Jimmy McMillan Evicted from NYC Apartment for 'Too Damn Cheap' Rent
As President Obama holds $35,000 a plate fundraisers and potential GOP candidate Mitt Romney gets $1 million from mysterious companies, one presidential hopeful is getting evicted from his apartment.
Jimmy McMillan, the man with the beard who caught the attention of America when he formed the “Rent is Too Damn High” party and ran for governor of New York, becoming a fly-by cultural icon in the process, is now getting evicted. The reason?
His rent is too damn cheap.
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McMillan lives in New York City’s East Village and pays only $872 a month for his rent-controlled digs in a neighborhood where apartments average approximately $3,500 a month.
And now, he says, the building owners are trying to evict him in order to bypass New York City rent-control laws and get more money.
"I've been here since 1977, and they want more money!" McMillan told The New York Post. "It's about 'My Rent is Too Damn Low.' "
The building’s owner, Lisco Holdings, says they are kicking McMillan out because he does not really live there. Rent-control laws require that the rent-stabilized apartment be the tenant’s primary residence, and McMillan told The New York Times in an interview last year that he lives in a Brooklyn apartment in exchange for maintenance work.
McMillan admits that he maintains an office in Brooklyn, but insists the East Village apartment really is his primary residence.
"That's my apartment. It is my residence. My name is on the lease," he said.
The case is currently in the housing court, but McMillan is not sitting back. In fact, he told his lawyer to file a counter-claim for $70,000.
“I'm not going to let them get away with it,” he said. “You don't tell an American how to live.”
Despite the court drama, the former Vietnam veteran is not letting it get in the way of his presidential campaign. However, he might actually need that $70,000 counter-claim since he has not raised any money.
“Not one person has sent a dollar or a quarter,” he told Politico.
“They haven’t donated a nickel.”
The cost of running for president is too damn high, too.
