A landlord group is set to sue the city of Seattle in hopes of reversing a new law that allows renters to pay smaller move-in fees and pay their deposit in installments.
The City Council in December voted unanimously to cap move-in fees at apartments and other rentals, hoping to bring relief to tenants already dealing with rising rents.
Mr. Ireland, Ms. Stuart's attorney, said he believed, in his experience with housing court, that landlords appeared to target tenant activists for retaliation. "It's common," Mr. Ireland said, adding that, "What is uncommon is tenant organising," raising the spectre that retaliation by a landlord against a key tenant activist could hinder the movement to protect tenants' rights.
On a drizzly day in early February, state representative Will Guzzardi stood in front of a group of housing activists and community organizers in Bronzeville to announce his new bill, which is just seven words long: "The Rent Control Preemption Act is repealed." The act, he said, was passed in 1997 by state legislators in fear of "the bogeyman of rent control." Days after the announcement, it became clear that the bogeyman is alive and well, as Guzzardi was inundated with a flood of protest e-mails and calls ominously predicting that his bill would spell the end of development and rehab of
Jessa Lewis and her 14-year-old daughter share a two-bedroom basement apartment with another mom and her daughter. Lewis said they all live together, in part, because it’s really hard for single moms to find an apartment to rent in Seattle.
“My daughter and I were looking for a place to live in her school district,” Lewis remembers. “I called a number that was posted, and she said, ‘Well, it’s a small apartment.’ I said, ‘That’s fine. It’s just my daughter and I.’ And she said, ‘Well, then, I’m not even going to consider you.’”
In October 2015, Scherrie and Langston Donaldson received a cryptic notice from their landlord, labeled “preferential rent credit removal.” At first glance, they weren’t sure what to make of it.
“As you know, we have been billing you at a preferential rent for your 2013-2015 lease,” it read. “Unfortunately, at this time we are no longer able to extend this courtesy to you.”
They say the deals take advantage of those unable to afford spiralling rents and "go as close to the edge of the law…without breaking [it]".
Websites hosting adverts for such offers are being urged to tackle the problem.
As young people and the low-paid are priced out of accommodation, particularly in south-east England, "sex for rent" adverts have sprung up online.
One classified advertising site, Craigslist carried more than 100 such listings in a single day, a BBC investigation found.
In the city of Maplewood, Missouri, calling 911 to report violence in your home can get you evicted for being a “nuisance.” Rosetta Watson, a survivor of domestic abuse, learned this the hard way after she called police multiple times between September 2011 and February 2012 to report her former boyfriend. In one incident, she has said, he kicked open her front door and attacked her in her bed, punching her in the face.
The ACLU filed a lawsuit Friday against the city of Maplewood, Missouri, over a policy that allegedly evicts domestic violence victims and banishes them from the St. Louis suburb if they call police for help more than twice in six months.
The Minneapolis City Council passed an ordinance Friday prohibiting landlords from denying renters because they have a Section 8 housing voucher.
Section 8 is a government program aimed to increase affordable housing choices for very low-income households by allowing families to choose privately owned rental housing.
The measure passed Friday is intended to put voucher holders on equal footing with other people seeking housing options in Minneapolis.
When visitors want to experience this city’s much celebrated “alternative” culture, they often make their way to Heinrichplatz, a graffiti-covered square in the Kreuzberg neighborhood that for decades has been a hub for independent arts, underground night life and radical politics.
But on a recent Saturday afternoon, the usual clusters of selfie-snapping tourists and cafegoers were met by hundreds of demonstrators carrying signs that read, “We’re all staying” or “Say no to crowding out,” and protesting rising rents, forced evictions and rampant real estate speculation.