Michael Che is honoring his late grandmother by helping New Yorkers in need.
After losing his grandmother to COVID-19 (coronavirus) earlier this month, the Saturday Night Live star announced he will be paying a month’s rent for all residents living in his grandmother’s former New York City apartment building. “It’s crazy to me that residents of public housing are still expected to pay their rent when so many New Yorkers can’t even work,” Che expressed in a statement via Instagram Wednesday (April 15).
“Obviously I can’t offer much help by myself. But in the spirit and memory of my late grandmother, I’m paying one month’s rent for all 160 apartments in the NYCHA building she lived in,” he continued. “I know that’s 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.”
The funnyman concluded his note encouraging New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, and Diddy to contact him to help "fix" the economic and health crisis.
Che broke the unfortunate news of his grandmother’s death in a since-deleted Instagram post. “I’m obviously very hurt and angry that she had to go through all that pain alone,” he wrote of the scary experience, according to PEOPLE. “But I’m also happy that she’s not in pain anymore. And I also feel guilty for feeling happy.”
New York has the highest number of confirmed coronavirus cases nationwide, with 214,648 of the 644,806 cases in the United States. As of Thursday (April 16), more than 11,500 NY residents have died due to the highly-contagious virus.
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