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HomeMy WebLinkAbout10.12.22 Rental Housing Advisory Board MinutesRental Housing Advisory Board Minutes 1 Rental Housing Advisory Board Minutes October 12, 2022 Present: Lynnsey Erickson, TJ Hobbs, Donn Lord, Timothy Ernst, Lukas Shelton Excused: Ally Stribbling Staff: Kelly Nieforth; Community Development Director, Casey Koelbl; Housing Inspector I. Call to Order Nieforth called the meeting to order at 3:33 pm. II. Welcome New Member – Lukas Shelton RHAB welcomed Shelton. III. Roll Call Roll call was taken and a quorum declared present. Ernst stated they will see about having Shelton moved to a regular member and asked who people can contact if they’re interested in serving on the board. Nieforth replied there is a link on the Boards and Commissions website and staff post the vacancies on social media as well. IV. Citizen Statements There were no citizen statements. V. Elect Vice Chair Motion by Erickson to nominate Hobbs. Motion by Erickson to close nominations and elect Hobbs as vice-chair. Seconded by Lord. Motion approved 5-0. VI. Approval Meeting Minutes – August 10, 2022 The minutes of the August 10, 2022 meeting were approved as written. (Hobbs, Erickson) Rental Housing Advisory Board Minutes 2 VII. Partner Organizations Update ADVOCAP Rental Assistance Ernst stated Lu Scheer was unable to attend. Energy Services started their new year on October 1st so people applying for energy services/emergency rental assistance must complete a new application for the new program year. There is no waitlist for applications, although the typical time needed to process an application is four weeks. They continue to hear from landlords who refuse to work with tenants applying for assistance. The number of people who have reached the maximum 18 months of assistance continues to increase. ADVOCAP is able to offer Community Development Block Grant funds to people who have reached the maximum. ADVOCAP offers coaching to people who receive the funds to help them become more financially stable. Winnebago County Eviction Prevention Task Force – Eviction Data Erickson shared updated data through the end of September. There have been a total of 461 evictions filed this year and she expects there will be more than there were in 2021. For 2022, the numbers are close to the monthly averages since 2016. The number is no longer fluctuating like it was in 2020 and has started to level out. Shelton asked if this was just Winnebago County. Erickson replied affirmatively, adding they tend to see higher rates of evictions in Winnebago County compared to the surrounding area. Lord asked about the actual number of evictions versus the filed number of evictions. Erickson replied it has increased a little bit. She estimated that 50%-60% of evictions filed end in an actual judgement. Lord asked if there are any mediation filings happening. Erickson replied affirmatively. Lord replied one of the things he always says about eviction is that it’s better for mediation to happen right away instead of getting to the point where a tenant is behind six months. He’s hoping they can put some stop gap measures in place to start mediation right away. Ernst asked what gap he is trying to stop. Lord replied he’s finding landlords and tenants in situations where the problem has snowballed into a larger issue than it was at the outset. It would be good to have mediation occurring at the outset instead of in the hallway of the courthouse. Ernst asked if Lord was saying that tenants are taking landlords to court. Rental Housing Advisory Board Minutes 3 Lord replied no. He was suggesting having solutions in place long before eviction is considered. Ernst stated it makes the situation with landlords not accepting WERA funds more of a shame and asked if Lord agreed. Lord replied that a landlord might accept the funds, but then the tenant gets behind again so that landlord decides they don’t want to accept the funds again. Erickson stated she wondered if they would be seeing an increase in evictions due to the number of people hitting the 18 month maximum of WERA funds. Hobbs asked Lord if he recommends that other landlords reach out to the Winnebago County Conflict Resolution Center. Lord replied he just means that so many things seem to be in the eleventh hour with evictions. Shelton stated as a person who has used these resources in the past, some of the requirements don’t makes sense. He pointed out that the total late fees from the ADVOCAP data is over $500,000. It doesn’t make sense to charge late fees when the tenant already can’t pay the rent. It creates a situation where the problem can only get worse. He’s asking for a resource that makes sense at the outset instead of providing a resource when the problem is too big to solve. Having to be behind on rent to be eligible for the resource isn’t helping them not be behind on rent in the first place. VIII. Inspections Staff Update Social Media Koelbl stated RHAB members can contact staff if they’d like anything posted on social media. He will create a post about the current vacancies on the board. Rental Registry Inspection Program/Improved Communication Koelbl stated staff sent out 354 letters and conducted a total of ten inspections in the last four months. Lord asked if they were still sending out letters. Koelbl replied the last batch was sent out in July. Lord asked what staff could do to fix the program and receive more responses. Nieforth replied it’s a lot of work and staff time, but there’s not much they can do because of the state statutes in terms of mandating responses. They’re not making money to support the staff time, so they are looking at ways to still encourage people to talk to them if there are violations. They’re still getting complaint-based, but the initiative isn’t there for voluntary inspections. Rental Housing Advisory Board Minutes 4 Lord asked if there was a procedure in place in the event a tenant makes a complaint to their landlord and it isn’t resolved in a certain amount of time so the tenant can withhold a portion of the rent. He asked if there was a letter or an educational tool that could be provided that would work better. Ernst replied the Tenant Resource Center has provided letters for that purpose. There is nothing protecting the tenant from abatement in state law, so the tenant can still be evicted if the landlord isn’t making repairs and the tenant doesn’t pay. Lord replied it isn’t supposed to work that way and asked about the timeframe for someone making a complaint to their landlord. Koelbl replied when someone calls with a complaint, they always ask if they contacted their landlord. The timeframe is going to depend on the issue. More serious complaints have a shorter timeframe. Lord replied tenants may not realize it’s often difficult for landlords to find someone to fix the problem right away. He’s wondering if there’s a better way to get a procedure in place they can give to renters. Hobbs replied they think it’s in the brochure. Withholding rent puts folks at a huge legal risk and it isn’t recommended by any resource that they contacted. Lord replied he’s just asking if there’s a simple procedure. Hobbs replied it’s in the brochure. Nieforth stated the majority of the time tenants try to contact their landlord first. Inspections is intended to be the last resort. Lord replied he was just wondering if they have a letter or a form for people if they have an issue. He asked if they are planning on sending any more letters this year. Nieforth replied they would need to take a look at it. Lord asked if there’s a time of year when they have more complaints. Koelbl replied it varies. IX. Public Information Campaign – Tenant and Landlord Rights Brochure Distribution Update Ernst stated several weeks ago everyone received an e-mail with a link to sign up for distribution locations. Ernst and Erickson have done so. Some places don’t have areas for brochures, but they do have areas for posters. There are still a few locations that need to be covered. Rental Housing Advisory Board Minutes 5 Poster Ernst shared the poster and asked for suggestions. Erickson stated the QR code takes her to a version of the brochure that doesn’t have clickable links. She asked if it could be posted to the city website so that the links would be clickable. Nieforth replied affirmatively. Erickson asked if they could make smaller posters for other locations. Ernst replied he will work on the dimensions. Nieforth replied they can put it on the website after they receive the poster from Ernst. Hobbs stated they loved that tenant rights is on there. They’re curious if there’s a way to encourage landlords and tenants to scan the QR code. Ernst replied he would make those updates. X. Discussion Item from Previous Meeting Appeal/Petition to County Clerk to Strike Evictions Filed 2020-2022 Ernst stated based on his research, eviction records are not the best way to screen tenants for housing and that the focus on eviction records leads to housing insecurity in several instances. There are tenant screening companies that landlords can pay for aggregated information on tenants. Because that information is available very quickly and before judgement, it can cast an inaccurate and misleading view of the tenant in the eyes of prospective housing providers. Eviction filings are more of a reflection of the landlord than the tenant. Landlords don’t take on a lot of risk filing the eviction. Lord replied they do take on risk and landlords don’t like evicting people. It doesn’t benefit them to just get another tenant in there. He thinks they need to emphasize the evictions filed that don’t end in judgements. He also thinks they need to figure out if this is even something they could do legally. Ernst replied the county cannot unilaterally strike eviction records. It requires court action. That being said, there are plenty of reasons to encourage the state to take that action. They know from the pandemic that eviction records aren’t a reflection of the tenant’s ability to pay. Even with the eviction moratorium, they were still filed in this county. They also know landlords don’t accept the ADVOCAP funds when they’re available. This means that housing providers are looking at inaccurate information when making housing decisions. The literature is very clear that this creates an unjust system where landlords will always have the advantage. Even if landlords don’t want to evict, they’re still fully empowered to do so. The literature also suggests that the focus of the problem for tenants tends to be on the lowest income people, women, single mothers, and black and brown women in particular. The Rental Housing Advisory Board Minutes 6 system has a classist and racist component to it now. There’s plenty of reasons to attempt to seal some of these records. This has been proposed by Legal Action of Wisconsin at the state level. The courts refused because it would be too burdensome and because they argued landlords needed to access the information. Given that other things like credit reporting are available and better indicate that tenants can pay, those ought to be used instead. Lord asked how evictions benefit landlords. Shelton replied a tenant can be late on rent for one month and be evicted. The record won’t show the five years they paid rent on time. Having the eviction on their record will make it difficult to find housing in the future. The landlord will not have the same difficulty finding a new tenant and the landlord still owns the property, which they could sell. Lord replied by the time you get through the eviction process and the amount of money you spend, you’re much better off keeping the tenant. He doesn’t know of anyone being evicted after missing one month of rent. Shelton replied he was and the landlord still has a multi-thousand dollar house that could incur those costs. Lord replied two thirds to three quarters of rent goes toward fixed expenses like principal, taxes, interest, and insurance. Those have to be paid. About 18% of rent is going toward property taxes and you risk foreclosure if you don’t pay that. Shelton replied Lord is right, he does incur a cost. He’s not disagreeing with him about incurring the cost, he’s disagreeing about the long term effect. Ernst replied those are all very good reasons to keep tenants in their homes. Lord replied he’s just trying to let them know most landlords are small landlords and about 40% never make any money at all. Shelton replied they can sell the house if money is the concern. Lord replied they could, but they’d need to put 20% down and the average duplex in Oshkosh goes for $140,000, so it would be around $30,000 with closing costs. Shelton replied and at the end he still can’t rent because he got evicted while the landlord made $50,000 less than they thought they were going to. Lord replied he’s starting to sell because he wants to get out. It just isn’t worth it to him and there’s a lot of people in that position right now. Ernst replied that isn’t a problem of eviction records though. Rental Housing Advisory Board Minutes 7 Lord replied he’s saying the ones that are filed should be looked at. Nieforth asked how the board would like to move forward. Ernst replied he would like to hear from the City Attorney about what the city can and can’t do in this regard. He knows it would potentially need to go through the county and the state. He will send board members the links and more information. There are a number of alternatives they could discuss, but there’s no point in talking about them if they can’t implement them. Nieforth asked about other communities that have done this. Ernst replied there haven’t been any in Wisconsin. There have been changes in a couple states allowing for sealing of records and some counties are able to do it depending on the state. Based on his reading, he’s pretty sure this is a state level policy. Nieforth replied she will get feedback from the City Attorney about what they can and can’t do. Erickson replied she did a bit of research and came across the Legal Tune Up effort. They help tenants to expunge their eviction records if they meet certain criteria. She wondered if it would be helpful to hear what that process would look like for those people. She will see if she can find someone to present at a future meeting. Lord replied he thinks it’s worth pursuing to figure out what that process is to have the eviction expunged. Ernst replied evictions stay on the record for twenty years. His recollection is that Legal Tune Up only deals with evictions that are a certain number of years old. His understanding is that it’s insufficient to deal with the filings that occurred during the pandemic, which will cause the most immediate concerns for people looking for housing. To return to Lord’s question about how evictions benefit landlords, he thinks some of that has been answered by Lord. There is a shortage of housing with prices at a premium, so landlords are incentivized to bring in whichever tenant they think is the most able to pay. They’re able to charge for things like double security deposits. Being able to get a lot of cash on hand like that sounds like a motivation to him. Lord replied that turnover is a killer for landlords. They’re probably losing money if they have turnover once per year. Shelton asked if it would be safe to say that the landlord tenant relationship is a business relationship. Lord replied he used to say that the biggest maintenance issue that landlords miss is maintaining the tenant landlord relationship. Shelton asked Lord why it isn’t regulated like a business if it’s a business relationship. Lord replied there aren’t many legal tools. There’s the five day notice and from there it goes straight to Rental Housing Advisory Board Minutes 8 eviction. There isn’t anything between there in the law. That is a problem. There should be more tools in the toolbox. Ernst asked if Lord wanted tools for landlords to have options other than evictions. Lord replied affirmatively, adding there should be more options in between. Hobbs stated that’s the mediation board. Shelton stated he can just rent his house to someone without a lease. Hobbs asked if Shelton was talking about homeowners renting a room to whoever they’d like with or without a screening. Shelton replied affirmatively. Hobbs replied if they choose to be a good person, then they could, but that’s not in the law. Ernst replied once again, evictions don’t make someone good or bad. The presence of evictions does not indicate a tenant’s ability to pay. Lord replied he tells tenants to look up their landlords and see if they have a lot of evictions on their record because that would be a red flag. XI. Other Business There was no other business. XII. Adjournment The meeting adjourned at 4:24 PM. (Erickson/Lord)