An attorney tasked with enforcing similar protections tells Street Roots why protections work and how they serve to level an uneven playing field
What would Portland renters do if their landlord shut off the water and refused to turn it back on? While dirty dishes accumulated and they were trying to figure out how to get a shower, what would be available to them as a recourse?
Unless renters have the finances to hire a lawyer or could secure free legal help from depleted legal aid offices available in Oregon, there wouldn’t be much they could do. Renters could submit complaints to the Bureau of Labor and Industries or state and local housing authorities, but with scant codified repercussions for offending landlords outside federal law, their ability to prevent harassment is limited.
Shutting off a tenant’s water is a form of landlord harassment, and instances of this kind of harassment are on the rise, calling attention to a gap in tenant protections.
In June, the Portland Rental Services Commission recommended a tenant harassment ordinance introducing a set of standard tenant protections adopted in other cities that would provide new protectitheons and recourse for tenants. Months later, the Portland City Council has failed to act on the recommendation and the Housing Bureau, overseen by Commissioner Dan Ryan, has yet to complete an evaluation of the RSC’s proposal.
Ryan’s office said Ryan requested an evaluation of other state ordinances and related state laws but did not provide details on completion or remaining steps for the analysis, The Oregonian reported Dec. 5.
Months of public testimony spurred the recommendation, during which dozens of renters described the stress and trauma of being harassed by their landlords and called for support. A report from the Rental Services Commission summarizing these complaints outlines a bevy of tactics ultimately designed to bully tenants out of their apartments.
The report summarized the experience of one tenant, a retired schoolteacher and widow, who described her landlord threatening her.
“Speaker had to repeatedly remind the landlord that speaker needed to be home whenever anyone comes into rented home,” the report read. “Documented two illegal entries into home. Landlord threatened many times by pounding on the door, yelling, and giving speaker the finger once when there were lots of neighbors out. Speaker felt publicly shamed.”
Another speaker described severe harassment from their landlord after applying for rent assistance.
“Rent was raised from $1,000 to $1,500 and landlord began to take away services such as wi-fi, turned off the water outside of home so could not water plants, cut off half of the electricity, and put a lock box on the breaker box,” the report read. “Landlord shamed speaker about applying for rental assistance and speaker experienced emotional trauma not knowing if landlord’s verbal threats were going to turn into physical violence.”
The proposed protections focus on housing quality, construction projects, privacy invasion, bullying, misinformation and rules and treatment. According to Lauren Everett, a spokesperson for Portland Tenants United, the protections outlined are “boilerplate” and found in many other places, “which is why it’s so frustrating that the city hasn’t acted on them.”
Two of the RSC board’s seven members voted against the ordinance. In their proposal, the RSC notes opposition to the resolution stemmed from concerns that the ordinance would duplicate existing law.
“The landlord advocates on the Commission stress how existing laws already prohibits some of the harassing conduct reported during public testimony and how any potential future protections should not duplicate existing protections in state landlord-tenant law,” the letter said. “The landlord advocates also highlighted the importance of any prohibited behaviors being clearly defined and objective to avoid unknowing violations.”
According to Everett, the proposed protections target landlord harassment behaviors that existing law doesn’t.
“I think one of the biggest things is that there are a lot of tactics that landlords use,” Everett said. “That kind of fly under the radar, so they’re not really described in any of the protections, and this is why so many cities on the West Coast have these ordinances.”
Ordinances are another defense line for tenants who typically don’t make enough money to hire lawyers and weather lengthy court processes, which in effect means tenants have little protection from harassment, Everett said.
Portland Tenants United, whose members testified at RSC hearings and provided information, recommendations and representatives from other cities with similar anti-harassment ordinances (in addition to drafting their own recommended ordinance), drew attention to the lack of action in a Nov. 30 open letter:
“There were over 5,000 evictions filed in court in Multnomah County this calendar year alone, and that doesn’t account for households who were harassed into leaving their homes,” the letter read. “In addition to causing homelessness, landlord and property manager harassment can take a tremendous physical and mental health toll on renters forced to endure stressful conditions for months on end.
“An anti-harassment policy and an expanded Rental Services Office that could better support tenants could make a real difference in wellbeing and housing stability for Portlanders who rent their homes. Yet (Commissioner) Dan Ryan has ignored the Rental Services Commission’s June 2022 recommendation that his office evaluate the potential adoption of such a policy.”
Street Roots made multiple attempts to contact Ryan’s office for comment and requested details on the Housing Bureau analysis of the RSC’s recommended ordinance. Street Roots did not receive a response.
In places that enact them, evidence shows tenant protections help protect renters, deter landlords and slow eviction rates. While Portland drags its feet on the recommended ordinance, the city is battling twin crises that would benefit from the reduced eviction rates promised by the ordinance. Housing affordability and homelessness are worsening, and the city faces a looming surge in evictions when the state rent cap jumps to 14.6% in 2023.
Meanwhile, catalyzed by deep income divisions and surging housing costs making rent unaffordable for millions, tenant unions are forming in cities nationwide. The economic turmoil throughout the pandemic put tenant rights on the radar. States and municipalities have enacted tenant protections of various kinds in response to general economic strife and lack of affordable housing.
Street Roots spoke with Gary Rhoades, deputy attorney for the Santa Monica City Attorney’s Office. Santa Monica enacted its tenant anti-harassment ordinance in 2015, which includes a city-funded investigation and enforcement office to apply the law. The interview was edited for length and clarity.
Piper McDaniel: What prompted the anti-harassment ordinance in Santa Monica?
Gary Rhoades: We passed the first version of it 27 years ago. There was evidence from the community that a significant number of landlords were trying to use harassment tactics to try and evict. The legal motive believed to be behind the harassment was that members were trying to circumvent the rent control rule that limited increases and required just cause for eviction.
McDaniel: Can you talk a little bit more about what some of the common forms of tenant harassment are?
Rhoades: The most common harassment complaints we see in the city attorney’s office are refusal to make repairs, to try to enter the tenant's home without proper notice or justification, using coercion or intimidation to drive out a resident or family and then bogus evictions. That (bogus evictions) became a real important protection during the eviction moratoriums that were in place.
McDaniel: In the absence of an ordinance, what protections do tenants have?
Rhoades: Here in California, we have state laws that provide some protection. If the tenant is a member of a protected class, the fair housing laws prohibit housing discrimination, which would include targeted harassment, ability, habitability requirements, rights connected to the lease itself, such as the right to quiet enjoyment.
McDaniel: Without tenant protections such as those in the Santa Monica ordinance, if a landlord harasses a tenant, what sort of recourse would the tenant have?
Rhoades: I think, in most cases, they would have had to find a private attorney who was willing to take the case. And probably, very often, low-income families in an affordable (housing) unit probably can’t afford an attorney. (Without) the attorneys to enforce it, it can be very difficult to find or use the recourse.
McDaniel: Would it be fair to say, generally speaking, if there aren’t anti-harassment ordinances in place to help protect people, they do not really have a viable method of protecting themselves or fighting back?
Rhoades: Well, I go back to the idea of whether they can afford an attorney to have that kind of recourse. If they do, then good, creative attorneys use the various state laws that I just mentioned earlier. If they don’t, there’s studies that show that the deck is really stacked against tenants because, more often than not, they don’t have legal resources, and in the majority of the cases, the landlords do have some legal resources. And that results in deciding it’s not worth the trouble, worth the eviction on their record, and they just go ahead and leave.
McDaniel: Does rent control exacerbate harassment?
Rhoades: Rather than exacerbated, I’d say that it provides motivation for it because they’re using harassment tactics to try to circumvent the rent increase limitations and just cause requirements of rent control.
McDaniel: What are the penalties for landlords if they violate the ordinance?
Rhoades: Our ordinance provides for statutory civil penalties of up to $10,000 for each violation. And another $5,000 is added to each violation if the tenant is either disabled or over 65. There are punitive damages if we prove fraud or malice. And then, of course, a court, for injunctive relief, can order changes to a landlord’s business.
McDaniel: Does the ordinance create a chance for tenants to exploit landlords?
Rhoades: I haven’t seen that. I will say we have seen tenants’ complaints, in which we found that the evidence did not, in our opinion, show illegal harassment. Definitely, landlords and their attorneys have accused tenants of that, and it often happens in our cases where our office has already done an investigation, and the (landlord’s attorney) determines that what the landlord was doing was violating the ordinance.
McDaniel: What is your take on whether or not the cost of having and enforcing an ordinance is worth it?
Rhoades: Well, the studies have shown that preserving affordable housing in a community and protecting tenants has beneficial effects for our community, such as stabilizing neighborhoods, keeping kids in the same school, keeping families near their jobs, keeping commutes down. So those are the things that we see here in Santa Monica.
McDaniel: What are some arguments against the ordinance?
Rhoades: The main complaint I’ve heard landlords and their attorneys make about the ordinance over the years since I’ve been here is that it interferes with their private property rights.
McDaniel: What is your response to that argument?
Rhoades: Well, the ordinance has a bad faith requirement in it. We have to prove bad faith. We have to prove that it’s the landlord’s intent to harass or injure a family. So that fact, along with the fact that landlords have legal resources to address this, takes this out of the argument that this is a violation of private property rights. When you’re talking about bad faith and to harm someone else, that is beyond the property issue.
McDaniel: What is the importance of having anti-harassment protections? Why do they matter?
Rhoades: Here in Santa Monica, civil rights and preserving affordable housing are among our highest priorities. So, these protections help us as a community and help the tenants and applicants that are needing the protections.
McDaniel: Do these protections play a role in mitigating the housing crisis?
Rhoades: Yes, they do. Because the families being protected from harassment are more likely to be able to stay in their homes. And as we discussed earlier, that is often in the context of an affordable housing situation where the family has been there for several years and has a particular rent.
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