This Is What Life Is All About ( Archived) (3)

Landlord refuses to evict jobless tenants
Instead, he takes a job to help pay the bills while the families try to get back on their feet.
Posted by Mai Ling at MSN Real Estate on Friday, September 25, 2009 11:23 AM
It's yet another tale of heartbreak, except this one ends with the kind of warmth you only expect on the Hallmark Channel.

Ed Peirce, a landlord who lives in Rock Hill, S.C., had a couple of options when both of the tenants in his two West Virginia rental houses lost their jobs and could no longer pay rent. The most obvious option was to evict them, but for Peirce, that might have been the last option on his list.

No, this man, a 54-year-old ordained minister profiled in The Herald of Rock Hill, instead took a job paying $8.50 an hour in the photo department at the local Walgreens to make his own ends meet while his tenants get back on their feet. From the article:

"I sat with them and prayed for better times," Peirce said. "These are stand-up guys. Family men. Proud. They paid me before, when they were working. You don't show your faith, your Christianity, in words. You do it in deeds."

Columnist Andrew Dys writes that one of the men, with a wife and two children, had worked in construction, and the other has a baby and was in utilities contracting. Both were laid off months ago, and with new construction on single-family homes on the decline, it could be awhile until work picks up again in either field.

And that's where Peirce steps in, to give us a little dose of Hallmark Channel reality to brighten the dark economy.

Bing: Other ways to help out in your community
Maybe his story will help other landlords find a way to give their desperate tenants a break.

I'm not talking about Manhattan, where BusinessWeek writes that rents are down about 15% and where tenants now have the power to demand free rent and other fees. Well, sure, that's all fine and dandy, but considering that these apartments average $3,700 for a one-bedroom, down from $4,400 last year, it's not quite the same thing.


No, what I'm talking about is people who have nowhere left to go, not people who are simply joining the move-up market.

At times like these, we all have to find ways to help one another. But don't be discouraged if you can't give as much back as Peirce, who also is one of the co-workers behind a recent donation drive for children living at the safe haven Children's Attention Home. From The Herald:

[Executive Director Libby] Sweatt-Lambert, who has spent decades helping strangers, heard Wednesday that Peirce is letting renters live in his homes without any fee until they can pay him back. She has heard every story of grace — but Peirce might have topped them all.

“What an awesome guy.”

That story warmed my heart, what an amazing guy..thank you..