While proclaiming that the city has an affordable housing crisis, Seattle’s city council is doing everything imaginable—and a few things that are unimaginable—to make the crisis worse. In 2020, the city council passed a law that prohibits evictions from December 1 to March 1. But apparently that wasn’t enough to satisfy housing advocates, and Seattle’s legislators are rushing to pass additional restrictions on landlords.
One bill would prohibit evictions during the school year. The ban applies to students and their guardians, as well as educators. And educators are defined as anyone who works at a school, including janitors and cafeteria workers. It is bad enough that landlords are forced to put up with non-paying tenants during the winter, but this new bill will extend that timeframe to the better part of the year.
A second bill would require landlords to offer a lease renewal at least 60 days before a lease expires. While tenants will be given the choice to renew or now, landlords will have no choice in the matter. Tenant’s will be given the “right of first refusal,” but landlords will be denied any similar right.
The third law being considered would allow non-paying tenants to use pandemic related economic hardship as a legal defense in an eviction trial. This would allow a deadbeat tenant to live without paying rent for an indefinite period of time.
Backers of these laws claim that they put “the rights of renters above the interests of profit-seeking corporate landlords.” But what will happen to those renters when profit-seeking landlords realize that they can’t make a profit in Seattle? In a letter to the editor, one Seattle real estate broker states the answer: “Giving tenants the ability to stay in a rental, not pay rent and not be removed causes investment landlords to sell properties they own in Seattle and invest elsewhere.”
Anyone with a basic understanding of economics can predict that the housing shortage in Seattle is going to grow much, much worse. Sadly, Seattle’s city council doesn’t have that understanding. Or maybe they just don’t care. Either way, there is no hope that Seattle’s housing crisis will be resolved any time soon.