'Rent Is Too Damn High' Guy Faces Eviction

Jimmy McMillan getting kicked out of rent-controlled, NYC apartment
By Sarah Whitmire,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 5, 2011 10:50 AM CDT
'Rent Is Too Damn High' Party Leader Facing Eviction From New York City Apartment
Jimmy McMillan, candidate for governor of New York, of the Rent is Too Damn High Party, appears on the "Imus in the Morning" program on the Fox Business Network, in New York, Thursday, Oct. 28, 2010.   (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

The founder of the "Rent is Too Damn High" Party believes he is facing eviction from his NYC apartment because … the rent he pays is actually too low. His landlord claims Jimmy McMillan, who has lived in the rent-controlled apartment since 1977, is in violation of his lease: His primary residence isn't the East Village apartment, but in Brooklyn, argues the building's owner. McMillan, who pays $872.96 for the apartment, says he's being driven out because the landlord wants more money.

"Maybe the landlord doesn't know, but he can't bulldog me because I know the law," McMillan said. The New York Post notes that in an interview last year with the New York Times, McMillan revealed that he's been living rent-free in a Brooklyn apartment by performing maintenance work for the property. He now says that he is, in fact, living in the East Village place, and uses the Brooklyn residence as party headquarters. "It's a trick they all play. I'm not going to let them get away with it. You don't tell an American how to live," McMillan said. (More Rent Is Too Damn High stories.)

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