The Seattle City Council recently passed a law that provides legal representation for tenants facing eviction. According to the Seattle Times, advocates claim that the law “is a small investment that will help people stay in their homes and forestall the ruinous, and more expensive, consequences of homelessness.” Whether that claim is true or not is debatable. What isn’t debatable is that landlords will be forced to help pay for the legal representation of those they are trying to evict. I am a landlord and have evicted numerous tenants without hiring a lawyer. However, if I had a tenant who was getting free legal help, I would likely hire an attorney. And the cost of that attorney would be passed on to the next tenant through higher rent. Seattle, like most cities, has an affordable housing crisis. Laws like this won’t help.
$ $ $
The nationwide eviction moratorium imposed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been a godsend for deadbeats across the country. Knowing that they can’t be evicted for non-payment of rent, many tenants are taking advantage of the moratorium and living rent free. That is bad enough, but some are also abusing their landlords even further. As an example, one landlord in Connecticut was in the process of evicting a tenant prior to the moratorium. The tenant didn’t pay rent for fourteen months before vacating the property voluntarily. However, before he left, the tenant vandalized the apartment by breaking windows, spray painting profanities on the walls, and destroying the carpet. The owner estimates that repairing the damage, on top of the lost rent, will cost him $22,000 to $24,000.
$ $ $
An Illinois state representative has proposes legislation that would repeal the state’s ban on rent control. He believes that this will help address increasing gentrification in the state. The Chicago Tribune correctly notes this this will only make the state’s affordable housing shortage worse. Instead of rent control, which prevents landlords from charging market rates, the paper endorses a proposal by the Chicago mayor that will require developers to set aside as affordable housing–below market rate–at least 20 percent of new housing. The mayor’s proposal is founded on the same premise as rent control–that government intervention in the housing market will solve the affordable housing crisis that government intervention in the housing market created.