The Housing Session… wasn’t
I can't say I'm sorry to see the Indiana General Assembly end. It was, to be sure, a learning experience. Following this summer’s Housing Task Force, initiated by Speaker Todd Huston, this session was dubbed the “Housing Session.” Many of us in the housing advocacy world thought this meant we might finally get housing and tenant-related legislation passed. It was not to be. No substantive bills passed and nothing that really benefits the most marginalized Hoosiers even got a hearing.
The summer’s Task Force co-chairs Representative Doug Miller and Senator Linda Rogers touted Representative Miller’s HB1005 as their signature housing affordability legislation. GIMA testified for and supported HB1005 as a small step towards more affordable housing. As Indy Star reporter Ko Lyn Chaeng wrote in her piece 'Windfall profit': Lawmakers who build homes file bills to help their industry, “Indiana Republican lawmakers with careers in building and selling homes are the primary authors on three bills aimed at making it cheaper for people in their profession to build homes, leading to accusations they have conflicts of interest.” Ya think? Chaeng also wrote, “The lawmakers say the bills would help address the affordable housing shortage.”
Yet, as Amy Nelson of the Fair Housing Center of Central Indiana recently pointed out, “… in the final hours of debate on HB1005 and its eventual passage, Senator Rogers made clear that this was NOT a bill to address Indiana’s affordable housing crisis, despite it being the key legislation coming out of the Housing Task Force focused on affordability and being referenced as legislation to encourage affordable housing development from January-March. Instead, according to Senator Rogers, in April, it was now a bill about at-market housing.” Which is it Senator Rogers?
GIMA also supported SB114, another small (very small) step towards equity. Utilities like Citizen’s Energy can now use state receivership to hold institutional landlords accountable for their utility bills and not the innocent tenants. I’m afraid our legislators believe this was a substantial piece of housing legislation. Sorry, it’s not.
And then there’s Senator Fady Qaddoura’s ill-fated SB202 that tried to give Indiana tenants some ability to hold their landlords accountable for their lease agreements. As I wrote in the Indiana Capital Chronicle, “Georgia, Idaho, Utah, N. Dakota, and Indiana are the ONLY states that have no provision for rent escrow or withholding. The escrow provision would have allowed tenants whose landlords are not responding to serious habitability issues like no heat, mold, rodents, appliances not working, etc., the permission to pay their rent to the courts. When the landlord completes the repairs, they can petition the courts for the rent.” SB202 couldn’t even get a hearing. In a hallway conversation at the statehouse, a staffer at the Indiana Apartment Association told me, “We will NEVER support rent escrow.” When I commented that never is a long time, he repeated, “We will NEVER support rent escrow.” Judiciary chair Senator Liz Brown indicated she would give SB202 a hearing. She did not.
The Hoosier Housing Needs Coalition had landlords from in and out-of-state ready to testify that rent escrow is good for their business, keeping bad actors from besmirching the industry. Thanks to special interest, there was no hearing and no testimony.
Most of the legislators I met with this session are good people and believe they represent their constituents. Money and special interests can talk them out of doing what is right. We, the citizens of Indiana, are their only accountability and we must speak up. While the poor and marginalized are the most affected by Indiana’s housing laws, it impacts all of us both economically and our quality of life. Einstein said that doing the same thing expecting different results is the definition of insanity. It’s time to do something different.
