At a committee meeting with affordable housing landlords on Wednesday, Council President Sara Nelson said she wanted to “examine” Seattle’s renter protections. The plain English translation of that politician-speak could mean reworks, rollbacks, or repeals to nominal working-class victories won by previous councils, such as the recent $10 cap on rental late fees, the First-in-Time ordinance, the 2019 roommate law, or the winter and school-year eviction moratoriums.
But Nelson, who prides herself on being a defender of landlords, seems to have ignored the actual content of the presentation from the affordable housing landlords. Rather than mentioning any of those city policies, the landlords lamented the slowness of the eviction process. That process will not speed up if Nelson gets to live out her post-argument shower fantasies and relitigate the last time renters’ rights champion and former City Council Kshama Sawant embarrassed her on the dais.
Attacking these modest protections under the guise of helping affordable housing landlords with concerns that seem more appropriate for state and county lawmakers would set up yet another stupid fight in Seattle, wherein the new council members would simply punish renters not to solve problems but rather to virtue-signal to their conservative base.
Investments Shmivestments
The affordable housing landlords who presented to the committee Wednesday played their hand very carefully.
“The nonprofits are really afraid of upsetting the progressive base,” developer Ben Maritz told The Stranger in a text. “They rely on that base to approve the housing levy that funds all of them. If the levy goes away, they all go away.”
During the public comment period, while landlords rattled off lists of the tenant protections they wanted to cut, Community Roots Housing Chief Operating Officer Andrew Oommen and Southeast Effective Development (SEED) Executive Director Michael Seiwerath focused mostly on increasing funding for their programs and clearing up the now infamous eviction backlog.
To avoid eviction, Oommen encouraged the council to consider funding more rental assistance, as they claimed to be seeing record nonpayment. He also suggested the council pay for some of the ongoing operating costs of affordable housing or resident services staff to help connect tenants to health and community resources. Seiwerath said the council could create a pipeline to put residents into permanent supportive housing, which would likely mean the City would have to pay to bolster that already limited supply.
But Nelson did not seem interested in the landlord’s ideas that involved spending rather than evicting.
“We can’t just keep talking about increased investments,” Nelson said. “…We need to examine some of our existing approaches and laws that are contributing to the problems that you are dealing with now, instead of just simply resorting to throwing more money at a problem.”
Nelson did not respond to my request for comment, if you can believe it. So, it is unclear which laws she would like to change.
Oommen and Seiwerath did not suggest cutting any protections in particular. In a follow-up email to The Stranger, Oommen said, “Unfortunately, it isn’t one law that slows down the process. It’s a collection of policies at the city, county, and state levels, and ever-changing case law, that’s causing the delays.”
He continued, “It’s also a resource issue. The need is in every direction–residents, housing providers, courts–all of us lack the resources to make our housing system work. This complex issue is going to take a comprehensive solution. That’s why we encourage the City Council to continue leading this public dialogue on how to balance the needs of our diverse communities.”
Other landlords at public comment named the $10 cap on rental late fees, the First-in-Time ordinance, the 2019 roommate law, and the winter and school-year eviction moratoriums as reasons they either have or will stop extracting wealth from tenants who live in their second, third, or 50th properties.
However it is unclear if the renter protections have actually driven owners away, and it’s not like their homes drive off to Kirkland with them when they sell. A report from the City Auditor’s office last December found that the decline in properties owned by “mom and pop” landlords did not directly relate to new tenant laws between 2016 and 2022 but rather reflected a nationwide trend.
Just for the Fuck of It
Regardless, even if you accept the premise that the government should make it easier for landlords to make some tenants homeless, none of the local laws that Nelson has her eyes on would unclog the eviction backlog.
Reversing the $10 cap on late fees might give landlords some extra money, but it’s unclear how much. Renters overwhelmingly pay their rent in full and on time, according to the Urban Institute, which studies rental payments to “mom and pop” landlords in particular. Tenants did so at similar rates before and after the city council passed the cap on late fees.
The First-in-Time ordinance, which went into effect in 2017, requires landlords to accept the first qualified applicant to provide a complete application in effort to combat discrimination. It also has nothing to do with eviction and seems most offensive to landlords based on the pure vibe of government overreach.
The 2019 roommate law limits a landlord’s ability to screen roommates that tenants take on under existing leases. Landlords worry their residents will bring roommates who cause problems in the building. However, even if the City got rid of the roommate law, that wouldn’t speed the process of evicting screened residents.
And, as I previously reported, the Housing Justice Project (HJP), which represents low-income tenants in court as part of the right-to-counsel law, does not use the school year and winter-eviction moratoriums very often.
“We can deal with whatever rules the City wants to put on us. We just need those rules to be clear, and enforceable in court,” Maritz said.
The Backlog
Right now, Maritz and other landlords argue the courts cannot enforce the laws due to the backlog. Many factors overwhelmed the courts—governments lifted COVID-19 moratoriums, nonprofits spent down their rental assistance funds, landlords filed more evictions than they did before the pandemic, landlords make simple errors in their paperwork, and now, under state law, every low-income renter gets a lawyer in eviction court, which can lengthen the process.
In the Wednesday presentation, Oommen argued the backlog is particularly problematic when dealing with violent tenants. He claimed that more residents of affordable housing buildings started using drugs and engaging in violent behavior in the past few years, and that it can take six to twelve months to evict them. In that time, a tenant’s violent behavior could push their neighbors to leave, or landlords may decide to keep units vacant so as to not put other residents in danger, he said.
Oommen did not provide any data to the council to indicate the scale of the problem, which Council Member Maritza Rivera called him out for. He did not respond to my questions about scope via email, either. According to HJP, only 47 of the 1,801 cases they completed intake information for since January 2024 involved a tenant with a behavior issue. That’s a little more than 2%.
Still, Seiwerath, while acknowledging the City’s limited role, called on the city council to put “all [their] political will” toward working with the County to ensure “swift evictions” for those with violent behavior issues. Seiwerath did not respond to my request for a follow-up interview.
But there’s not much the City can do about the backlog, because the fix requires an amendment to the state constitution. Besides, the King County Superior Court already adopted an emergency rule last month to expedite the eviction process when landlords can show evidence that the tenant’s behavior “substantially” impacts the health and safety of other residents. However, HJP Managing Attorney Edmund Witter said that his team has not seen any landlords use the new rule to expedite a case. He speculated that is because most evictions related to behavior win by default. Maritz also said he has not used the new rule and doesn’t know anyone who has. He’s not sure if the court has published instructions on how to use the expedited path. King County Superior Court did not respond to my request for comment.
Not to give landlords any ideas—trust me, they already have them, and they are not making it 1,200 words into a story by The Stranger—but the council could show their unwavering solidarity with the landed gentry by attacking the right to counsel.
The landlord presenters did not call for an end to right-to-counsel, but they didn’t praise it, either. Oomen called the right a “very interesting innovation.” The Seattle City Council passed the right for low-income renters in March 2021. The new council could not meaningfully repeal their law because Washington state passed it later that same year.
However, the council could kneecap the right by defunding HJP, which the City, County, and State pay to represent low-income renters in eviction court. Most of their budget comes from the State, a $5.2 million contract, but the City of Seattle funded HJP a little more than $1 million for 2024.
If in the upcoming budget negotiations the council defunded HJP, the organization would have fewer attorneys to take appointments. Witter said that HJP could ask for continuances when they don’t have an attorney available, but he agrees that if the City tries to undermine the right to counsel, “every landlord would be able to take advantage of a tenant’s lack of legal resources and likely inability to navigate the court system … so [landlords] would likely get more uncontested evictions just because the tenant doesn’t show up and doesn’t have anyone to help.”
While all these fights brew in the background, Housing & Human Services Chair Cathy Moore has not made clear what her next course of action will be. She did not respond to requests for comment.
But if Moore comes for tenants’ rights, she’ll draw lefty wrath yet again.
Put down the torches and pitchforks. I think that you are going to find that the general idea that tenants are actually obligated to pay the rent is pretty non-controversial with all non-Communist sectors of society.
“The Rollbacks Would Be Both Very Evil and Very Dumb “
very nice stock photo of what evil and dumb looks like.
I’m not sure there is much evidence that “renter protections” have ever actually made things better for renters? It usually and predictably makes things worse and just leads to anger at “landlords” who are simply acting predictably and consistently with the incentives the “protections” have created. But at least you can rail against landlords!
No reason to be afraid of the progressive base voting against the homeless levies.
They’ll bitch & moan, but will always vote in favor of the levies.
That’s not just true for taxes.
They’ll whine & complain about candidates in various races and even take the ever so brave step of voting uncommitted and shouting about how a someone supports genocide. When push comes to shove, they’ll vote for that very same person just because the right letter follows the name.
“A report from the City Auditor’s office last December found that the decline in properties owned by “mom and pop” landlords did not directly relate to new tenant laws between 2016 and 2022 but rather reflected a nationwide trend.”
The Cap Hill Blog had a post about this last month and had a few different notes from the report:
“According to a city survey of landlords, 74% said the city’s regulations were difficult to implement or follow”
“The report also acknowledges that smaller landlords may have a more difficult time meeting standards and face more complaints than larger landlords”
“Another recommendation might be the most significant. “If the City of Seattle wants to preserve single-family and small multi-family property rental housing, it should consider enacting policies that support the continued presence of this type of property in Seattle’s rental market,” the recommendation reads. “When considering such policies, the City should involve stakeholders most impacted by rental housing policies.”
I think most people would read that as onerous regulations have created an undue burden on smaller landlords and are causing them to exit the market. Since Hannah’s own reporting makes it sound like some of these regulations are hardly being used (e.g. the eviction moratorium) I’m not sure why there would be opposition to repealing them if it would encourage landlords to stay in the market.
@3 I’m sure your unsupported opinion statement is correct, so I’m left puzzled as to why so many landlords showed up to request these counterproductive “tenant protections” be repealed.
@5 the landlords found the new laws difficult to implement, but ultimately that was not what caused those who left the market to do so. These findings are not inconsistent.
It sounds like there are some renters who are barely functional, and paying rent regularly exceeds their skills:
“To avoid eviction, Oommen encouraged the council to consider funding more rental assistance, as they claimed to be seeing record nonpayment. He also suggested the council pay for some of the ongoing operating costs of affordable housing or resident services staff to help connect tenants to health and community resources. Seiwerath said the council could create a pipeline to put residents into permanent supportive housing, which would likely mean the City would have to pay to bolster that already limited supply.“
Permanent supportive housing is HUGELY expensive, and unsurprisingly, no projected costs related to this ‘pipeline’ are mentioned. Little wonder CM Nelson mentioned “throwing money” immediately afterwards.
@6 That the regs are bad for landlords as well as renters? pretty simple. Well intentioned (maybe…at this point it’s reasonable to doubt even good intentions) but stupid and harmful to both.
as an example: there is near universal agreement that rent control doesn’t work and just reduces the supply of housing. That doesn’t prevent politicians, whether cynically or stupidly, for pushing for it.. But it doesn’t work.
Landlords are in retreat. They’re getting out of the business because it is unprofitable, and they can get stuck for months supplying a service for free. That reduces available rental units. When supply shrinks, landlords raise prices to the point where the same demand curve intersects the left shifted supply curve (else there is a shortage). This is microeconomics 101, and principles that have been established for over a century an are not the subject of academic debate (unlike macroeconomics).
But just like the food delivery workers who are sitting around with much less food to deliver, the protectionist policies actually do more harm than good.
As Nikita Khrushchev said:
“Economics is a subject that does not greatly respect one’s wishes”
For such an anti-landlord author (and publication) its funny how the ultimate goal is to create the biggest baddest landlord monopoly of them all – the government as the only owner and provider of housing. Look at ANY nation or place doing that and the trade for sometimes absurdly “cheap” rent is 20 year waiting lists, only a few options for type of housing, living in a huge complex of hundreds of units or pound sand, byzantine rules over who can have what housing where and when and of course a thriving black market. Sure in our market you may need to apply a few times if you are looking in a competitive area but it isn’t going to take any 20 years to find a place.
The studies referenced claiming LL’s were not impacted by these rules were commissioned by the city but executed by the UW sociology department. They did not talk to a single landlord. They mostly avoided looking at what happened to landlords during COVID when unlike ANY other industry government at all levels declared that paying for housing was optional. Sadly some people got a taste of that and have not been able or willing to go back to paying for what everybody else has to. Then shockingly we have an eviction crisis.
One of the findings among these studies that is conveniently left out is that among all the landlords who sold a seattle property and bought another rental property, ONLY 1% bought their replacement property in seattle. If that is not voting with your feet I don’t know what is.
The roommate law is top of my list for most damaging but the needless eviction moratoria for “cold” weather and the school year, the payment-plan requirements for move in costs, and yes limiting late fees to an inconsequential amount all increase a landlord’s risks. Heck, I’ve been payment-planned exactly once by a tenant, and they stopped paying anything within 2 months. They were propped up (unbeknownst to me and PM) by a charity with a job and credentials to pass screening but as soon as they got the lease all that support vanished and the person who of course had underlying issues crashed and burned and guess who got stuck holding the bag? ONE real life example.
Another real life example: I sold a duplex in seattle. It had been owner occupied in one unit by me and over my 10 years owning the place I had only 2 tenants. I sold the place because the neighborhood was going over to townhouses but also because this property would need the most RRIO related work if I were to try and rent the lower unit (which was perfectly comfortable and safe for me for 10 years as an owner, but per RRIO was deathly uninhabitable to a renter). It wasn’t a condition issue it was a configuration issue. I decided instead to cash out and make that reinvestment move with a new property – in Everett. Seattle laws weren’t the ONLY reason I sold that duplex, but they were THE reason I didn’t reinvest in seattle.
Hannah…Cathy Moore won with 64% of the vote over the Stranger’s candidate. I’m sure she’s really worried about your so-call “lefty wrath” in North Seattle. I’m sure the “lefty wrath” will recruit a real winner to challenge Moore next time… someone with lots of “lived experiences.”
@9 “Landlords are in retreat. They’re getting out of the business because it is unprofitable”
Good. Fuck landlords. They provide no product or service. The world would be a better place if landlords didn’t exist at all.
“That reduces available rental units.”
Obvious solution is build more units. Wonder what industry (amongst others) has a vested interest in suppressing overall supply?
@12: “Good. Fuck landlords. They provide no product or service. The world would be a better place if landlords didn’t exist at all.”
I rented in Pike-Pine for almost twenty years. The landlords I had during that time consistently provided clean, safe, well-maintained residences, in return for payments which were well below market rate for that neighborhood at that time. (Being a quiet, respectful tenant hath its privileges, perhaps?)
As landlords do and will continue to exist, Seattle has a choice: enact laws which support and enable local property owners, or accept that GreyStar and other huge companies will continue to have ever-larger ownership in the local rental market. I understand that working out the unintended consequences of policies you loudly advocate just isn’t your thing, but somehow I doubt restricting choice in Seattle’s residential opportunities is something you want to support, no matter how inadvertently?
@14 I suspect 1312 is like most of the progressives around here and what they really decry is private property rights. If you look at the true intent of most of these regulations they were designed to drive landlords out of the market leaving the government as the only option and its working. In their minds the only solution is government owned, subsidized housing even though the government has consistently proven to be the worst landlord at all. Remind me again who processes the most evictions of any landlord in the city?
https://seattlemag.com/local-report-reveals-surprisingly-high-eviction-rate-one-seattle-nonprofit/
@13 those landlords “provided” you residences like people who hoarded toilet paper at the start of COVID “provided” it to buyers on eBay.
@14 not private property rights, the commodification of necessities of human life
@15: I disagree. Maintaining a safe property was far more work than keeping extra toilet paper. It included screening applicants for good overall fit to the building’s existing residents, and swiftly evicting residents who caused trouble for the rest of us; I greatly appreciated both services. Seattle seems to have outlawed both now.
Shelter is indeed a ‘necessity of life,’ but there is no corollary which says a person must have shelter available in Seattle. My family and I departed once Seattle no longer delivered good value for our money. Seattle had become one of the most expensive cities in the country, without delivering a better quality of life for our increased cost. We could have stayed, but why pay far more money for far lower quality of life than could be had better — and less expensively — elsewhere?
@16 “It included screening applicants for good overall fit to the building’s existing residents, and swiftly evicting residents who caused trouble for the rest of us”
They screened applicants for good overall ability to pay them, and it’s extremely rare for residents to be evicted because they “caused trouble for the rest” of the tenants so I sincerely doubt that happened more than once if at all.
But even assuming that’s all true and accurate, are you saying you were paying thousands of dollars per month for that service, not the place to live? And you thought that was a good value?
@17: “…are you saying you were paying thousands of dollars per month…”
No. I never paid that much. (Good, quiet, respectful, long-term tenant and all that.)
“…for that service, not the place to live?”
No, genius, I was paying for both. (Glad I could clear up that point of confusion for you.)
‘…it’s extremely rare for residents to be evicted because they “caused trouble for the rest” of the tenants so I sincerely doubt that happened more than once if at all.’
While your supreme confidence in your knowledge of topics you could not possibly have knowledge about does indeed remain one of your defining characteristics, the incident I recall (off the top of my head, well more than a decade later), was of a tenant who repeatedly dumped urine into the alley. The live-in manager told me he’d threatened to evict the guy. Whether he did evict him or not, I either never knew or now cannot recall, but the offensive behavior stopped immediately. Under these wonderful “renter protection” laws Seattle now has, it might’ve taken months or years and a lawsuit.
@18 so in response to me doubting your claim that your landlords were “swiftly evicting residents” (plural) who cause trouble you can provide one anecdote where a manager said he’d threatened to evict a guy but you have no idea whether he ever actually did. Wow you sure showed me.
Serious question: did you tip your landlords or give them Christmas bonuses?
@19: So, you’d be happy with someone dumping urine past your windows? Nothing to complain about there? (Was it you?)
The threat of eviction means nothing if the unruly tenant has good reason not to fear it. Conclude from that what you will.
Tipping wasn’t a practice in that building. As I recall from growing up in New York, annual tipping was for active service staff, e.g. doormen and/or security personnel.
The potential of owner-occupied shared housing to provide abundant affordable rental housing is vast, but increased risks prevent it from coming on the market. It’s the housing we’ve lost the most of and can least afford to lose. This is housing that’s already built, but currently vacant. It’s invisible because there is no requirement for registration of this kind of rental housing, so don’t look for stats to say we’re not losing affordable rental housing from small landlords. In Washington State, it’s estimated that there are over one million of these affordable housing units that could become rental housing. But don’t hold your breath because people with rooms to rent in the homes they own have become understandably leery of becoming small landlords now because it’s become risky for them to do so. Many of these people could use the money and the company, but between anti-landlord state rental housing laws and anti-landlord local rental housing laws we’re shooting ourselves in the foot by chasing them away from the market. We should exempt this type of housing from rental housing laws completely and create an incentive-based system to onboard these affordable housing providers. When we do, we’ll have an abundance of affordable housing.