I’ve been working with Ryan Tanaka a business owner and advocate in Hawaii to get broad rent relief from the federal government in their next financial stimulus. Tanaka has lead the effort on commercial rent relief looking for solid quantitative measures of the impact. I’ve written about the findings of the survey just completed at Forbes.

“For many businesses,” says Tanaka, many of which are “small and locally owned in Hawaii, their very existence comes from tourism and they need a lifeline to survive five months with no revenue.” Tanaka set out to measure the damage and propose a solution based on reducing property taxes to hard hit businesses in exchange for rent reductions or forgiveness. How bad is the problem of unpaid commercial rent in Hawaii?

We’ve already documented the impact government intervention on COVID-19 has had on residential rent collection. This data and data from surveys like the one from Hawaii should spur action — soon. Otherwise we’ll see the rent “forgiveness” movement grow.

You can read the whole Forbes article here.