NEW YORK, United States (AFP) — Days before May 1 rent was due, building management knocked on Sean Reilly’s Brooklyn apartment door demanding payment for the previous month.

But like thousands of others in New York, the 25-year-old participated in yesterday’s strike demanding rent cancellation, as unemployment soars and much of the country remains homebound in shelter they now stand to lose due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.

As Reilly and fellow tenants unfurled banners at their walk-up in the Crown Heights neighbourhood, cars surrounded Governor Andrew Cuomo’s mansion in New York’s state capital Albany for a socially distanced protest.

Similar movements took place across the country, which has the highest number of COVID-19 cases and deaths — more than one million people have been infected and more than 64,000 have died.

The protests, which coincide with May Day, are believed to be the largest such coordinated tenant activity in New York since the 1930s, when mass strikes took aim at rent gouging.

An estimated 12,000 unique tenants across 100 buildings in America’s coronavirus epicentre participated in yesterday’s strike, according to preliminary figures from the advocacy group Housing Justice for All, a lead organiser of the movement.

“I’m not gonna lie, it is scary saying to our landlord, ‘We’re not paying rent,’ ” said Reilly, a Democratic Socialists of America member who, along with four roommates, owes US$3,100 per month.

“I had a pit in my stomach when we sent that e-mail, but that’s what we have to be doing right now,” he told AFP.

Reilly still has work — he declined to go into the specifics of his job for fear of repercussions — but says numerous colleagues lost employment, and he’s afraid he will be next.

His neighbour Stephen Henderson — whose household of four roommates splits paying US$3,400 in rent each month — moved to the city from Colorado last summer and has lost all his freelance work in the television and film industry.

The 24-year-old received his first unemployment check last week — US jobless numbers have shot past a crippling 30 million claims since confinement measures began — but is still waiting for the US$1,200 stimulus promised by the federal government.

More than half the tenants in Henderson and Reilly’s five-unit building are striking.

“A lot of us are kind of trying to figure out where we’re gonna get the money to eat in another month, let alone pay rent,” said Henderson, wearing a black bandana to guard against novel coronavirus infection and a hoodie to shield from persistent rain.

Nearly two-thirds of New York’s 8.6 million residents rent in a housing market where, according to tracker RentCafe, the average two-bedroom can run from US$2,500 per month in Queens to more than US$4,000 in Manhattan.

In mid-March Cuomo issued a state-wide evictions moratorium until June 20 — but Reilly says that’s just “kicking the can down the road”.

“People aren’t getting the wages back that they’ve lost from losing their jobs,” he said, adding that his household is hoping to devise a payment plan but that without government help the situation is dire.

Their building’s manager did not respond to AFP‘s requests for comment.