Santa Rosa landlord turns federal stimulus check over to tenants

Cynthia Whitsitt has long liked the owner of the house she and her family rent just west of Santa Rosa. She trades fresh eggs from her rescued chickens and ducks for the olive bread he bakes; they speak often.

But a recent call from Whitsitt’s landlord was most out of the ordinary. The property owner announced that, amid the global pandemic, he and his wife were reducing Whitsitt’s rent by $500 in May.

“To have your landlord call you and give you a gift like that,” she said, “that’s support at the highest level.” She searched a bit for the word that comes closest to describing how the offer, at this time of crisis, made her feel.

“Secure,” she said.

Her landlord could not be reached Thursday by The Press Democrat. On Wednesday, he told NBC Bay Area that he and his wife had decided to use their $3,400 federal stimulus check to help their tenants.

“We actually read a couple of stories in the paper about other landlords who had given their tenants a break,” the landlord, who did not want to be identified, told the TV station in a telephone interview.

He and his wife agreed to use the government money to subsidize a portion of the rent paid by all 13 residents of their rental properties. But that didn’t seem like enough. So the couple more than doubled the total amount that they would discount their tenants’ May rent, to more than $7,000.

The phone call Whitsitt received from the landlord came like a blast of brisk air amid a heat wave.

“He just said basically that, under the circumstances, at this time he and his wife want to do something for their tenants,” she said Thursday afternoon at her home of three years off Sebastopol Road.

The kindness comes at an ideal time for Whitsitt, who is a caregiver for her 18-year-old son, Robert Madrid, who lives with autism. Whitsitt relied on money she earned by creating balloon designs for events until the coronavirus pandemic sucked all the air from the trade.

Whitsitt is determined to put the $500 she saved in May - about a third of her monthly rent ­- to good use. She said she’s been unable to fix her car, renew her automobile registration and get her currently revoked license restored.

“I can register the vehicle and get the clutch fixed,” she said. “I think I’ll have just the right amount of money.”

Meanwhile, there’s been another act of enlightened self interest and caring by a Santa Rosa family featured in The Press Democrat in March for telling several struggling business and retail tenants they could skip their April rent payments.

Downtown Santa Rosa property owner Marv Hyman and his sons, Alan and Michael, have advised a handful of Fourth Street tenants that they can pay half the normal rent in May. The action is good for both sides: The tenants get some rent relief at a difficult time and the Hymans act to avoid losing tenants during the crisis-caused downturn in commerce.

“Besides being a business decision, it’s a moral decision,” Alan Hyman.

The tenants, who operate Sunny’s BoBa & More, a beverages and treats shop, insisted on paying full rent.

Jeff Svestka, co-owner of the business, told the Hymans he and his partners are most grateful, but they have applied for a government loan and they’re encouraged to be “seeing more and more traffic each of these last couple weeks as people strap on their masks and venture in!”

You can contact Chris Smith at 707-521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.