|
|
|
Cliff Hockley, President
Bluestone and Hockley Real Estate Services
Spurred by pressure from the Community Alliance of Tenants and their very competent director Ian Slingerland, the City of Portland has convened a “Quality Rental Housing workgroup”. The Purpose of the work group is to improve the living conditions for tenants, with a focus on low income tenants that may live in substandard conditions.
The work group is staffed by city staff from the Bureau of Housing and Community Development, and is lead by a well known local meeting management firm “Decisions Decisions”. Representatives of the Citizens Alliance of Tenants, not for profit agencies, the Housing Authority, The Oregon Law Center, County Health department, The mayor’s office and landlords participate in this work group.
After a year of discussions and negotiation the work group has settled on an approach to improve living conditions for tenants. The discussions revolved around lead based paint, mold and mildew, tenant’s housekeeping and essential services, as well as improving the tenant requested, city operated property inspection program and the issue of retaliation by landlords for the reporting of substandard housing conditions. Two of the key goals were the focus of this process was enforcement against landlords that are “slumlords or bad actors” as well as improving education of tenants to improve their housekeeping and apartment living skills.
The following code change recommendations are on the table:
- Update the code to distinguish between rental housing and owner occupied housing.
- Update the definition of lead hazards and increase the awareness of lead in plumbing and paint among tenants and property owners.
- Provide new standards for pest remediation (roaches and rats etc. ) amending the city code, requiring the use of integrated pest management strategies.
- Amend the city code to more precisely define and eliminate excessive moisture that creates conditions conducive to mold growth.
- Increase tenant accountability for housekeeping.
- Support policy changes related to the enforcement of new code language.
Provide training and equipment related to the enforcement of new code standards.
Additional recommendations are included:
- A fund a dedicated landlord /tenant mediation program, ( outside of the current court driven process).
- Increase the city funding of the Community Alliance of Tenants, Legal Aid/Oregon Law Center, The Fair Housing Council and the Josiah Hill Clinic, all agencies that help tenants pursue remedies against landlords.
- Fund an annual tenant relocation fund ($200,000), to help low income tenants move out of situations that could be potentially hazardous to their health.
What is it going to cost ?
In order to pay for the $1,980,889 in new funds requested as a result of this plan the following funding proposals were submitted:
- Increased revenue requests from the general fund for inspection services.
- Adopt an annual inspection fee ($8-$10 per unit) funded by landlords.
- Restructure the fine schedules to have higher fines for those that refuse to comply with repair requests issued by the city inspectors.
- Strengthen the collections process so that a higher percentage of fines issued are collected.
Retaliation:
A major concern to tenant advocates was the issue of retaliation by landlords against tenants who reported problems with their living conditions:
As part of the workgroup recommendations to the Portland City Council, landlord representatives at the table and tenant advocates agreed to ask landlords to send in copies of their for-cause termination notices to the city, after the code enforcement system has been engaged, to access the depth of the perceived retaliation problem.
In addition’ the workgroup’s proposal allocates $200,000 to fund an attorney to provide advice and representation to tenants living at 80% of the median family income and below, to help tenants defend them selves in cases of retaliation.
Education:
An informal survey prepared by Decisions, Decisions, indicated that there was a lack of education among landlords regarding Portland city codes. Seed money is included in the budget to educate both landlords and tenants regarding their individual responsibilities.
There is also a sunset provision included to encourage the review of the process and evaluate the success of the workgroup recommendations.
Conclusion
Tenant and landlord advocates have worked hard to craft this policy document. A hearing was held in front of the Portland Housing and Community Development Commission, on the 3rd of September 2008. The results (recommendation) of this hearing will be submitted back to the workgroup for final input and then will be presented to the Portland City Commissioners in early October 2008. Landlords have been represented by Larry Bricker of American Property Management, Norton Cabell of the Oregon Rental Housing Association., Debora Imse of Metro Multifamily Housing and Phil Owen of Rental Housing Association of Greater Portland. If you have comments you will want to contact them. Clearly the results of this group effort will have a future major impact on landlords and tenants in Portland, Oregon.
As a Landlord you need to be aware of this report. You can read it at http://www.portlandonline.com/shared/cfm/image.cfm?id=208563
|
 |
   
|
|
