Squad member and cancel rent advocate Ayanna Pressley received up to $15,000 in rental income last year from a Massachusetts property, financial disclosure reveals
Ayanna Pressley, a vocal advocate for canceling rent payments for Americans during the coronavirus pandemic, made up to $15,000 last year on a rental property in Boston.
The property, according to the Massachusetts congresswoman's 2020 financial disclosures filed on Friday, is in her husband Conan Harris' name.
On the document, the property is classified as: 'Primary Residence and Rental Property. Purchased as one transaction and converted to two-family building.'
The same exact line, with the same income level, was included on Pressley's 2019 filings with the House Clerk.
The value of the asset is between $500,001 and $1 million, the filing indicates for both years.
Pressley has represented Massachusetts 7th congressional district in the House since 2019. Her district includes the northern part of Boston as well as the majority of Cambridge, parts of Milton and all of Chelsea, Everett, Randolph, and Somerville.
Representative Ayanna Pressley, a vocal advocate for canceling rent in the pandemic, earned between $5,001 - $15,000 in rent from a property in Boston
The document, filed on Friday, shows the property was purchased and converted to a main residence combined with a rental property
The progressive representative, part of the so-called 'squad', has been outspoken about her calls to stop requiring rental payments in the midst of the COVID-19 emergency.
'Keeping families housed is a matter of public health,' she tweeted in December 2020. 'We must cancel rent, extend eviction and foreclosure moratoriums, provide rental assistance, and offer legal representation for those at risk of eviction. This is a public health emergency.'
She also tweeted a few months earlier in August 2020: 'America needs us to cancel rent.'
The congresswoman's office did not respond to a DailyMail.com request for comment on Pressley's comments and her Boston rental property that has brought in additional income for at least the past two years.
Members of the 'squad' launched a campaign earlier this month to get an extension for the eviction moratorium, which allowed Americans to skip their rent payment during the pandemic and expired in August.
The property, which the filings say is worth between $500,001 and $1 million, is filed under Pressley's husband, Conan Harris (the two are pictured together in a 2018 campaign video)
Pressley has repeatedly called for canceling rent payments during the pandemic
Freshman Representative Cori Bush slept in a chair on the steps of the Capitol building several nights in a row in protest of Congress breaking for the August recess without passing an extension.
In March 2021, Pressley introduced a bill that would have canceled rent and mortgage payments nationwide. The legislation, if passed, would have required federal government reimbursements to landlords for any rent not paid during the pandemic.
'With the economic impact of this pandemic worsening and the threat of eviction and homelessness looming large for families nationwide, we must take every measure possible to keep families safely housed, forgive all rental debt, and ensure that the credit scores of hard hit families are not forever tarnished,' Pressley said at the time.
The eviction moratorium, part of a COVID relief package passed by Congress and repeatedly extended since then, has left many landlords underwater with a backlog in unreceived rent payments.
The moratorium prevents these landlords, however, from taking any action – like evicting renters who did not pay their monthly dues in the pandemic.
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