Comments

1

What's wrong with means-testing? If someone can afford to pay their lawyer, why should the City?

2

Free? Free to whom?

3

If you think its free wait til ya see what it cost am I right am I right? Hur hur hur I huff paint.

4

Doesn't matter. The people making the decisions (they aren't called judges, I can't remember what they call them here - I went before one, with a lawyer, for breaking into my own apartment in the Biltmore because I got locked out and the manager would not return to the building to let me into my apartment - AND no locksmith would come to the building to let me into my apartment because there was a live-in manager).

The people making decisions about landlord-tenant issues in Seattle are all landlords. They will allow evictions, lawyer or no lawyer, because they do not give a fuck. And homelessness will skyrocket and everyone will bitch and complain about homelessness. The depraved indifference to human beings is the one constant in this society.
The only thing that anyone cares about is money.

9

This is a huge step towards reducing homelessness, and Sawant should be given accolades for saving families and lives by providing due process and legal resources for those facing eviction and ultimately potential financial and personal oblivion. This points to Sawant's leadership and policy skills and a potential mayoral run.

10

I hate to say it, but I support something Sawant helped get done. Landlords, as a group, are the most exploitive wanna be empire builders I have ever met. To make things worse, many of them are too under capitalized to make timely and necessary repairs. Who here has also paid a non refundable $1,000 carpet cleaning fee on a shitty carpet, or had some ungodly amount of their deposit withheld because the rings on their stove top turned black after a couple of years of use. Most businesses add value to the product they sell. Landlords, however, add nothing of value and only want more. They are like the people who bought up the hand sanitizer at the beginning of COVID and sold it on eBay for a crazy mark up. I can't wait until they're forced to make ridiculously low settlements on all the back rent owed for the last year. Also, I hate the word "landlord." It implies a nobleness and gentility that they simply do not deserve. The City of Hoquiam (you pass through it on you way to Ocean Shores), was named by the Salish Indians in the area to describe the settlers that moved there- it loosely means "wood vampires." We should have a similar name for landlords. And my rant is done.

11

@10 - are you sure you're telling us how you REALLY feel? BTW, "too under-capitalized to make needed repairs" is kind of the other side of "not charging enough rent." It costs a certain amount of money to keep the bills paid, make the property taxes, replace appliances when they die, etc. If the rent does not cover that (which it obviously has to do on average or you they go broke), then they are undercapitalized. Time to raise the rent. I bet you are not any happier with that solution. Should landlords just go into the business planning to lose money?

There are good landlords and bad ones, and good tenants and bad ones. I've been on both sides of this, and I have been to court against a bad landlord. Guess what - judges kinda hate them and will take the tenant's side if it is warranted. If your landlord is genuinely not making repairs to keep the place liveable, or is unjustifiably withholding your deposit, you have legal remedies. Read the landlord-tenant laws (which the law requires that you were given when you signed your lease).

12

There is no such thing as a for hire, eviction defense attorney. Nobody can afford an eviction attorney in private practice, because they don’t exist. Even the richest person can’t hire someone who doesn’t exist.

13

@12 - https://www.dicksonlegal.com/eviction/


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