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I was at the Tenant Summit with 2 other members of
our MPRAC. Grrg Luce's numbers are a little inflated. There might
have been 30 or at most 40 tenants there for the first 1 1/2 hours,
unless a bunch showed up for the last hour. Since there are 80+
neighborhoods in Minneapolis, that figures out to about one tenant for every 2
neighborhoods, not exactly a stampede for justice. The first 1 1/2 hours
was mainly landlord bashing and it was somewhat humerous. It appeared
the biggest applause came when the speaker talked of listing and rating
landlords as to their ethical behavior and moral behavior.
The other applause came from banning application
fees. They want to model a new ordinance after the Salt Lake City
ordinance. I agree as long as they also include the part of the Salt Lake
City ordinance that makes it a crime to not pay your rent
! That's right, it is a crime in Salt Lake City to not pay
your rent.
They also want us to change our screening
criteria. One demonstrative woman of color said she was having problems
finding a place to live because of a lengthy criminal history and
previous UDs on her record. She also said it was a problem because she did
not have a gross income of 3 times the rent. She did not offer any
suggestions, nor did anyone else, of what we landlords are supposed to base our
decisions on. Believe me, all of us small landlords are running a vacancy
rate between 10% and 15% right now. Most of us just can not afford to take
chances on so called problem tenants.
I suggested to Mayor Rybak during the housing
summits that maybe an indemnification fund could be set up on a trial basis by
the City and County together. That way if we take a chance on tenant with
a so called problem rental history, we could look to the fund to reimburse us
for any excessive tenant damages over and above ordinary wear and tear. It
would be cheaper for the City and County than housing them in shelters and
we could moderate our rental rates because we are in a sense insured.
Without question, the biggest reason for rent increases in the low to moderate
rental areas is because of the extensive physical damages caused by tenants
and the need by landlords to spread the costs
around.
As far as the issue of water bill shutoffs, I
totally agree that the City has other ways of collecting landlord owed water
bills other than just shutting off the water without proper notice to the
tenants.
I had left before Greg Luce spoke about his
problems with NRP. According to his handout, it is basically only the
white upper income homeowners in the neighborhoods that benefitted
from NRP.
The main problem with getting the NRP dollars to
the people with the highest degree of need, ie tenants, is that the average
tenant lives in their house or apartment for 11 months so there is no continuity
to organize these people to have any voice. I do agree that there could be
a few more NRP dollars for small landlords to make capital improvements to
their properties.
So, all in all, it was probably a big
disappointment for the organizers of the Tenant Summit, though I suppose you
have to start somewhere.
Steve Meldahl
Jordan (work)
PS: Greg Luce signs his posts as North
Phillips. There is no North Phillips, but only Ventura
Village.
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- [Mpls] What happeneded at Luce's 504 Tenant Summit? JIM GRAHAM
- Re: [Mpls] What happeneded at Luce's 504 Tenant Summi... Gregory D. Luce
- Re: [Mpls] What happeneded at Luce's 504 Tenant Summi... steven meldahl
- Re: [Mpls] What happeneded at Luce's 504 Tenant Summi... ROBINSON . COOK
