Pat Harrison's Slumlord Uprising of 2008, 5/6: "More on the 'American Dream' of rental property exploitation."

Eight years later, and it's déjà vu all over again as Pat Harrison prepares to defend our downtrodden slumlords against the Gestapo.

The following was originally published here on August 28, 2007.

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More on the “American Dream” of rental property exploitation.

It’s a mellow morning accented by espresso, kippers and a multi-disc listening of the “Complete Stax/Volt Singles, 1959-1968,” and I’m hesitant to dive back into the rancor sure to be engendered by the topic of tax relief for rental property owners.

However, to judge by curent readership, I'm on a roll, so what the hell.

Yesterday in a private e-mail, a longtime NAC reader expressed annoyance with the apparent emergence of yet another campaign to improve the desperate plight of starving rental property owners, whose dented and soiled tin cups are expected to become a recurring feature of local editorial pages:

This is a joke!


Indiana landlords to make plea for tax relief (Courier-Journal).

I think this needs a spot on your blog, and there should be a group called, “Citizens against the Slumlords.” Everyone needs to call Indianapolis and request that their representatives vote NO on tax breaks to slumlords until they bring their properties up to code. These are businesses and should be taxed as such! These are problems and eyesores that I’m very passionate about …

After reading this note, I composed an e-mail to Pat Harrison:

Greetings,

I'm the senior editor of the NA Confidential blog, and we share your concern with certain problems associated with rental property in New Albany and Floyd County, although our emphasis as long suffering residents -- i.e., single family homeowners – in New Albany's long neglected historic core centers on the absence of applicable code enforcement and the proliferation of "slumlords."

Having viewed your recent advocacy on behalf of rental property ownership, and likewise perusing statistics suggesting that a high rate of rentals runs hand in hand with overall societal decay, we'd like to ask you a couple of questions.

Now many rental units do you currently own?

Do you hold mortgages on these?

Do you support the enforcement of applicable codes for all citizens?

Thanks for helping us understand your side of this question. Rest assured that we will continue to publicly advocate meaningful codes and rental property inspections as a means of alleviating the problems that have been experienced with irresponsible rental property management, irrespective of the tax burden -- which is but one side of the coin.

Twenty-four hours later, we’ve not received a response, but the situation is being monitored.

Alms, anyone?