Sawant office volunteers and staff collecting signatures in support of her Renters’ Bill of Rights (Image: Office of Kshama Sawant)
The District 3 representative for Capitol Hill and the Central District celebrated a suite of renter protections passed by the Seattle City Council Monday with a call for more.
“Today’s bills put people before profits. They put the rights of renters above the interests of corporate landlords. They prioritize housing stability instead of racist gentrification,” Councilmember Kshama Sawant said in an announcement of Monday’s full council votes. “I especially want to congratulate the hundreds of community members who wrote letters to City Councilmembers in the days leading up to today’s votes, and to the dozens of community members who spoke out in public comment against watering down the bills with pro-corporate landlord amendments that were introduced two weeks ago.”
Monday, the full council approved legislation CHS reported on here providing tenants “right of first refusal” rights, and bans on school-year and pandemic evictions.
Here’s the rundown from Sawant’s office:
- Adopted by a 6-1 vote Council Bill 120046, which was introduced by Councilmember Sawant and represents the nation’s strongest ban on school-year evictions of schoolchildren, their families, and school workers.
- Adopted by a 5-2 vote Council Bill 120090, prime-sponsored by Councilmembers Sawant and Tammy Morales and co-sponsored by Councilmember Andrew Lewis. The bill protects tenants from being evicted without a good reason at the end of their “term leases,” by requiring that landlords provide tenants with the right to renew their leases. This closes an important loophole in tenant protections that big landlords have been exploiting for decades.
- Adopted by a 5-2 vote Council Bill 120077, introduced by Councilmember Morales and co-sponsored by Councilmember Sawant, prohibiting landlords from evicting tenants for non-payment of rent if the rent was due during the COVID civil emergency and the renter could not pay due to financial hardship.
Additionally, Sawant was also celebrating the unanimous adoption of her Resolution 31998 that calls on Mayor Jenny Durkan and Governor Jay Inslee to extend the city and state eviction moratoriums set to expire at the end of June.
Sawant’s office also announced its next focus: two bills to require earlier rent increase notification and relocation cost legislation:
- An ordinance requiring landlords to provide a 6-month notice before imposing any rent increase. Currently landlords may increase rents by more than 10% with only 60 days’ notice, and may impose smaller rent increases with even less notice.
- An ordinance requiring landlords to pay tenants for relocation costs if the tenant is forced out due to rent increases. Portland, OR recently enacted legislation that requires such “economic eviction assistance.
CHS reported here on Sawant’s renewed focus on tenants and renters and rights as she announced in May a new push for rent control in the city.
Sawant, the most senior of the city’s nine councilmembers, is facing the prospect of a possible recall in her district. The Recall Sawant campaign is currently in the process of collecting the more than 10,000 signatures across District 3 to put a recall of the three-term councilmember on the ballot.
UPDATE: A City of Seattle forum on Renters Rights is scheduled for Tuesday night:
The City of Seattle’s 5-Commissions (Immigrant and Refugee Commission, Human Rights Commission, Disability Commission, Women’s Commission, and LGBTQ+ Commission) will be hosting a Renters Rights Forum on June 8, 2021 from 5:30 – 7:00 pm as a teach-in for renters to understand their rights after the eviction moratorium is lifted in Seattle on June 30, 2021.
This hybrid event will feature limited in-person attendance at the Bertha Knight Landes Room at City Hall, along with a virtual video conference for online attendees. Only a limited number of in-person attendees will be allowed into the space to comply with the City’s safety guidelines for COVID-19.
Speakers for this forum will include:
Debbie Carlsen, Founder and Executive Director of LGBT Allyship
Mariko Lockhart, Director of the Seattle Office for Civil Rights
Kshama Sawant, Seattle City Councilmember
Davin Silvernail, from the office of Seattle City Councilmember Tammy Morales
Dulcie O’Sullivan from the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections.
Tickets for this event can be found at: http://bit.ly/RentersRightsForumSEA
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Does “corporate landlords” include people who just own property and need the income to afford their mortgage? Are there any let-offs for size of building or number of tenants the landlord has, anything?
Sawant does this, she turns everything into a war on “the landowner class” and it turns up the heat on a topic whether it’s needed or not.
If you need extra income to help pay your mortgage, you made a bad financial decision and it isn’t on other people to foot your bill.
Meaning you should let people stay in your house for free? I thought all the socialists were for affordable housing – like rooms for rent in a house owned by a homeowner?
You are confusing Sawant with a socialist… she’s not, she’s a Marxist….
If you want to see where her views come from try this piece of twisted logic
https://dashthered.medium.com/marxism-for-newbies-landlords-b24f4f0cdb89
That’s why I’m selling both the affordable single-family houses in Seattle that I’ve owned for more than 20 years. I can almost guarantee that both of them will be torn down and replaced by very much more expensive houses that will be owner occupied. Say goodbye to single-family rentals in Seattle, Johnny. I hope you enjoy your new corporate landlords.
Mmmm. It really isn’t a matter of “needing extra income to pay your mortgage.” It’s kind of like if your boss refused to pay you for six months or a year in spite of the fact that you were providing work for them. Small landlords provide housing for people with the understanding that they will be paid. You see, a lot of landlords are like any small business. They supply something and people pay them for it. No business can survive if they do the supplying, but no one does the paying. Do you expect a grocery store to stay in business if everyone just took the groceries?
What if someone needs extra income to help pay their rent? Would it be OK for other people to foot *their* bill?
Lol what? How do you people come up with this stuff🤣🤣🤣
No the size of your building doesn’t matter. You will even be banned from evicting teachers or school employees renting a room in your primary residence. Alex Pedersen tried to get an exemption for landlords renting less than five units but the Council wouldn’t pass it.
My mortgage lender seems to be able to increase rates quite quickly. Eventually all of the affordable housing will disappear.
I love that the three kids in the photo seriously look 12. Might want to have those actually able to vote back ya…Just sayin
Gotta get them before they are old and cynical and know the truth that Marxism is just a pretty fairy story that can never be successful, because well… human nature.
These regulations actually promote Gentrification. People who want to rent a room to help with the mortgage will decide not to risk it. People who have single family homes they rent out will decide to sell instead of taking the risk resulting in less single family rentals available in Seattle. People who own apartments will decide to sell instead of taking the risk, resulting in developers buying them. The developer will upgrade apartments resulting in more expensive rents, tear down the building and rebuild townhomes or condos – reducing amount of available in city rentals.
The end result will be GENTRIFICATION.
KSHAMA’s POLICIES SUPPORT GENTRIFICATION.
thus
KSHAMA SUPPORTS GENTRIFICATION.
So you’re saying we need to build more rent-controlled, public housing and expropriate the developers trying to take control of the housing stock. Sounds great, thanks for the suggestions!
Petey, I am a landlord in D3 and am fine with using public dollars to build more rent subsidized public housing. The problem now is we are treating private housing as if it is publicly owned. We regulate it to death, deprive the owner (that’s the person who paid lots of money for it) of their legal and contractual rights, and continually expand the rights of the renter (the one who possesses only a leasehold interest in the property). We are, in effect, burdening a limited number of private parties with what should be a public burden. That transfer of responsibility is wrong, and it will yield negative effects of in our local rental market.
Agree, or they’ll just AirBnB the house instead. Another unintended consequence.
Boy am I tired of Sawant’s marxist proposals…..she must go!
According to a report from Rent.com, rents in Seattle have actually dropped year over year, which is a surprising trend, since rents around the country are increasing in many places. “The average rent in Seattle is down 18.9 percent for a one-bedroom apartment. Prices are dropping even faster in some neighborhoods.” The full article is here: https://www.rent.com/blog/cost-of-living-in-seattle/.
Some proposals don’t even make sense: paying for tenants’ relocation because of rent increase? Rent increases all the time… That’s economical growth, just like tenants income is expected to grow.
well said.. to deaf ears.
we own one single family home rental property in seattle and we are actually fine with all these laws. it has helped us lose our heart for renting in the city. we now see the house as just an investment – a piece of meat. our strategy is waiting for the next mayor later this year and we believe they will upzone all single family neighborhoods to allow duplex, triplex, etc., otherwise known as middle housing. our little house sits on a decent size lot which would make a developer drool. we now have nooooo problem selling to a developer who will pay top dollar, tear it down and build a nice high end quadplex to house some solid tech workers. besides, housing prices are rising just as fast outside of seattle in suburban and rural areas. this has never happened in my lifetime where there is just as much if not more money to be made outside of the seattle. maybe we will buy some property in an area that actually respects private property owners who rent their property to someone else at a fair price.
Every imposition on property owners increases their cost and can only make rental housing more expensive. It may protect incumbent tenants for a short time, but newcomers to Seattle will find market rate housing less and less affordable.
At want point to renters realize that responsibilities go in both directions. The owners have a mortgage to pay to give the renters a roof over their heads. This is a joint arrangement, and not the entitled arrangement with Mom/Dad. Be adults, talk, work something out, negotiate; because it is NOT all about – YOU.
The owners could default on their loans, walk away, and leave the renters with a mess. But, most owners are sticking it out and trying to make it work.