Alder Tim Bruer has an ordinance that would charge landlords for too many police or building inspection calls to their property and if they are fined and don’t pay, they could go to jail. You’d think that I’d be all in favor, but I’m not. In fact, I have quite a few concerns.
The ordinance would allow the police department or building inspection unit (it has a new name no one can remember) to charge the landlord for the services, give the landlord a fine or enforce the ordinance through an injunction if they have too many calls to their property. The police only need 3 calls in 90 days that would result in a ticket or arrest, one search warrant or 1 arrest for manufacturing, delivery or distribution of drugs. Building inspection would need 5 calls in 1 year. I have fewer problems with the building inspection piece . . . however the policing end causes me some greater concerns.
Tenant Fear of Calling the Police or Building Inspection
I’ve volunteered or worked at the Tenant Resource Center since 1991. That’s 16 years experience of talking to tenants and landlords. I’ve learned a few things over time. First of all, landlords who hear about ordinances like this often panic and are much more reactive to small incidents than they need to be, due to fear. In other words, if they think that the City may come after them, the first thing they are going to do is give the tenant an eviction notice if the police or building inspection is called because they will be afraid they may get too many calls to their property. In fact, for police calls, they may believe that is what a “good landlord” is expected to do.
The second thing I know is that once the word gets out that someone got evicted for calling the police or building inspector, other tenants will fear calling the police or building inspector because they will be afraid they will be evicted.
Some of this might not be rational, but it is a reality that cannot be ignored. People often do irrational things due to fear.
Domestic Violence
The landlord will be responsible if a tenant or someone on the property even has a person attempt to enter or visit the property or wait to enter or visit a property. In other words, even if the person is unwelcome on the property, the landlord, and subsequently the tenant, could get into trouble. Those people who are afraid to call the police due to the irrational fear this ordinance may create may end up letting people into their apartments, even if they don’t want to let them in, because they will get in trouble simply because they are outside. Seems to me we need some better discussion about how this impacts victims of domestic violence and we need some protections for victims of domestic violence.
List of Offenses/200 feet of the property
The list of offenses that could lead to an action against the landlord includes some serious issues like battery, indecent exposure, keeping a place of prostitution, theft, arson, drug sales, discharging a gun or running a drug house. However, it also includes production or creation of noise, obstructing a street or sidewalk or giving away alcohol without a license. And of course, it includes some of those violations like disorderly conduct that are kind of vague and cover quite a bit of activity. And finally, a tenant or someone associated with them, doesn’t have to do these activities on the property, but the landlord can get in trouble if they do them within 200 feet of the property.
What happened to innocent until proven guilty?
I have issues with us taking action based on a search warrant because the only burden of proof is “probable cause”. Technically, they wouldn’t even have to arrest anyone and it would be enough to start an action against a landlord. I also have a problem with starting an action when there is an arrest but no one has been proven guilty yet. Seems to me if a tenant could risk losing where they live, it should be only after they’ve actually been proven guilty of the thing for which they are losing your home.
Overall, this ordinance has a few other problems.
1. A four unit building is treated the same as a 250 unit apartment complex and it won’t apply the same to a downtown landlord that owns 8 properties on the same block.
2. There are multiple drafting issues resulting from multiple edits, the whole thing needs to be cleaned up. There are entire sections that don’t make any sense.
3. The whole ordinance works if the police exercise appropriate discretion. As a policy maker, I think we need to give more direction about how and when to exercise that discretion.
This will be discussed at the Equal Opportunities Commission on Thursday. There is a community meeting on it at the Salvation Army at Darbo on the 21st and there is an Alder briefing on the issue on the 22nd.
