So long as they aren’t hurting third parties, I see no reason why they can’t operate as they wish within the law. Slumlords have no power to force people to live in their broken down properties. Poor people don’t have much money so they have to make choices.
If slumlords weren’t slumlords, poor people would have fewer inexpensive places to say.
Anyway, a Jew and a big supporter of Torah has just been named LA’s biggest slumlord – Sam Menlo.
As I wrote in 2006: “Valley Torah High School is significantly financed by slumlord Sam Menlo who was a major figure in creating the school. The Valley Torah building is dedicated to the Menlo family. There’s a big placard.”
I see no contradiction between being a slumlord and being an Orthodox Jew. The Torah does not mandate living conditions.
Anyway, the LA Weekly says: “As if two decades of letting his many properties rot (while dodging charges across multiple SoCal counties) wasn’t enough, Sam Menlo’s victims included the helpless elderly residents of a freaking nursing home. Thankfully, like Dr. Avol, Menlo was sentenced to live in one of his own disgusting buildings in Anaheim, where renters had previously held a strike to protest cockroaches, dirty pools and shit plumbing (pun intended). Once again, justice served — and it reportedly whipped Menlo into shape.”
I feel the same way about nursing home operators. So long as they operate within the law and nobody is forced to live there, then they should do as they please and cut costs to the bone.
I like human freedom. I don’t like government mandating living conditions. Let poor people choose how they spend their money.
