Letter to the editor: Why should property owners support tenants?

Your editorial and article on evictions (“Evictions need answers, not hints,” Sept. 1, TribLIVE) fail to take into account the owners of the properties. Maybe some are big corporations with massive assets backing them up that can weather the storm, but, I’m sure, many more are like me.

I own one property with two tenants, one who pays every month and one that is 10 months behind. I need the income from my rental. I am retired, with only Social Security income (I’m not poor), but I resent the fact that I’m forced to support a family that is just coasting along, knowing that I can never be made whole. Even when I can finally evict, the people will just move out, sticking me with this arrears.

In case you don’t know, in Pennsylvania, court judgments are virtually impossible to collect. Even when the judge rules in your favor, the assets of the tenant are usually so meager that the creditor (me) will get nothing. My only hope of staunching the financial bleeding is to recover ownership and use of my own property and re-rent it to a more responsible person.

Why is it up to me to support people I don’t even know?

Tom Portante

O’Hara