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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