In a society where the media is driven by 24 hours nonstop coverage of COVID-19 and the government’s slow economic response to help the people, there remains some human beings who know life is precious and worth more than practicing capitalism.
Mario Salerno is a 59-year-old landlord in Brooklyn, New York who has 80 apartments and close to 300 tenants in those buildings.
The difficulty brought on by the coronavirus pandemic had many of those tenants facing financial binds as they had to come to terms with job loss and increasing financial responsibilities.
Fortunately, the month of April brought some relief to those tenants as Mr. Salerno decided to cancel rent payments.
Mr. Salerno displays his benevolent demeanor when he says, “My concern is everyone’s health,” said Mr. Salerno to local news Greenspointers.com. “I told them just to look out for your neighbor and make sure that everyone has food on their table.”
The good deed did not go unnoticed by his tenants, especially one in particular named Mr. Gentile, a New York City lawyer who has not been able to work since March of this year due to the effects of COVID-19.
Mr. Gentile had a lot of things surmounting. His bills were mounting as he planned for a Fall wedding. To top that, he had called the NY Department of Labor over 240 times to file for benefits.
“It has alleviated a huge amount of stress that I have been having with the unemployment system in the state,” said Mr. Gentile as he expressed his gratitude for the rent alleviation.
During a time when people are treating toilet paper like it’s a commodity on the Stock Exchange by buying low at groceries stores and selling high to their fellow Americans who are feeling the same effects, capitalism just seems to be ingrained in us.
But Empathy for others is alive and well and Mr. Salerno is living proof that.
