Tag Archives: landlords

Giving Renters Rights

As I’ve mentioned in prior posts, my husband and I are old. Three years ago, we downsized, as old people are wont to do. We put the three-level house up for sale and considered whether to buy a condominium or move into a rental apartment.

We opted for the rental, in large part because of the less-than-happy experiences friends and families have had with HOAs.

Being solidly middle-class, if we become unhappy with the management of our very nice apartment, we can simply move. (I’m happy to report that we remain quite pleased with that management, and the numerous amenities of our downtown apartment community.)

Rather obviously, that ability–sufficient financial wherewithal to rent an upscale apartment–and to move out and find a satisfactory substitute if we want or need to–distinguishes our situation from that of far too many renters in Indiana. Thanks to our always-retrograde Hoosier legislature, Indiana law massively favors landlords over tenants. The Indiana General Assembly consistently refuses to pass even the most reasonable, minimal protections for tenants–last session, a former student of mine who is now a Democratic state senator proposed a bill that offered renters basic remedies in situations where failure to make needed repairs had compromised habitability–the measure would have allowed the tenant to direct rent payments into an escrow account until the premises were once again suitable for human habitation.

Our legislative overlords were appalled by this proposed mistreatment of landlords. The bill failed.

Unless Indiana’s politics change significantly (unlikely, at least in the short run), Indiana renters whose finances leave them to the not-so-tender mercies of rapacious landlords need to pin their hopes on passage of a national “Renters’ Bill of Rights.” 

In the linked article, Fran Quigley begins by explaining the breadth of the problem.

I teach a law school clinic where my students and I represent tenants who face eviction and live in horrible housing conditions. Too often, we see tenants getting railroaded by the fast, cheap, and easy eviction process in US courts. In many states, they can be forced out of their homes for no reason and with just a few days’ notice. We see tenants plunged into homelessness after their price-gouging landlords hike rent by 30 percent and more. We see tenants complaining in vain when their heat and water are not working, when mold builds up, and when rodents scuttle through their bedrooms. Then they are evicted as retaliation for making those complaints.

These struggles are common among the nation’s 114 million renters. Meanwhile, seven million households are behind on their rent and the number of homeless people is reaching record highs.

A new effort called the National Tenants Bill of Rights aims to change all of that, articulating seven basic renters’ rights that ought to be enshrined in policy. Created by the Tenant Union Federation, the National Housing Law Project, and the National Low Income Housing Coalition, the Bill of Rights confronts the enormous power imbalance between renters and their landlords. The purpose of the document is to lay out a single comprehensive policy agenda that lawmakers, advocacy groups, and tenants themselves can endorse and use as a movement resource.

The proposal addresses a relatively new reality: corporate landlords and private equity currently have the national rental market in what the National Housing Law Project describes as “a chokehold.” Among other things, the bill would require just-cause evictions, and enforceable requirements for decent housing conditions for the one-third of US rental units whose owners benefit from federally backed mortgages.

The rental market has changed dramatically from the days when grandma and grandpa owned a double, lived in one side and rented out the other. Today, private equity and corporate landlords dominate the nation’s rental market.

These mega-landlords own the majority of all US rental units, including 80 percent–plus of the properties with twenty-five or more units, all while gobbling up single-family homes too. That market dominance and the use of rent-setting algorithms that are under federal investigation for price-fixing sets the stage for shameless price-gouging. Bob Nicolls, CEO of one of America’s top corporate landlords, Monarch Investment and Management Group, gleefully told investors in the middle of the COVID pandemic that big rent hikes were coming. “We have an unprecedented opportunity . . . to really press rents,” Nicolls said. “Where are people going to go? They can’t go anywhere.”

Nationally, rents have risen nearly 30 percent since early 2020. One in every five renters fell behind on their rent at some point last year. Far too often, paying the rent means skipping prescriptions, utility payments, and meals.

At the very least, the law should require landlords to provide livable units before pocketing those rental payments.

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We’re Number Two!

And it’s nothing to brag about.

Indianapolis is second only to New York City in the number of tenant evictions. That’s not the rate of evictions–that’s the actual number. We’re ahead of Houston and Philadelphia, among others.

I have long been aware of Indiana’s deficiencies in landlord-tenant law. Among the many, many failures of the World’s Worst Legislature has been the  years-long refusal of the General Assembly to pass any laws that might upset landlords by offering even the slightest protection to renters.

The legislature’s obeisance  to property owners and utter disregard of renters has always been egregious, but the recent surge of purchases in “emerging” neighborhoods by out-of-state companies has made the situation much worse. Corporate and investor purchases of homes increased by 145 percent between 2019 and 2021–and these purchases are driving down homeownership and driving up evictions.

State Senator Fady Qaddoura is one of the (distressingly few) shining lights in Indiana’s General Assembly. (Full disclosure: Fady was a student of mine and I can attest to his intellect, his integrity and his values.) Last session, he authored  SB230, which would have given tenants in Indiana the right to withhold rent if their landlord failed to make necessary housing repairs; the bill would also have given tenants the right to make the repairs themselves and deduct the cost from the next rental payment if the landlord failed or refused to do so.

Indiana is one of only five states without these habitability enforcement rights.

Of course, the bill didn’t pass; it is currently in study committee (where good ideas go to die–I served on the gerrymandering study committee and watched as members ignored evidence and made certain that redistricting reform went exactly nowhere.)

SAVI recently reported on SB230.

Speaking with The Polis Center’s analysts, Senator Qaddoura highlighted the necessity for providing recourse for tenants when landlords fail to repair critical systems, such as heat, water, gas, or electricity. Qaddoura emphasized that most landlords in Indiana take care of their tenants and comply with providing necessary repairs. However, he stressed the increase in out-of-state, corporate landlords that have allowed properties to deteriorate. Negligent corporate landlords such as those responsible for the Lakeside Pointe at Nora complex failed to provide heat, which led to the use of space heaters and resulted in at least seven fires in 2021 alone. Situations like Lakeside Pointe at Nora are further complicated when landlord corporations operate as non-profits entities, which makes enforcing legal penalties and oversight more difficult.

Senator Qaddoura also shared the frustrating reality of tenants attempting to communicate with landlords who are out of state and unresponsive. Unlike with local landlords, tenants have little recourse for tracking down owners or property managers when multiple LLCs are created to purchase investment properties. As essential services such as water, electricity, plumbing, etc. become unusable or unavailable, tenants are required to contact the landlord or property owner and wait for them to remedy the situation. However, in multiple cases, these repair requests remain unaddressed, and tenants are not allowed to make the repairs themselves.

According to Senator Qaddoura, families with language barriers are often prime targets for such abuses.

The small-claims courts overseeing petitions for eviction are inundated, and far too often  mechanically approve a dozen or more eviction cases in a morning, without allowing the tenants to complain or explain. (In all fairness, given the lack of laws protecting those tenants or giving them grounds for those complaints, it’s hard to criticize those judges.)

That said, The Greater Indianapolis Multi-Faith Alliance (GIMA) has made the eviction crisis  a focus of its efforts.The Alliance is starting an Evictions Court Watch–an effort to get more people into the courtrooms to keep judges accountable. (As one advocate noted, “there’s nothing scarier than little old church ladies with clipboards!”)

I certainly applaud GIMA’s announcement, but their efforts would be better directed at those making the rules, rather than the Judges who lack the authority to enforce rules that don’t exist. Perhaps substantial attendance at meetings of the SB230 Study Committee, coupled with other advocacy efforts, would have an effect.

But don’t hold your breath.

After all, hundreds of people from all over Indiana showed up at meetings of the redistricting study committee, armed with data showing that large majorities of Hoosier wanted reform, but continued gerrymandering easily won the day.

And that brings me back to my recurring observation about the “quality” of Indiana’s legislature.We need lots more lawmakers like Senator Qaddoura and his co-sponsors– Sen. Greg Walker, R-Columbus, and Sen. Shelli Yoder, D-Bloomington.

Of course, gerrymandering makes that legislative improvement unlikely.

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