Olympia Councilmember Renata Rollins speaks during an online city council meeting, possibly from the property she's stealing. (City of Olympia screengrab)
A selfish and needy councilmember is bragging that she’s stealing property from her landlord by participating in the rent strike. She wants to be seen as a hero. But she’s the villain in this delusional world she’s created in her head.
Olympia Councilmember Renata Rollins says she’s withholding rent to bring conversation to a failed national movement for rent forgiveness during the pandemic. She doesn’t care about the bills her landlord must shoulder. She wants you to know she’s a hero and she’s fighting for you.
Unfortunately, Rollins doesn’t understand how the rental industry works. Or, she does, but doesn’t care: she’s a radical activist hoping to take some of the spotlight from far better known Socialists and Progressives in the region.
Clueless or attention-seeking? Both during rent strike
The rent strike movement asked renters to forgo their May rental payment to put pressure on the greedy, evil landlords they pretend run the rental housing industry. Pushed by Socialist activists like Seattle City Councilwoman Kshama Sawant and anti-Semitic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, the rent forgiveness movement aimed to destroy small and large businesses with the intent of creating a housing industry developed through a socialist-lens.
The movement, thankfully, failed.
According to the National Multifamily Housing Council, rent in May was only down 2% from where it was a year ago. That number likely reflects actual hardships due to the coronavirus, not activism. Indeed, it suggests the loudest activists didn’t even practice what they preached.
But Rollins participated, even bragging about it on Medium so it would be shared, go viral, and earn her 15 minutes of news coverage. But in it she exposed how little she even understands about the industry. Indeed, the rent strike movement tried to take advantage of vulnerable renters to forward a radical political agenda. Anyone who didn’t pay rent would likely face eviction down the line and face hits to their credit scores. Rollins should face both those consequences.
She made the crisis worse
Rollins acknowledges she can afford her rent; she just chose not to comply with the rental agreement because she wanted to present herself as a hero.
“If it’s a question of if I have money in the bank or if I could find money from family, yeah, I have the money in the bank,” Rollins admitted to KING 5.
So you have the money to afford staying in someone else’s property but you’re choosing not to pay? That sounds like you’re stealing property.
Rollins isn’t just making the housing situation for actual victims tougher. She’s also symbolic of the worst kind of activist: in it to forward her own agenda and brand, rather than help those she pretends to care about.
Most landlords, many of whom are small business owners who live on the property, will make concessions to those in tough spots making good faith requests. They’re not the heartless devils the anti-capitalist activists want you to think they are. Indeed, the very landlord who manages Rollins’ property says he worked with people who need help.
“We have been responding to those who live in our properties who have reached out to us for rent relief,” Zach Kosturos, Rollins’ landlord, said on LinkedIn. “Renata is the ONLY person who has stated she will not be paying rent though she has the ability. Every other tenant on our list has actually lost a job, had their pay cut, and/or their business closed. The other requests we’ve received have been honest and earnest explanations of need.”
Rollins didn’t help. She needed a spotlight.
How the rent strike stunt hurts
Rental forgiveness should not be offered to people who don’t need it. Privileged activists who can easily use the $23,293.21 salary for part time council work, while working a second job as a caregiver, should not benefit with a free pass.
When you choose not to pay what you can afford, you make it harder for landlords to help to someone who actually can’t pay. They only have so much money to give out when they themselves have bills to pay. And while Rollins and other anti-landlord dumb-dumbs (or dum-dums, if you will), think every landlord is swimming in cash, landlords actually have their own bills to pay.
“Landlords don’t get bailouts, and we have no moratorium on paying Renata’s water, sewer and garbage bills, her toilet repair costs, her roof repairs, or paying taxes or the salaries of our employees who look after the unit that she says she loves,” Kosturos wrote.
Narcissist needs attention
Rollins felt the need to write an “open letter” expressing her motives on Medium. No one asked. She made the choice. In doing so, she was able to frame herself as a martyr and hero forced into withholding rent that she could afford to pay.
I’m scared to write this. Scared because I don’t know what it will mean for me personally, politically, or financially. If there were any sufficient alternative, one that would still allow me to see myself with integrity as a member of this community, I would take it. But when something becomes the clear next right step in your journey, you do it, even when you can’t see the outcome. Even when it’s scary.
She felt no fear when writing the letter, of course. She relished being able to tell her story in a way that might get the attention of the much bigger-deal activists in the area, like Sawant. Rollins wants so desperately to be a part of something bigger, but it’s hard when you’re in Olympia. Fringe lunatics in Seattle get all the love.
In her letter, to help cast herself as a victim, she posted the note she sent to her landlord.
“I cannot pay, but I need to stay,” Rollins lied. To KING 5, she said she had the money to pay rent.
It gets dumber
Rollins goes on to note she has no clue what she’s talking about.
The rent and mortgage strike directly bucks downward economic pressure and pushes it back up the chain to institutions with the resources to bear it. Together we’re setting a clear boundary and sending a message: The cost of this recovery cannot and will not be borne by renters, landless people, or people whose main asset is their home.
Why stop with rent? How about all of us stop paying taxes. In fact, why should I have to pay for my Herkimer espresso blend? When they finally re-open, I’m going to just take all the coffee I want. Let them push their concern “back up the chain to institutions with the resources to bear it.” Jeff Bezos will buy my coffee!
Rollins doesn’t understand the economy. She thinks a handful of wealthy people can borne the economic pressures of an entire nation refusing to pay rent. Let’s not let her idiocy translate to a movement that gains steam.
Rollins is just being frugal, or something
Rollins then argues that she’s just planning for the future by saving money now. Who needs to pay rent when, in the future, she might not be able to? I mean, she’s working and has a savings account now. But what if in the future she doesn’t? Sure, that time may never come. In fact, as best as I can tell, it hasn’t happened to her yet. But it could at some point.
While I will always work and hope for the best, we must prepare for a deep economic recession and market destabilization, all while knowing that billionaires, big banks and other pandemic profiteers are poised to improve their relative position, just like during the Great Recession. Those of us who aren’t profiting off this crisis are going to need all the resources we can save in order to take care of ourselves, our loved ones and our communities.
The irony is that she’s literally the pandemic profiteer — she’s refusing to pay for property she doesn’t own. She’s stealing so she can hang on to more money. She’s profiting off her own political movement.
No one should feel ashamed, embarrassed or afraid for missing a rent or mortgage payment — ever — and especially not now.
Actually, I can back that statement 100%. If you can’t pay rent due to coronavirus, while working with your landlord, you should not feel ashamed. You shouldn’t be embarrassed, either. If your landlord isn’t making a good faith effort to work with you, I hope you’ll contact me to help.
Rollins, however, has everything to be ashamed of. And her privileged position, framing herself as a hero and a freedom fighter, should bring her great embarrassment. But oftentimes, when you’re living with delusions of grandeur and are an incredible narcissist, reality doesn’t every quite click in.
Hopefully when she’s booted from office, the reality will set in. She’s a thief desperate to bring more meaning to her life on the Olympia City Council.
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