people who are unsatisfied with the current state of rent

Jimmy McMillan Is Being Evicted

Guess what The Man is doing to Jimmy McMillan now? Kicking him out of his rent-controlled East Village apartment! His landlord claims that McMillan’s primary residence is actually an apartment in Brooklyn, but McMillan calls this a “trick they all play,” insisting that he lives in his East Village place and uses his Brooklyn pad as an office. His landlord just wants to find an excuse to kick him out so he can raise the rent and line his pockets with more filthy money.

This is all very confusing. Does McMillan actually live in Brooklyn or does he live in the East Village? Here’s what he told the Times last October:

Mr. McMillan said in an interview on Tuesday that for at least the last decade, he had lived rent free.

We’re like family,” Mr. McMillan said of his landlords. “They don’t want me to pay any money at all. I am basically living there rent free.”

Mr. McMillan said that he moved into his apartment, a one-bedroom on Nostrand Avenue in Flatbush, Brooklyn, in the early 1980s but soon fell behind on rent when he left his job in the Postal Service on disability. The landlady, Mr. McMillan said, admired his Vietnam War service and forgave the back rent and, eventually, the future rent, too. In exchange, he did maintenance work, and after she died in 2003, her heirs continued the tradition ….

It sure sounds like McMillan lived in Brooklyn and his son lived in the East Village. Of course, from the same article:

Oh, okay. So … what’s the answer here? We’ll tell you the answer: McMillan is everywhere, and he is nowhere. He is the wind.

’Rent is Too Damn High’ candidate facing eviction from rent-controlled apartment [NYP]

Jimmy McMillan Is Being Evicted