This archive report was first published on 20 April 2020.
On a typical Friday, police in Voi town responded to an incident at Mwakingali village, where they found a partially paralyzed landlord, Mr. Mwandoe, struggling to explain his predicament. The 70-year-old man, who suffers from a severe speech impairment after a stroke, had locked an expectant mother and her 3-year-old daughter inside their rental house for failing to pay two months' rent arrears totaling Sh4,000.
However, the reality was different from the typical perception of a landlord as a rich, smug, and well-dressed individual. Mr. Mwandoe's two mud-walled, flat-roofed dwelling units are his only source of livelihood, and when his tenants fail to pay, his last-born daughter steps in and brings him food to keep him going.
According to Mr. Peter Kwaze, chair of community policing in Voi sub-county, most tenants have deliberately misinterpreted the government's plea to be 'understanding' and patient with struggling tenants during the COVID-19 pandemic as an order not to pay rent. He added that even tenants with the ability to pay were taking advantage of the situation and declining to remit their rent.
Ms. Matilda Were, a rental-house owner at Maweni, says landlords are finding themselves in a very tight spot. She said that while the economy was hemorrhaging, and most tenants were genuinely unable to pay their rents, those with the ability to pay were unwilling to do so due to uncertainty on how long the current economic chill would last.
Ms. Were's situation is a reflection of the struggles faced by many slum landlords in Kenya. With the sudden economic shutdown following the COVID-19 outbreak, their dire situation has become more precarious. They are overlooked in government programs to distribute food and other forms of aid to the vulnerable, leaving them to fend for themselves.
