As coronavirus fallout hits renters, some landlords ‘threaten,’ some care, make deals 

At The Shandon Group’s office, they’re spraying down checks and money orders with Lysol.

Keys to rental properties that the property management company handles don’t escape a shot from the disinfectant either.

“This is an unprecedented event,” said Mary Twitty, who’s family has run The Shandon Group since 1992. “We’re adapting and learning as well.”

Renters are dealing with unknowns too, like how to pay the rent if they’re laid off and told to stay at home. Or, how to find a new place to live if their leases are ending during a pandemic-driven state of emergency.

“I assume people who own wouldn’t do that,” a renter told The State.

COVID-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus, is altering the interactions between tenants, landlords and property managers as they collectively figure out how to have less contact in a business relationship that often entails personal space and sometimes a personal touch, all the while hourly workers are having their hours taken away and livelihoods threatened.

In trying to strike this balance of safety and business amid the coronavirus, property managers and renters are finding that conflicts can fire up. In some cases, relationships that typically don’t go beyond a signed contract and an exchange of money once a month are becoming closer as tenants and landlords find empathy in trying times.

Twitty has seen both the fire and the grace of property management as the coronavirus concerns grow. She’s been called names — one that combined a vulgar slur — while she’s also had to figure out ways to ease the worries of someone who just lost their restaurant job.

“It’s volatile or compassionate,” Twitty said about tenants, owners and property management in the time of the coronavirus.

“We’re being compassionate but we have a job to do,” Twitty said.

But a group of Columbia activists are calling for more drastic action than what some property managers are providing to protect renters amid lost jobs and income insecurity.

The Columbia chapter of Southerners on New Ground, a social justice organization also know as SONG., believes collecting rent needs to be halted during the turmoil caused by the new virus.

“If we’re telling folks to stay at home then we have to provide housing,” said E.K. Hoffman, a member of SONG Columbia.

“Hi. Hello. Global pandemic!”

Kelsey Jones was sitting on the bedroom floor of her rental on Columbia’s south side, doing her make up and drinking a beer, when she got the text.

The text said a property manager with The Shandon Group was going to show Jones’ rental to potential renters the next day. Jones’ lease was coming up at the end of April, she wasn’t renewing and the company was trying to get a new tenant.

“I pretty much got livid immediately, not only because it’s rude and invasive to show a future tenant a house that is still occupied but hi. Hello. Global pandemic! deadly virus!,” Jones said over text (like many, she’s social distancing).

Jones took her frustration to the public megaphone of Columbia’s south side community, The Rosewood Neighbors Facebook Group.

Responses and frustration from fellow renters took a turn with talks of property damage and dirty tissues being left around to give the image of Jones’ rental being a house of sickness. Jones had to denounce these suggestions and clarify that she was just venting.

The phone conversation between Jones and Twitty that followed the Facebook thread was not pleasant, according to both. It’s the kind of friction between renter and property manager that is arising more often because of coronavirus.

Twitty said The Shandon Group is trying to preempt those situations while adding layers of precaution as social distancing to fight the virus becomes to norm.

Communication is key, Twitty said. If a tenant has concerns, from in-person showings of their property to their lease ending, the renter should call and express those issues, and property managers can figure out how to work out the concerns.

Property management companies across Columbia that The State spoke with expressed similar views about tenants communicating and working out concerns together amid coronavirus. Companies also have taken precautions that include:

• creating no-show lists for tenants who don’t want their apartment shown in person
• creating virtual tours and videos that eliminate the need for prospective tenants to visit a property in person
• closing company offices and waiving fees for paying rent online to reduce person-to-person contact
• changing how maintenance is being done

Now, if a tenant calls in for a repair from The Shandon Group, which a lot are doing since they’re sitting around their places more and finding everything that’s wrong, a maintenance man shows up in a mask and latex gloves armed with a can of Lysol or other disinfectant. The maintenance worker has been directed to spray everything he touches.

“It’s not a perfect science,” Twitty said of trying to balance renters’ concerns and property owners’ needs.

No Scrooges so far

Unlike The Shandon Group, Columbia Property Management is receiving fewer maintenance requests than normal, though it’s still prepared to respond, according to the company’s owner, Rebecca Fouché. People are following social distancing practices and giving maintenance workers a break, she said.

But both companies, like others The State spoke with, are finding ways to help people put out of work by coronavirus.

A couple who has rented from Columbia Property Management for years owns a restaurant, Fouché said. Their livelihood has taken a hard hit as Gov. Henry McMaster declared that all restaurants must close dining rooms to help combat the coronavirus.

Fouché was able to work with the property owner to reduce the couple’s rent. It’s one of those moments that show people coming together to overcome a moment of turmoil.

“We’re on the the front line right now,” Fouché said. “So we’re trying to come up with everything to do our part. For the most part everyone has been willing to participate in some way.”

Columbia Property Management, like The Shandon Group and other rental companies that spoke to The State, are taking actions to help renters who have been laid off or seen their hours reduced. Those actions include:

• prorating or reducing rent payments
• putting together payment plans for renters
• waiving fees for late rent
• suspending leases for college students who are no longer in Columbia

These actions aren’t automatically taking affect, and so Fouché and other companies said that tenants should give property managers a call if they’re worried about how they’ll pay rent.

The refrain of property managers is they’re working with struggling renters on a “case by case basis.”

“We haven’t had any Scrooges so far,” Fouché said about property owners’ willingness to help renters.

#CancelRent

But E.K. Hoffman has heard of some Scrooges and seen their letters, which are asking people to put themselves in danger, Hoffman said.

“We want to ensure all of our tenants are kept in their homes during this time,” says one letter from a property management company to its tenants. “But we can only ensure that if your rent is paid. ... Get your payments in before you are out of work, sick or if there are any other side effects from this virus.”

The letter ends by saying, “Our processes will not be stopping, we will be following all fair housing laws.”

Hoffman, a member of the Columbia chapter of Southerners on New Ground, has been sent the letters from concerned renters. The social justice organization’s members call the letters “extremely predatory,” barely veiled threats and intimidation tactics from property managers who are putting profits before people’s well being.

“Folks should be caring for our health and our communities and the health of our country as a whole but we’re forced to care more about money … in order to have a roof over our head,” said Hoffman.

The letters from some property companies are coming as the South Carolina Supreme Court has ordered that evictions be stopped through the end of April to allow people to isolate in their homes to help stop the coronavirus spread.

For SONG Columbia, the best way to help renters is to suspend or excuse rent payments as restaurant servers, hotel workers and other hourly wage earners find their jobs don’t exist, at least temporarily.

The activist group is calling for government leaders in South Carolina to issue a moratorium on rent payments and to provide forgiveness for any missed payments when the emergency declarations are lifted. The group has started trying to get social media trends #CancelRent, #NoPayNoRent going. Other cities in the United States are contemplating rent freezes and renter subsidies to keep tenants safe.

“It’s especially disgusting that during a global pandemic, we’re treating housing as a privilege not a right,” Hoffman said.

Renters who have lost their incomes are being pulled in two directions by forces beyond their control.

Not only are people losing their jobs, but they’re being told by authorities to stay in place and practice social distancing. But some landlords are telling tenants they have to pay rent, that they need to work to keep a roof over their heads. Renters are facing an untenable conflict between losing their incomes and being pressured to pay rent, Hoffman said.

As an hourly retail worker, with no sick leave or vacation days, whose hours have been cut and may soon disappear altogether, Hoffman is in the middle of this conflict. April 1 is quickly coming up and rent will be due unless a rent freeze is declared, Hoffman said.

When the next paycheck comes, “It could be the last amount of money I could have for months.”

Now, Hoffman is having to decide whether it is more responsible to pay for rent or to pay for food.

And Hoffman isn’t alone.

This story was originally published March 27, 2020 at 5:00 AM.

David Travis Bland

The State

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David Travis Bland is The State’s editorial editor. In his prior position as a reporter, he was named the 2020 South Carolina Journalist of the Year by the SC Press Association. He graduated from the University of South Carolina in 2010. Support my work with a digital subscription