Man Wins $338M Powerball Jackpot, Promises To Pay Everyone’s Rent In His Neighborhood

When you list the things you’ll buy and the places you’ll go when you finally strike it rich with a ginormous lottery win, is “paying all my neighbors’ rent” on there? It was for a New Jersey man who just won the $338 million Powerball jackpot last week. At least, he’s promised to cover housing costs for his neighbors for a little while.

The New York Daily News says the man made the pledge to cover rent for residents in the area where he ran a local bodega. This, according to a friend of the winner.

“He said he’s going to pay the rent for everybody here on this block for at least a month or two months,” the friend said. “He’s such a good guy.”

The newspaper couldn’t find the winner around after he’d claimed the $338 million, which he’s opting to take as a lump sum payment of about $152 million, but his neighbors spoke of him glowingly.

“He’s somebody who needs it, not like the people who had millions already and won it,” said one neighbor.

He’s already put his bodega up for sale and apparently paid off the $29,000 he owed in child support, his friend noted. And now he’s just got to come through on that rent promise if he wants to remain the local hero.

The rent’s on me, Powerball winner Pedro Quezada tells his Passaic, N.J., neighbors [New York Daily News]

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