Comedian Michael Che announced last week that his grandmother passed away on April 6 due to complications from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, PIX11 reported.
Now the Saturday Night Live star is paying it forward, writing on Instagram that he will be paying one month's rent for all 160 apartments in the NYC Housing Authority building where his grandmother lived.
"It's crazy to me that residents of public housing are still expected to pay their rent when so many new yorkers cant even work. obviously i cant offer much help by myself. but in the spirit and memory of my late grandmother, im paying one months rent for all 160 apartments in the NYCHA building she lived in. i know thats just a drop in the bucket. so i really hope the city has a better plan for debt forgiveness for all the people in public housing, AT THE VERY LEAST. ps deblasio! cuomo! diddy! lets fix this! page me!" Che wrote on Instagram Thursday morning.
New York has implemented a 90-day eviction moratorium, but residents are still legally obligated to pay rent, according to The New York Times.
Che spoke at length to The Times last year about growing up in a housing complex on Allen Street in the Lower East Side neighborhood of New York City. His grandmother lived in the Alfred E. Smith Houses just a few blocks away, and he told the newspaper he spent many summers there as a child before she moved out in the 1990s.
“This city is so rich and so vast and so powerful and so important to the fabric of the country that you would imagine that our public housing would be a lot more habitable,” he said last January.
In a now-deleted Instagram post from last week, Che wrote powerfully about his grandmother's death and his feelings about her passing.
"im doing ok, considering. im obviously very hurt and angry that she had to go through all that pain alone. but im also happy that shes not in pain anymore. and i also feel guilty for feeling happy. to anybody thats lost someone to this virus like i have, i donrt have to tell you how much it hurts. but just know that we will make it through this. but then again, maybe we wont! this could be IT! i freaking out," Che wrote in the nine-page letter titled, "open letter, by michael che."
The New York native became the first Black person to host SNL's "Weekend Update" after he joined the show as a writer in 2013. SNL had a virtual episode of the show last week where Che spoke about his grandmother and the impact she had on his life.
Che ended the segment with, "From 'Weekend Update,' I'm Martha's grandbaby."
