  is a time proven way to prevent its spread and one of the bedrocks of medicine.  It's why nurses and doctors are expected to wash their hands between every single patient they see.  It's hygiene.  

I think the difference between heart disease and the pandemic is that the contagious nature of the disease caused businesses to change in ways that they were not accustomed to in the past.  You don't have to worry about your other customers or employees if someone with high blood pressure comes into your restaurant or store or lives in you apartment.  Restaurants did not close because people with poor eating habits impacted other people in the restaurant.  COVID is not comparable to the pain caused by our national health problem, heart disease. It is far more insidious. 

500,000 Americans died from COVID.  That's why we are in uncertain times.  If you are still above ground, consider yourself lucky.  This too shall pass and then this country will slowly get back on its feet - or maybe we won't...at this point, who knows?   But in this crisis moment, be glad you have a roof over your own heads.  

Amen, sister.