Three Big Wins for Tenants

This piece originally appeared on Fran Quigley’s blog Housing Is A Human Right

Among the responses to this newsletter’s last post about the Grants Pass v. Johnson Supreme Court case that may green-light the criminalization of homelessness was a lament: “Substack needs a comment emoji for "I appreciate this article, but I sure don't like what it's saying." 

Agreed.

It’s a common problem when reading about our affordable housing crisis: the news is often disappointing. Not this time, though. Today’s post celebrates three big wins for the tenant rights movement and the advocates who made them happen.

1)     Colorado Adopts Good-Cause-Only Eviction Protections

In court, we often see tenants face eviction not because they did not pay their rent, but because their landlord simply refuses to renew their lease. Often, non-renewal happens after the tenant has complained to the landlord or health officials about unsafe conditions like heat and water shut-offs, mold, rodents, and leaks.

Our state has a law that protects tenants from such retaliatory evictions while the lease is current. But landlords accomplish the same result by simply refusing to renew the lease—which is an easy step to take against the many low-income tenants on month-to-month leases. So tenants must weigh the risk of contacting the health department against the prospect of losing their homes—which often means displacing kids from their schools, being separated from supportive neighbors or nearby family, incurring moving costs they can’t afford. So they keep silent.

More broadly, landlords’ ability to refuse to renew leases for any reason—and, in most communities, hike up rents as much as they please—makes renting in the U.S. enormously unstable. That is especially true compared to the security of tenure and locked-in monthly costs that U.S. homeowners enjoy.

But, as of last month, that is changing in Colorado. A new law signed by the state’s governor makes Colorado the sixth state to give renters the protection and stability they deserve:

 “Imagine being a respectful neighbor, paying your rent on time and doing everything right. But your roof leaks and the landlord won’t fix it,” state senator Nick Hinrishsen told Colorado Newsline, describing tenants’ dilemma. “Do you take that risk or do you just stay silent? That is not a choice that Coloradans should have to make. And under this bill, they will no longer have to make that choice.”

Shout out to the advocacy of Colorado Homes for All and others who overcame the always-powerful and always well-financed landlord lobby to make this happen. The new law only allows for non-renewal in limited instances, such as the landlord’s family moving in or the property being sold.  Next on the advocates’ agenda is rent control, an important companion to good-cause-only nonrenewal. Speaking of which . . .

2.) Concord, CA Rent Control Takes Effect

A new ordinance in Concord, California caps rent increases at 3% and includes good-cause eviction/nonrenewal protections. “It was a great win," Saabir Lockett of the Civic Engagement at the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy, EBASE, told ABC7 News. "The reason this is so important is because people were being evicted. Rents were being raised like a $1,000, $2,000 at a time."

For more about the many strong arguments for rent control, check out our previous post (and Jacobin article) here.

3.) Idaho Passes Eviction Sealing Law

Back in 2021, I began one of my first articles about our eviction court experiences with this story:

Carmen Jones nudged me in the arm, then pointed down at her cell phone screen. A text had just come in from a company that manages several rental properties on the far east side of Indianapolis.

"Your rental application has unfortunately been denied for one or more of the following reasons: Court filing from landlord on tenancy screening report."

As it happened, we were at that very moment in front of a judge who was conducting a hearing on that court filing: her landlord's demand for eviction. Shortly after the constable delivered court papers to her door, Ms. Jones and her two children (I am not using clients' real names here) had voluntarily left the apartment. But that did not stop the "Scarlet E" of the eviction filing from following her. She and the kids were sleeping at an extended-stay motel, with Ms. Jones leaving the room every morning to go to work.

The cost of $85 a night was clearly unsustainable. But motels don't check tenant reports, and the landlords she applied to were rejecting her left and right.

Versions of this story still happen every week in court, I am sorry to report. For an excellent overview of the “Scarlet E” crisis, see this article by Rutgers Law School professor Kathryn Sabbeth.

While pending eviction cases still harm our clients, at least our state now allows past eviction records to be sealed if the case was dismissed. In March, Idaho became the 14th state to do the same, according to a report from the National Low-Income Housing Coalition.

As always, positive change for tenants does not happen without struggle, so big credit to advocates like the Idaho Center for Fiscal Policy and the Idaho Asset Building Network for pushing this through.