Ann Arbor Renters Commission Meeting 1/18/24

001see everybody as always uh let me just check and okay great well welcome everyone to the January 18th 2024 meeting of the anabor renters commission the purpose of the renters commission is to advise the city council and the city administrator in matters uh affecting renters in the city the an arbor renters commission is made up of voting members who are appointed by the mayor and approved by city council two non- voting city council Liaisons two non- voting members representing different landlord perspectives and a non- voting representative uh from University of Michigan Student Legal Services to speak during any any of the public comment opportunities you will be able to speak through the webinar link or by phone depending on your method of access to this meeting uh I we can give the instructions for that

002once the time comes so we can move on to uh roll call item two uh so I'm going to go through our role here please state the city that you're calling from I am calling from an arbor commissioner Chen and I'm calling from n Arbor nice to see you commissioner Kelly hello I'm call calling from an arbor commissioner dran presid and calling from an arbor commissioner else commissioner else I think maybe she stepped away we'll we'll look back around commissioner tibits commissioner Rosen I'm here I'm calling in for man sorry I was I I heard you guys talking about whether I'm supposed to fly to Philadelphia tomorrow and I was changing my flight because they're getting a storm so but yes I'm here okay uh commissioner Ratcliffe here or calling in from Ann arper sorry

003I'm brain dead now no worries welcome commissioner pitz here calling man aror howdy commissioner good here an arbor council member Rina here in an arbor council member Harrison is not here uh commissioner else oh did we lose her oh dear oh okay just come back though okay commissioner else is here and I can tell his voting is calling in from an arbor I can recognize her office okay we can move on to item three uh approval of the agenda so is there a motion to approve the agenda as presented all moved thank you Julia do we have a second a second second by rosanita okay um so all those in favor uh of approving our agenda say I I I I all those opposed say nay okay with that we approve our agenda and I

004apologize I think I'm having some connection issues just give me one moment I'm going to change my my network here to my hot spot sorry about that okay um can everybody hear me yes yes I can hear you okay still a little bit slow on my end so I apologize if I start lagging okay we can move on to item four approval of last meeting's minutes um oh I see we don't have them ready for this meeting but Happ for next month okay so we're gonna have yes yeah we'll have to skip though those yeah thank you no worries so we'll move on to item five first general public comment all right um to address the renters commission for up to three minutes um You can call 877 853 5247 or 888 78899 and enter

005me meeing ID 941 to be called on to speak callers can press star9 if listening by phone um or using the raiseed hand feature if viewing through the web link and the web link to get to the zoom meeting is a2gov.org renters commission meeting and so to address the renters commission at Star to raise your hand or you could use the raise hand feature in Zoom so if anyone um watching and listening would like to address the renters commission go ahead and raise your hand no attendees have indicated hey thank you very much Kristen we can move on to item six old business uh let see we have 6-a um discussion of proposed changes to chapter 105 so uh we had a a meeting of a subgroup of the commission to discuss the proposed changes

006to 8531 and so it's 8530 and 8531 which are also known as early leasing ordinance and right to renew uh is any anyone here who was at that meeting would like to uh give us an update on what was discussed I can pull up the notes if you can pull up the notes I can try to explain what we we did thank you but now I got to pull up the actual oh yeah I can give me a second I'll put them side by side oh that's very convenient thank you okay can you see that I can yeah great right so one one of the things that we were concerned about um especially from a landlord perspective is the idea of requiring landlords to send complete um leases right away to tenants so one of

007our suggested changes was that um as long as the landlord lets tenants know whether or not there's any variations to the lease like parking used to be included and now it's not included or something like that what the change in the in the rent price will be and what the dates are we thought that we would be um that would be good and would make it easier for landlords so they don't have to put together the whole lease which takes some time um section two thank you Zach I don't remember what that note means we're concerned about landlords not counter oh right we we wanted to make sure that once ATT tenant returns is that right wanted to make sure that once a tenant Returns the lease that the landlord has a certain amount of

008time by which they have to counter sign it and send it back um jump in anybody if I'm missing anything uh 3B it says one of the the um where did it go was it was it below that yeah that if the one of the things that it included was that if a tenant by their own free will terminates the lease agreement that the landlord didn't have doesn't have to give notice um and we're not really sure what that means of their own free will like what's required of that so we wanted a little bit more so that landlords don't try to pressure tenants into making a decision right away um we're concerned that landlords are uping to oh yeah I think IAL I think I maybe talked about this before that we we had

009a landlord situation where so so leases that are um eight months or less are not covered by the right to renew ordinance so we had a couple landlords I think offering tenants two six-month leases rather than a full year lease to try to skirt the um ordinance and we wanted to see what can be done we were trying to come up with some language for how to avoid uh landlords being able to do that um we wanted to add that landlords can't instead of landlords have to just give a second notice if they give an earlier notice we wanted to make it so that landlords can't make an offer before 210 days and that might help with the early bird special issue I think that's it on the early leasing ordinance does anybody want to

010add anything that I'm or tell me I'm not making sense I'm happy to try to clarify okay um and then on 8531 which is the right to renew ordinance again we're concerned about the eight month language the same as before and I'm just wondering why we're referencing 85302 here um in section 4 because it references there isn't there isn't a timeline for the tenant to accept so we're wondering if that needs to be in that spot there I think that's it right so you know I guess and one of the things John that that you had talked about I think at some point was the idea of of combining the two ordinances the ELO and the right to renew wondering if that's still something that's being considered but I think that's itless Zachariah Julia anybody

011has anything to add I can't see everybody so I don't know who else was there it's kind of quiet so I think we're good you're fine I was there this is Kim oh hi sorry I didn't see you on my screen it's fine anything to add Kim oh no no I think we're I think we're good great do we have any qu questions or comments about these two uh ordinances and you know the the proposed amendments to them uh I see Travis's hand and then I know it looks like John you want to say something as well yeah I I was just going to give a run a minute to to say something there and I didn't see anybody jumping at it so I also just wanted to thank everybody for putting some time into

012making some additional recommendations um and potential changes here I know um John and I spoke this afternoon um and he Cynthia and I are going to regroup and kind of look at all of this and then try to bring something to council here in the very near future um so hopefully we can continue to kind of close these loopholes and strengthen this ordinance um and and get a better product that's protecting renters and a in a better way so thanks everybody for your continued work in this space thanks John and I agree thank you very much for uh getting together meeting again on behalf of the renters commission and tenants uh to to look this over and for sharing the feedback if you have additional feedback or specific examples like um it is the two

013six Monon leases is that a common thing is that becoming a thing um uh does that does that happen often and it will if it works I mean I think if I think if it works for landlords to to avoid the right to renew ordinance by having two consecutive leases I suspect it it'll it'll start working more right now I think we've only seen a couple landlords do it okay all right and and then um with respect to you you would rather have just the terms or certain things any differences like under 830 Section 1 any variations to the lease rent price dates um why the preference is that just to save on paperwork or the hassle or I'm just curious why that comment I think Jordan can speak that better yeah sorry guys I'm

014I've been struggling lately so I can't talk too much without coughing but I'll try to briefly I mean the amount of time that would go into say say you have 50% renewals I mean you would literally spend multiple work days for most of us um that have a decent amount of valuee making up leases that were not going to be used um and to me personally having been a renter I if I got my renewal came with a lease I would feel additional pressure um I guess to sign it so I I think our our hope is that there's a way to get the tenants the information um without without you know kind of putting an additional burden on on the landlords in a way that they're not going to follow it at all right

015like we we need to make sure that we aren't overburdening the landlords um in this process or they're just not going to follow it or they're going to come up with ways around it right we've seen that um yeah so handing them the lease and saying hey do you want to renew here's your lease just seems a like a waste of time and B like an additional level of pressure um that I don't I don't think is is helpful when we have specified what needs to be included when it needs to be returned um Etc and while I'm on I'll just say one other thing that I think working through this um with all of us showed just highlighted like how much we also need to address the weight list thing right because this you

016know we have all of this verbage and it just has morphed into students being taken advantage of in that that other way um with really high weight lless fees and unclear um policies on that so I think the more the more that I time I spend thinking about like how we make these stronger if we're not also going to address that issue um of tenants being asked to pay thousands up front for the chance of even having an apartment we we really still still really aren't doing a service to these students but that's where the least thing specifically came from John thanks joh oh I'm sorry John did you want to respond to that no I think Travis was gonna say something about weight list and a potential 8532 that we didn't talk about tonight

017oh okay Wonder yeah we are Cynthia and I are also working with John um on a draft to ban junk fees and so um the weight list fees would be included in that and so that is something we hope to be bringing to you guys in the near future as well well so that is very much on the radar and uh hope to have something for you relatively soon terrific thank you John so with respect to the first comment um regarding any variations to the lease could I get a sense of what changes to a lease that landlords usually do that doesn't involve the term I.E the dates and the price are there other changes that often occur like are additional fees or pet fees or cleaning fees or yeah that's that's kind of what

018we were talking about big changes in fees or big things like all of a sudden our laundry machines are dead and we're not going to replace them so this doesn't actually include access to laundry or you no longer have access to a parking space I mean any of those things that would be a major a major change in the lease and affect the quality of life in the expectation um I mean our Our Hope with this language was that we um we can get students and renters in general to be informed I mean we we want them to have the information so that they can make a complete um decision usually there aren't a lot of changes but occasionally there are and I think the laundry and the parking were like the two two major

019things that came up outside of the terms of you know the dates of the lease and um the price are fees ever are fees ever increased or modified from one year to the next like whether that's a pet fee or a cleaning fee or a I don't know what paying online fee or like what kind of fees are there me things things could change like we hadn't raised our parking in 15 years so we raised our parking for this year we are grandfathering old older residents in but um for new residents that had changed so that wouldn't be great example because it wouldn't be on a renewal we we usually like grandfather people in but I mean anybody could change anything at any time right like you could change your your lockout fee as cost

020of Labor go up to pay an on call person to come in overnight you know you may change your your lockup fee um the leases usually specify the late fees um but I I don't think it's it's you know major major terms of leases don't usually change um but we just want to make sure that we are providing for tenants to have the information before they respond yes sorry this still works for us we would like to renew okay thank you and can you help me understand the next comment you know of of their own will mean for you know in other words the attendant intends not to renew the next year there the graduating senior and they they've taken a job they know they're not going to need it um so that would be

021of own free will kind of thing intentionally done um just share your thoughts about uh what land landlords might do to to abuse that by way of examples or concern my my concerns about um well I I mean we our our goals here with the language is how do we how do we reduce the pressuring and how do we reduce the so part part of my whole problem with leasing timelines is when when one friend starts looking and Leasing and is hearing that they have a unit in whatever capacity whether it's weight list or whatever then their other friends are like oh everyone's looking that's what happens right so if you if you have landlords saying hey I think I remember you're a senior you're leaving right in September and then saying oh well the

022tenant told me they were leaving so I can lease it then someone is starting to lease that unit in September and that's where we start with the problems of like getting the leasing ball rolling um in addition to to the fact that a landlord could always say that they you know that person's not go like it just starts everything early if a if a there's no reason why leasing needs to start that early for either party neither one so leasing to another tenant can't start until the certain deadline under the statute I I I appreciate your concern that the pressure the market pressures the the anxiety the the rush to the market starts but under under the ordinance the terms the landlord can't right now lease it to somebody else until till a certain day

023but until until or or if the person has is leaving of their own free will right I mean right we they can't and so that's where that comes in if so and so is telling you yeah I'm definitely a senior I'm not going to renew and that's in September and you're starting to find a replacement tenant you are then starting to lease way before anyone needs to be Leasing and outside of the cycle so I we don't understand why that has to happen right like this is not a leasing Market where you can't give me an excuse as a landlord that I feel like I need to jump on this in September for the next August because something's going to sit empty like those are those are just not realities I mean I can post

024an apartment and it's almost 100% of the time least within one week here in an arbor that that's the market that we're dealing with so we don't understand why we can't just say you cannot approach tenants about renewal until X day I don't I don't understand why we can't do that um and I think I I'll defer to any any renters or Kim or Zach or who were at that meeting but why why are we making exceptions for starting to lease at 11 months before a lease ends in some cases if if a landlord is to say hey you're a senior right um that that's where we're coming from with that does that Mak sense or is there anything else anybody wants to um fill in yeah I'll second that I don't see how it

025significantly benefits the land Lord to know that far in advance they're going to be finding a new tenant if they can very consistently feel it just later on probably for the same price if not more and the you know I don't personally have a problem with that scenario where somebody who's absolutely certain that they don't want to renew says I don't want to renew but like Jordan I'm a little concerned that uh leaving that door open will allow for Bad actors to um take advantage of tenants and you know I don't I'm not positive what of one's own free will really means like if there's a financial incentive to give a to to tell the landlord yes or no early on is that of your own free will I would think that there's a strong

026argument that it could be right um because it's not forced but if there's a really strong it's kind of like the early bird special you know they could choose not to give a decision but there's a great financial incentive to do that very early on and I'm afraid that we might face a similar type of situation with that thank you all right I I appreciate all your comments if you have specifics share them uh uh to Kristen or to uh council members Rina and Harrison and Kristen vanderock or specific examples are like oh yeah I forgot about this rise Earth here's what's going to happen here's what they're going to do uh feel free or specifics so that when I you know get with my colleagues we can kind of take that into mind um

027for any changes does that sound okay and what do you I'm just wondering what do you think the timeline is for some of these changes all I do you want them to come back to you or is this something that should go uh I guess I'll ask you council member Rina is this something you want to come back before this body uh in a public comment or give them to you and you can disseminate it to them um yeah I I informationally at this point I think we've gotten a lot of um feedback and I think have a good sense of where folks are headed um I I'm comfortable with us taking that feedback and if there's something that we're you know definitely not going to be able to accomplish bringing that back but um

028I think I'm mostly aligned here with all of the comments that have been made so um I'm comfortable hoping that it keeps things moving more quickly um taking the feedback working on it with you and then and then moving on to the next okay thank you appreciate that thank you great thank you John anybody else have any thoughts or comments about these two sections and the Amendments okay great so with that we can move on to item seven 7- a we have uh a presentation from the fair housing center of Southeast and AD M excuse me and Mid Michigan uh where's Pam okay Pam's been promoted so uh you can take it away Pam introduce yourself we're very excited to have you here so thank you for taking the time uh thank you for inviting

029me let me get this light kind of more normal um hi Gail Gail's on our board of directors um and John Riser I've talked to you on the phone but that we've never met um hello gonna post some slides for me so I can talk about them great um we're the fair housing center I'm Pam Kish I'm the director of the fair housing center of Southeast and Mid Michigan next slide um we're a private nonprofit organization and we covered 10 count we started off as the fair housing center of wash County um but now we cover 10 counties um but 44% of our complaints are from uh wasnot County Properties next um fair housing laws the Fair Housing Act is a great law but it's not self-enforcing as most laws are not um so we

030brought together the NAACP and ipsan and Ann Arbor and the housing law reform project um along with other community members and we started in 1989 to plan um an organization that would uh protect people their civil rights um if they've been discriminated against or thought they've been discriminated against in the rental Sor financing of Housing and we opened our offices in an arbor in next um we take and result you know there's a lot of you probably know the difference but a lot of people think we're a Tenants Union um but we don't really deal with landlord tenant issues um we take and resolve of illegal housing discrimination and we fill the evidence Gap so really commonly someone comes to us and she says you know calls us on the phone she said you know

031I was going back and forth you know on Facebook or Craigslist and with the landlord and everything seemed fine we had an appointment I had an appointment today to see the apartment and I went over at the at the time and he looked at me and he said oh I'm so sorry I just rented my last apartment um and you know I left but I'm black and I can't help think that perhaps my race um had something to do with him not having any Apartments left so we would take a complaint in that situation because obviously she doesn't have a recording of of this they Wen landlords um people who are interested in discriminating are very um stealth about it they're not going to say well Oh I thought you were white so now I

032don't want to rent you um it's off with a smile and a handshake um so next slide um and I'll talk more about the kinds of Investigations we do um so we take over 200 complaints every year the most common complaints we get are based on race disability and source of income um especially in places like Ann Arbor and ipsan that have ordinances preventing um discrimination on the basis of source of income uh next slide federal law covers you know all the things you would expect um sex discrimination is now includes sexual orientation and gender identity and familial status is just a fancy way to say you have children under the age of 18 living in your household next uh and then we have Michigan Law that adds age and Mar marital status so you

033can't be discriminated against because you're too young or too old or because you are married or unmarried next um obviously nro we've got source of income student non-student status and um some local ordinances have criminal background um so that's also something that's also in some situations covered under federal law but I'll get to that um fair housing law covers the rental sale or financing of Housing and otherwise making housing unavailable so you know we've been involved in suing or taking action against um insurance companies who say well you know you're a landlord I won't give you insurance if you rent to undergrads or I won't rent to you I won't give you we won't cover your insurance if you rent to someone who has a Section 8 voucher next um there are three main services

034that we provide um testing investigations and reasonable accommodations so I will describe testing next slide this is um manal nalii she was a student at Michigan State University forceed senior year she wanted to live on her own she found this place at grad Apartments she went to look at it um the sh the owner was it was unusual that he talked to her for a long time about all his theories about race and national origin and all this kind of stuff but he offered to rent her an apartment and then she called him back the next day and said I just want to make sure you know in terms of the utilities I want to make sure I'm not paying you know the water utility bills for the person who lived there before I did

035and he got really frustrated with her and said forget it I'm not running to you so she contacted us and we did what's called testing which is I don't know if anyone people have heard of testing raise your hands okay so we we in this case we sent out a black tester and a white tester both pretending that they were living on their own wanted a you know one-bedroom or studio apartment wanted to move in in August or September um everything about them is about the same but on paper the black testers is just a little bit more qualified makes a little bit more money maybe has a job that requires more education so on paper a property owner would choose the black um prospective tenant um so I'm going to show you the results

036of this testing next Slide the white tester was told about three available apartments uh the owner showed the white tester all three Apartments and um the owner told the tester that he talked to her on the phone and that was all he needed for an application process the black tester was told about one available apartment that was in total chaos he showed the black tester zero units and he told the black tester he would have to follow up with where she lived before which sounds perfectly normal except when you compare it to the white person who was told oh I talked to you on the phone that was enough so these are really Stark differences in treatment between a black tester and a white tester so that we would call that that's evidence of discrimination

037based on race um and I'll tell you how that ended but um our testers have no skin in the game they are not you know these are when we send out someone on a test they don't know necessarily if they're testing for race or kids or student status or whatever we just send them out and say go to this place at this time here's your little biography that we've made up for you and go ask about an apartment a one-bedroom apartment for November 1st and then they report back to us and then in the office we make a comparison between the two tests you know were they treated the same way this is an example of an investigation Sarah Yoder contacted us and said she was um emailing with a landlord uh about a small

038house and she went to look at the house knocked on the door landlord wasn't there she walked around the house um knocked on the door again and he had been there the whole time watching her and she looked at the house and she liked it and when she got home she um texted him and said um I am interested in the house but um is the rent negotiable and he said um the rent's negotiable if you do if you do a strip tease for me and the dress you were wearing yesterday um we can negotiate on the rent and she texted back absolutely not I'm not interested and then he just turned on her started saying really rude things about her and here we have it it's all on text message so she came to

039the office we um used whatever magic tricks the staff has that I'm not I don't know how to use to preserve all the evidence on her phone um we did a background check to see if the landlord had a criminal record did he have um uh you know any kind of criminal sexual conduct in his background um any other kind of violent any violence and so we sort of put the whole package together um and then I'll tell you later how that resolved but that was that was an investigation all right next okay a reasonable accommodation so fair housing law says treat everybody the same but when it comes to disability you have to bend the rules to make it fair for the person with a disability so this is the ray family the daughter

040sitting in the middle um um was Now using a wheelchair and she was in rehab and she couldn't go home um she couldn't go home because they her family lived on a sec a second floor apartment with no elevator so as a reasonable accommodation we wrote a letter to the landlord and said she can't come home because there's no that she can't get into the apartment could you please let this family out of their lease without a penalty and he said yes that you know of course I will do that so um that that's what reasonable accommodation can be all kinds of things I need my own parking space I have an emotional support animal uh my Social Security comes later you know I get my Social Security check later in the month so I

041don't want to be charged late fees and I can't not allowed to work because I'm I'm too disabled to work can't catch up you know get a month ahead okay next slide um HUD guideline said that that no landlord can have a blanket no felony policy for those who have criminal records um so uh the next slide pretty obvious that the United States um the criminal justice system leans so much more heavily on people of color that HUD has recognized that having a blanket no felony policy is going to have a disperate impact on black and Latino uh prospective renters and so it makes it uh again it's considered a form of discrimination based on race or national origin um next um complaint opt complaintant options so manal Nali and Sarah Yoder um you know

042we had strong evidence for manela Nali that she was that yes race was a played a role in the way she was treated and with Sarah Yoder we had a very strong case that we had put together um you know obvious clear evidence that um that this was sexual harassment um by a landlord to a prospective tenant so um at that point we say to people who've been the victims of of discrimination where we have evidence we offer them conciliation which means someone from our office usually me calls the landlord and says um you know we have evidence of discrimination um would you like to work something out with the tenant before they take any further action it almost never works um you know I think once we got a tenant she wanted to move

043into a place near emu and she had a baby they said they don't take kids and she really needed the place and so we um conciliated an agreement where she could move in for a you know one-year lease with six months free rent the other possibilities are filing a complaint with a state or federal agency in this case Hut is the federal agency and the Michigan Department of Civil Rights is the state agency and if there's good evidence in a case we will kind of walk people through that process we'll help them fill out the forms we will advocate for them in the process because HUD and mdcr are not they're not Advocates they're just kind of they're neutral third parties trying to come up with um with a solution and then the third option

044is litigation so I'm not a lawyer um we have a list of lawyers um who have experience in civil rights law and they like our cases because we're handing them basically a case that's been investigated there's strong evidence and it just you know needs to be filed um and there needs to be a lawsuit but again we don't make those decisions those decisions come from um you know our clients complainants next so this case settled for $20,000 which I think is low but it was in the Western District um of Michigan um she wasn't sure she wanted to you know her senior year of college she wasn't sure she wanted to do this so the fair housing center as an organization we have standing to take action because we our job our Mission and our

045membership um you know our mission is to end illegal housing discrimination also testers even though this tester had no interest in you know think she owned a house no interest in living in an apartment um near MSU she had to endure you know 35 minutes of this guy going on and on about his stereotypes about race it was really unpleasant she also had the right to take action against this landlord um so the fair housing center and the tester filed the lawsuit and then miss Nali eventually joined us and it settled for $22,000 next slide um this is a case I think we may have missed it do we miss a slide can you go back one maybe we didn't okay uh Sarah Yoder's case um settled for an undisclosed amount um and uh hopefully

046this guy's not sexually harassing anybody anymore um this is just to talk about how broad the Fair Housing Act is um there a white couple and they were living in Adrian Manor Apartments in Adrian Michigan and they were moving to California and the landlord said to them if you know anybody as long as they're white who might want the apartment let me know so they were appalled to hear this they immediately called us we did testing got strong evidence uh and they actually had the right to Sue um if you're white and you find out that your landlord discriminates against people based on race you can sue um because you're being denied the right of interracial Association and it's embarrassing to find out that you live in a place that has been segregated without your

047knowledge um so that case settled for for $15,000 that went to the NAACP in that area um next slide new construction um anything built new construction now um if in a building without an elevator that's not a townhouse every unit on the first floor has to have basic visitability so if there's a new apartment complex you know being built in an arbor you know down the street um it can't have any steps to the front door you have to be able to get in the front door through the unit out the back door into the bathroom do a 360 the walls have to be blocked there's just a whole list of things that have to be there um in an effort to make all new housing basically visitable as opposed to barrier-free um so this

048is Mike Lowry he called us and saying he was having problems with this barrier-free unit so you know um we went to look at it and we thought like this whole place has been built incorrectly so um we tried to work something out with with them you know that didn't work he chose to go to to litigation they had to do you know pay him um and they also had to do probably you know hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of you retrofitting all these units the fair housing center got involved because there was a building with an elevator that Mike Lowry didn't live in and every unit in the elevator building had to adhere to these seven visitability rules um and they did not um next slide uh retaliation tenants are uh very fearful

049of retaliation um sometimes landlords will say if you call the fair housing center you'll be evicted if you ask you know you were asking for uh to have an emotional support animal don't you dare because if you do I'm just gonna I'll find a reason to get rid of you I won't renew your lease so this is um Harry tus he's disabled he got his social security check on the third Wednesday of the month and he'd been racking up um uh late fees so he was he was being evicted for late fees goes to Legal Aid um in an arbor and legal aid and the fair housing center you know I had asked Fairway Trails you know let this guy let Mr tus pay his rent after the third Wednesday of the month and the

050lawyer wrote back and said well that wouldn't be fair to other people so again you know you treat everybody the same when it comes to people with disabilities you have to bend the rules and they refuse to bend the rules so uh goes to court um in front of a local judge and the legal services attorney uh says in you know the judge says in court to Fairway Trails you will allow Mr tus to pay his rent after the third Wednesday of the month the lawyer at that point said on the record that's okay he won't be living here much longer anyway basically saying yeah he thought he's going to get away with this well we're not going to renew his Le police so um it was on the record once retal once there's retaliation

051the justice department gets interested so we went to the US attorney's office um this is a case where it also had gone to HUD had' been in a lot of different sort of places um the owners offered him $300 he said no thank you um he opted to go with the justice department and it very quickly settled for $50,000 and he bought himself a house um next slide sexual harassment a lot of people don't think of necessarily well we talked about Sarah Yoder think of sexual harassment um you know you call a fair housing center people don't know who to call and that's what happened there was a group of young women um and they just kept calling people and calling people like no one you know no one could do anything for them so

052they finally found us so sexual harassment is a form of sex discrimination under Fair Housing law and this was a many years years ago like 24 years ago I think 25 um and it was a house uh with six separate leases six separate bedrooms um owned by a couple and their son was kind of the handyman um and what turned out to happen was that he was in the house all the time he only rent it to women he left SE sexual objects all over the house he watched pornography in the common areas of the house and these women would complain to his the owner his parents and they were like oh don't worry about him you know they they ignored their complaints um so we did an investigation we talked to a lot of

053women who had lived there you know previously or you know some of these women didn't know each other um and we had pretty clear evidence that this was a pattern um of Scott Meyers so um they opted for litigation and it settled for a lot 166,000 split between um five women but they also got the judge to tell the Myers family that they may never be involved in the in real estate again they had a sell the house you can't be a uh you can't be a real estate agent you can't be a rental agent you can't own property nothing and that was a huge Victory aside from the money that was a big victory too um next um this is another investigation where um it was a mobile home mobile home park and this

054is the Scott family um there was some kind of issue between one of these daughters and uh a white teenager these are all teenagers a teen teer that also lived in the mobile home park so the white mother of the white teenager decided um that she was gonna she decided to physically assault one of this black teenager um when she got off the school bus so the police were called the woman was arrested and charged with assault um and after that happened the uh the manager went to the white family asked what happened took their side of the story and sent an eviction notice to the black family so we worked very closely with Le services and one of our cooperating attorneys to make sure that they didn't get evicted um and then we waited

055for you know the um the trial court who convicted this woman of assault this black white woman of assaulting black teenager um and then the white family was evicted and they dropped the eviction for the Scott family and they paid them an undisclosed settlement um but that's you know I'm sure that happens a lot more than we hear about um next slide um I don't think I can I don't think it's gonna work but this is a a clip of of the landlord telling our tester you can try it I don't think it'll work if you click on the that thing let's see no okay so this is um Celia pippens and um she went to look at an apartment in she had two kids she went to look at an apartment by herself um

056they gave her an application and she's getting toured around and they said um and they said oh by the way do you have kids and she said yeah I have two kids and they took the application out of her hand and said we don't rent to people with kids so when she contacted us we weren't sure was was it race was it kids was it both so we ended up sending a black tester and a white tester both posing as like just a married couple um to see what the response was and she said to both the black tester and the white tester you know it's quiet here we don't rent to we don't rent to people with kids she opted for litigation it settled very quickly for $20,000 okay next slide um there's a

057lot of overlap um between evictions and fair housing cases so um we have stories of women who are evicted they've been the victim of domestic violence and so they're evicted because you we had a case against the um when there was an ipsan Housing Commission woman was um attacked by a former partner he did damage and he he physically assaulted her and she was injured and they sent her an eviction notice um you cannot punish women for the you know for for being the victim of domestic violence basically um and you can't evict a woman because she calls the police too much um because she is has been the victim of stalking or domestic violence families are evicted after the birth of a new child they're saying oh well you've got too many people in

058the apartment you know an a newborn baby really doesn't take up much space um a black family or ten tenant is evicted after a conflict with a white family like the like the Scott family a person with a disability is evicted for noise or behavior related to their disability so we get a lot of calls like someone has a m mental emotional disability and uh they had to change insurance company so they they're taking a different medication and it's not working for them and so they are up all night making noise or they are they're doing things that would get someone who wasn't disabled immediately evicted so we will write a letter if we can show a before and after we'll say look this person has a disability they um had to change insurers they

059they were taking a medication that didn't work for them now they're back on the correct medication and this won't happen again we're asking for a second chance and again because the fair housing act you to bend the rules for people with disabilities this is a common thing we ask for um tenants who are evicted because they've made a fair housing complaint to a civil rights organization um or a tenants who's evicted after a new management discovers an old felony record you know they just say sorry we just don't take anybody with a felony um all right next slide these are just we don't normally hear things you know that are um where you that you would recognize as race discrimination it's more like just run of the last um unit I lost your application your

060credit isn't good enough again it sounds these all things all sound plausible but um you know that's where testing is so important to see is it really that they rented the last apartment did they really lose your application is it really that your credit isn't good enough um we also talk to employees and and take cases for employees who are fired because they refuse to discriminate um or an someone new like a new owner comes in and they just they want to change the demographics of the property and so they just start to find like just nothing reasons to uh evict people of color and then another really Insidious form of discrimination that we're seeing form of race discrimination is just pretending or just not doing repairs until the person is so frustrated and there's

061so many repair problems that they just end up moving out so you know I've got a leaky you know my the sink is leaking the toilet's leaking they go in they kind of pretend they're fixing it but they don't um all right next slide disability um you know we only rent to working people we don't take third party payments a refuser to allow a co-signer um you know things like no you can't have a reserve parking space we don't do that for anybody no you can't have an emotional support animal or um a guy dog we just don't allow dogs on our on these wood floors um so those are the kinds of things we might hear when it's uh disability um next slide familial statuses people are pretty open about this they're like we're

062just not set up for children um or a brother and a sister can't share a bedroom there's some weird um rumor out there that a boy and a girl over the age of five can't share a bedroom I know it comes from protective services and social work and but that landlord should not be telling anybody who sleeps where um if a unit isn't safe for children they should fix it because it's probably not safe for other people either and none of these are legal reasons to deny somebody an apartment or a house okay next slide um let's actually go to the next slide this is it's old it's from probably from 200000 or 2010 this is a DOT map of um the racial segregation in an arbor and in Washington County um red dots um

063delineate uh Asian tenants blue dots are white tenants or you know residents um green dots are Latino residents and sorry red dots I'm gonna get this wrong blue dots are white people green dots are black people brown dots are Latino people and red dots are Asian and this is um kind of this is a a visual of segregation in uh Washington County so let's go back the slide so we always encourage people to call us if they if they think they've been the victim of discrimination even if it's you know they're not sure maybe it's landlord tenant law maybe it's not we always encourage people to air on the side of calling us um and we'll help people figure out you know is this a fair housing claim or is there another organization that can

064better help them so that is um that's it and I'm happy to take any questions that people have if you have time ma yes like how many cases do you get a year or last year we had like 240 or something um so it's we've seen a big jump like post covid um do you know what the percentages are like Bas you know complaints based on race disability and other things um yeah it's um like like maybe 20 to 30% race and then 30 to 40% disability and then there's like two 3% of everything else you know like national origin Religion kids um again you know maybe 10% of the complaints now in the last couple of years have been based on source of income I know there was a state level law or Bill

065rather to ban source of income discrimination uh and I saw that it pass this the Michigan Senate uh has it been going anywhere is it stalled at the moment yes okay so where do you know where that bill is now I don't know I mean we just somebody just asked us this and it's just um I don't know if there's a timetable or what is going on with it I mean be we have um we have we're in litigation right now in an arbor on a source of income I mean one of the unique things about an arbor which you probably know is that if you're if there's a violation of a city ordinance you have the right of private action so you can go into court yourself you don't have to rely on a

066City attorney to take the case up for you um so right now we're working with the university Michigan um civil litigation clinic and we filed a case um I don't know five or six months ago based on source of income um just I I don't know if you're talking about a different Bill Zachariah but the one introduced by representative Morgan is um in the house Judiciary Committee um and so I don't I don't know that there that the house has plans to act on it or not but it has been referred to the house Judiciary Committee if folks are looking to contact people in support of that and state representative Jason Morgan from an arbor is the one who introduced it thank you yes I see a hand up yeah I have a question when

067you have 200 complaints a year are all of them are real or maybe some of them are not really works at all because some of the people maybe just to complain and not that real not based on the truth not always so so is there any percentages for those complaints that really happened truthfully and really cause people troubles or sometimes and not always so we take everybody at face value they say I think I've been discriminated because because of my race because I have kids um and we do an investigation so if there but if there's no evidence there's not much we can do um and there are plenty of people who are discriminated against and we do an investigation but we just don't get strong enough evidence so there's nothing we can do them

068but we'll you know um I mean I don't think people waste their time calling government agencies to complain about things that didn't happen to them um I think people have better things to do just curious uh you may have mentioned this but how large of a staff do you have uh seven seven okay and the testers are they employed full-time or they're um they're employees but they're on an as needed basis okay interesting thank you is um guess I have two questions for you here um first of all what can Municipal institutions like the renters commission do to help your organization and building off of that are there any is there a wish list of laws that that you have that you wish all local you know all municipalities would Implement um yeah I wish

069every municipality had the right of private action and covered things like Section 8 vouchers um any kind of um you know housing subsidies um um I'd have to kind of look at there I've gone to a conference a few times with kind of progressive fairh housing people and there's this group in New Jersey that are just they have this I'd have to go look at their list of all the things that they've changed in the law in New Jersey um there's a group in New York too that um are just really Pro tenant again I mean obviously we don't deal necessarily with landlord tenant law but a lot of this discrimination comes out of landlord tenant law you know uh illegal evictions um refusing to repair things um keeping people out of housing so there

070are um you know a lot of things that I would like to see but I'm not really prepared to answer that I mean what I do want is that those of you who are talking to I assume you're on this Commission because you are interested in the rights of people who are renters and that you come into contact with with people people call you for advice um and so I want people to know that the fair housing center exists and we are open and we want to talk to people and um I also will just throw in that if they call a government agency first like this just happened today someone called the Michigan Department of Civil Rights before they called us race discrimination case perfect for us to test would probably would have gotten

071strong evidence based on what they were telling us but the Michigan Department of Civil Rights is obligated to contact the owner within a certain number of days so once you call the owner you can't really do an invest you can't really do an undercover investigation so we were just on the phone with mdcr saying like this is a perfect example call us first um you know I don't care who pays for the investigation just call us so we can do do right by this woman who is probably so you know that's just a frustration you're listed on our website the fair housing center is listed on our website I I noticed though that we don't have the um a link to your website we just have your phone number so maybe we need to change

072that yeah I mean Gail you know Gail knows what we do um the other thing is um we haven't been funded by the city of an arbor in like I don't know 15 years whenever they it used to be for those of old enough to remember it used to be that nonprofit organizations could could apply and got could get funding from the city of an arbor and wash County and then they turned it into this like other thing that was all through wash County um and we uh were cut out of that I mean we don't really fit in neatly with uh you know we're not a breakfast program we don't deal with homelessness we don't provide shelter we're kind of an odd duck in that way and so we have really almost no local

073funding um so that would be you know that would be also helpful even if it's just a tiny bit even if just so it's so people see that the city of an arbor you know supports um you know fair housing and equal opportunity John Riser hey thanks for your work on behalf of that one organization um but the question I have uh is it federal law that you mostly look into or do you do stuff for truth and renting or the housing law of Michigan or the revised judicature act are you is it state law or is it all federal or is it I know Ellie Larson is a state but do you how about landlord tenant uh you know St we don't deal with I mean we work really closely with legal services you

074know so because sometimes there's overlap you know a racially motivated eviction is a fair housing case but it's also sort of an emergency fair housing case I mean emergency landlord tenant case so they're clearly overlaps and we work with legal services um sometimes there are elements of landlord tenant issue like you know we have there are landlord tenant issues kind of woven into a fair housing issue but we would not work with or take a complaint that is just a fair just a landlord tenant case we don't do that and we deal with the federal fair housing act the Elliot Larson Civil Rights Act the Michigan persons with Disabilities Act and then any local ordinances um that where we cover that jurisdiction how about a landlord who's squeezing all the tenants unfairly or in a

075certain manner something like that like class action type or something like that nope no we deal with you know again is it a violation of the fair housing act you know I telling someone today all kinds of things are unethical unfair crappy you know unfriendly but they're not violations of fair housing law by themselves I think I missed it a moment or something didn't click um you said that you did about or do about like 200 and some thousand cases was that 20 like 240 cases so each case yeah each case is um you know has to be investigated and some are tested some were writing letters of reasonable accommodation you know some go to litigation some you know there's all kinds of avenues we help people take if there when there's evidence and over

076the past several years how many were from Ann Arbor and do you think that it's because people just don't know to report it or if it's that we may not just be having the those issues housing discrimination is everywhere so it's I mean they HUD does a every 10 years HUD does a big study in cities and towns all over the country and it's all the same Ann Arbor has just as much housing discrimination as anywhere else um but we get the most compl when when there's the most if there's a lot of rental housing so rental housing turns over every year that there's the mo the the highest level of opportunity to discriminate so if there's a lot there's a big rental market we get a lot of complaints so we do get a

077lot of complaints from an arbor because there's a lot of rental housing in in Arbor um I didn't bring that you know I have wash County statistics again we don't we're not because we're not funded by the city you know otherwise we would have we I mean I have the statistics but I'm not sort of looking through them to say and I could I actually if you want me to follow up I can tell you how many city of an arbor complaints we've taken in the last year or two and what kind of complaints they were um I think that might be you know a good thing for the group to look at or to know right yeah I mean it my guess is it's going to be similar to the rest of um the

078rest of the county and all the counties we cover it's going to be race disability and source of income and an arbor is going to be even more heavily source of income because you have a local ordinance yeah a lot of people don't call us because they think well they don't know that we're not a government agency anyone who's called a government agency sorry if you work for a government agency but you know it's not you don't usually get any kind of meaningful relief um but if you call the fair housing center and and we do an investigation we can get people significant you know significant relief and you know over the years we've it's like $3.6 million in settlements that we've helped people get you know through through litigation and other kinds of negotiations

079that we've done when you're um going through your data are you looking at like you know private homeowner landlords versus um property management companies I mean that would be I mean yeah I could yes but that is really timec consuming to go through you know look at every every complaint in an arbor and again it's kind of all over the place you know we get complaints from big companies and small companies we get complaints you know again mom and pop mediumsized hu you know we we hear kind of there's allegations of discrimination um you know at all levels kind of of that the housing um [Music] industry and is it like I figure I already know the answer is it because I was GNA say is it concentrated in like one part of an arbor

080but I kind of figure just like everywhere it's everywhere else in the country it's just kind of everywhere it is it's it's everywhere all right I think that probably wraps it up thank you so much for inviting me and please don't hesitate to send people our way um and I will send like the last year of an arbor complaints I'll get I'll get you some who should I send that to the information about an arbor complaint data you could send it to the renters commission email address okay I'll get that Kristen either or and okay I have Kristen's email so I'll send it to Kristen wonderful thank you thanks Pam thank you so much thank you so much all you guys thank you all right bye okay wonderful well thank you everybody for all the

081thoughtful questions very happy that we could have pamman to talk about all that okay we can move on now to uh before we move on um Kristen could we have the link put on our website and we have the um zir housing center we have the apparently the phone number it sounds like but we don't have the link to their website I just emailed it to you guys perfect I just already updated it so it's good to go that was very fast thank you so much okay otherwise paying attention to the meeting though uh okay we'll move on to s-b discussion of uh the city written section of Rights and duties of tenants booklet um Julia would you like to introduce this sure I at the last meeting when we were talking about uh Gail

082was giving the overview of security deposits I think rosanita somebody asked if the protections for victims of domestic violence um or the security deposit law about um if you get into senior housing um being able to break you know your lease and not losing your deposit it if that was in the booklet in the white section of the booklet um and it's uh I read through it and Jamie read through it neither one of us saw it so I'm going to say it's not in there so we would like to see it added next time there's an update and then the only other thing about updating um the booklet is I was wondering if um I think in the white SE now it says the dates it was updated and if it could just say

083the um the date that you know after the landlord section and after the tenant section if those were dated I think it would read a little bit easier for people if they realized that those two sections were really [Music] old well somebody send me those two um other pieces the um security deposit and then the other one to me and then I can work with um John and others in the clerk's office to kind of format it into the booklet for the next time they also just did a printing um and so unless there's huge demand I don't anticipate another printing until probably close to the end of the year so but we will put it on the on the list gaale is is that easy for you to send that those pieces to her

084um yeah I'll double check with you that that I know what you're talking about which ones you're talking about before I do I mean you're talking yeah we we'll be in touch okay great and and I don't know I guess you know if the an updates probably not happening you know for another year so um that people can just remember if something else pops up like that that they feel is missing that you know there is a chance sometime to change it you want the whole security deposit law in there is that what you're saying no it gives like it gives the generic description of the security deposit that it did when the booklet was written in like 1980 or something but and I think around 90 there was an update for domestic violence okay

085victim yeah and an update for seniors okay yeah I'll I'll pull it up and and send it thanks John can I ask you a question about this booklet and um how tenants usually get it I know it's provided a lot of times via email is sometimes it's included in a lease they're required to provide physical copies that we print so how do most tenants get this and use it and and are we doing it the best way for tenants that's rhetorical I don't know if there's a right answer people might so what's your sense of that because this comes from a Charter um provision where you know computers were new back then so um I'm just wondering what the sense of this body is with respect to the rights and duties of tenants booklet and

086how to best help tenants get it understand it and use it my sense is that a good chunk of tenants have never heard of it and then landlords don't do anything about it my past three landlords didn't give it to me or say anything about it I sometimes see it attached to like if if a lease is emailed or sent electronically to a tenant it's kind of at the bottom and they just look through it to see if there's anything they need to sign or not and yeah um I've also spoken to a number of tenants who have not received a physical copy I've thought about it quite a bit and I'm I am in favor of continuing to provide or require a physical copy um because I think it's more accessible to uh older

087tenants for one uh and it's more conspicuous it's not something that you can just scroll pass as easily you you know it's handed to you or so at least it's supposed to be and in order to I think the main problem is making sure that landlords really do follow that rule and it sounds like more are but we probably have a way ways to go and Jordan yeah we we have it both in our electronic lease go over it at least signing and have give them physical copy as well so we're we're doing both and going through all of the different items that are in it we don't like fully walk through every page OB obviously but I spend a good three minutes talking about it at our lease signing so some of us are

088um really making sure that tenants do have access to that information best we can thanks Jordan Bob and Gail yeah it' be much the same story uh we provide or uh a physical copy when we can uh but but we've had tenants who uh rented from out of state so they got a electronic copy uh along with you know the thing of really read this it's important you need to know it but um I think maybe that's an exception I don't know it seems like a good idea to me I guess I mean I want tenants to read it too but the idea of having all these copy paper copy seems like environmentally not a great a great thing um but that's just my two cents I mean I you know I don't I don't

089know if students are going to or tenants are going to read them any more if they have hard copies of it than if it's electronically provided so I'm not sure but that's just that's just my two cents thanks I'm not pitching anything and I'm just wondering what's the best way to do it in this era to get the information to tenants so that they can use it so that they read it so it's comprehensible you know we've got we spell out what font it has to be and what color the paper has to be and then what difference does green paper make if it's they're not given copies anyway so how do you know how do we get it to them and does it need to be in the charter I mean can't we just

090do it with an ordinance that says hey if we can do an ELO through an ordinance or right to renew in an ordinance I mean you know um I don't know that's it thanks thanks John uh anything else on change in what's in the booklet okay um and just a reminder you can find a digital copy online on our website um thank you Christen or whichever staff member put this together I'm guessing it was Kristen it looks really nice I love the the image and everything that's great okay we can move on to 7-c now uh planning for the February 15 2024 meeting so before we get into what will be on the agenda I know we've spoken about doing an in-person meeting you do you all feel that February would be a good month

091to do it or should we shoot for March or later or Never March would be better for me with the February election know course rosanita since it's in so since it's in the evening and after dark I probably won't be there but I would say that you might want to look more towards Spring because of just how Michigan Winters are that's a fair point Thank you rosanita any other thoughts I agree I think we should wait till it's a little warmer MH so yeah okay well so we can revisit this conversation at our next meeting or you know a couple meetings from now uh once it starts warming up and the primaries are behind us okay let's see which obviously don't forget to vote um so for our agenda for our next meeting uh I

092guess I'll just open the floor here what should we all discuss uh the February meeting I will also bring up our uh work plan here so we can remember the things that we wanted to work on this year Julia um I I'd like us to uh have attendance on the meeting I I know we've got openings posted but we should talk about um other people who haven't been showing up to meetings thank you Julia I think it's a great idea um and please send around the application link for the r for the commission I think that we could use some more applications and we also need to make some recommendations on appointments probably soon uh I can send that out to everybody okay please send that out to the mailing list recently as a suggestion

093like I think we have 500 people l or something last Kristen mentioned it I wonder if it would um behoove us to send the application and responsibilities out to our small mailing list I can do that thank you Kristen thank you Jordan for this suggestion all right so um any opposition to having that discussion about attendance okay so we'll put that on the agenda what else maybe this is a question for Travis um do is it worthwhile for us to talk about um junk fees or do you feel kind of set in where you're going with that I think if we have if let let me put it this way if if we have a draft ready we will put it on the agenda yes okay thanks John I know there was a junk fee

094weight list weight List fee committee if there's anything specific by way that you might want included get that to you know U Travis Kristen and council member Harrison for our just consideration if there's something specific that it should address or there something uh just let us let us know um just share your thoughts uh with us uh if you have any in that regard I know I I already have the wait list um but if uh any there's any additional thoughts or comments share those yeah thank you John uh Jordan you had sent me something about having an example of an options contract uh so you may want to redact that and send it over if you feel comfortable doing that yeah I got it to Travis but I will send it to I'll black

095out the names and send it to John too because it feels like a really important example of just um in this particular example John um for a two-bedroom apartment students were be being asked to front $5,000 um which included security deposit which they thought was not refundable I I think ultimately it is reading it myself um but I understand why they didn't think that um and then uh B that's not refundable and in addition you know rent and and things before they even are given a lease um and so I think including Provisions that are specifically discussing um you know the the timelines of exchange of money like being asked to pay rent when you um are not even protected by a leas and those kind of things would be important so maybe I'll I'll

096reach out to you with some kind of specific examples and concerns I've heard also right uh additional additional specific examples that if people want to send to the attorney's office through council members harison Rina and Kristen alazon are specific junk fees or fees for this or fees for that what what are the fees that landlord landlords charge you for a lockout fee a pet fee a cleaning fee um uh snow shoveling fee a laundry fee what kind of fees are there and uh just so I can appreciate what what some of them are Tris yeah I I think that's all helpful context if if it's helpful to John as well but I think one of the things that council member Harrison and I talked about is a desire to to eliminate junk fees uh so

097um so I don't I don't know that a huge compiling of a list if that's something that I I don't want to provide create additional work if that's not something that we're gonna need to enumerate no no we're not no I just want you're right and I just want to kind of get a sense of the kind of things that you know that that that might be out there if if it's convenient and easy to do so I'm not saying you need a special meeting but if you have anything to share feel free to thanks just thinking about the next meeting I mean maybe we'd want to touch on sort of the next commissioner education session that we'd want to engage in I thought the the presentation tonight tonight was great so maybe thinking through

098what we would want to engage in next maybe the affordable housing topic or the slowing gentrification topic and and who we'd want to bring in to help to guide that discussion that's a great Point does anyone have any ideas for who to invite on those two topics I think it would be really nice to invite someone from Avalon to talk about affordable housing maybe washingon housing Alliance might be someone we could bring in as well yeah that's a good idea that may be pertinent our um kind of small landlord wh Coalition is actually planning kind of a a connection event and also an event to inform um landlords about how they can access um kind of the money that's out there for um Section 8 and other local programs and I may have some more

099information on that by February gotcha that's whha right yeah I yes I mean Sharon Sharon leus is kind of um spearheading it um there are other folks that come um some mostly housing providers but also just kind of some Community organizers and stuff too so it's it's a bit of a hodge podge but yeah okay thank you um I can Kristen would you prefer to I think inviting Avalon to come to one of the next two or three meetings you know within that range of meetings um would be great uh would you like me to invite them or would you prefer to either way it works for me okay um I can send an in invitation because I just happened to run into the director adma the other day it's very random encounter so um

100great all right um one other thing to add the agenda is uh the complaint form for 8530 and 8531 I think that we should discuss uh Outreach to tenants um how are we going to make tenants aware of this Complaint Form now that it exists I have some ideas on that but I think we should discuss it as a group in the February meeting okay anything else okay thank you uh we can if you have any other ideas for the meeting you can just email Kristen me and Julia all right then also um I will be moving in a few months so I I will resign from the commission after a few months um I think probably around um probably April or so so if you're interested in becoming the chair um really encourage you

101to do so I've had a good time you know you know and uh uh so if you have any questions about it just let me know but uh be good to start thinking about it can we congratulate you on your next venture I do not object Zachariah will be starting medical school in the fall so very exciting congratulations thank you thank you I'm excited your leadership thanks Miss I hope we can do an iners meeting before then or I'll I just want to see some before then it be nice I I think we should meet in person then that make me very happy yeah yeah congratulations thank you um okay so we can move now on to item eight reports so uh uh 8- a do we have a report from city council beyond what

102you shared already I think you got most of what we're working on yeah from um from my perspective yeah thank you okay 8-b there is no there's no hhsb meeting according to Jeff there nothing there 8-c report from staff leaz on anything new I have just a couple of updates um reported that um McKinley requested about 2,000 tenants uh rights and duties booklets they haven't picked them up yet but they are ready um and they have been contacted several times that they are ready so um those should be out soon and then we also have a really large stock right now so um they are available and then I attended a meeting meeting today with the office of sustainability and Innovations and then some other stakeholders about a Federal grant that OSI is looking at

103um and they're looking at gearing a lot of the funding towards Greening The Greening rental housing program and so it's in a super early stage um but I express that the rent commission would be definitely interested in being a community partner so when I have a little bit more like when it's shaped a little bit more more on it thank you Kristen any questions for Kristen okay great thank you again can move on to A-D report from Commissioners uh do would any Commissioners like to give a report okay great uh then lastly we can move on to oh no there's actually one more after this uh item nine the second general public comment right if um any member of the public would like to address the rent commission up for up to 3 minutes you

104can call 877 853 5247 or 888 78899 and enter meeting ID 935 941 you can also join using the web link and that is a2gov.org SL renters commission meeting if you um have called in to speak you can press start 9 to raise your hand to be called on or if you are joining with the web link you can use the raise hand feature anybody would like to address the renters commission go ahead and raise your hand all right now attendees have indicated okay thank you very much Kristen okay okay we can move on to item 10 now we did receive a communication you sent that out right before the meeting so uh I can pull that up here I have not had a chance to review this before the meeting but here we go

105h okay so it's a perspective student tenant who put down and thought they were getting priority for a room adversity right um and then there's an additional $500 beyond the I'm a little confused but I'm trying to read it quickly yeah but I would say I mean they mentioned Student Legal Services a couple times in here I mean if they I obviously don't know if they call Student Legal Services or not but you can refer them if you want to just refer them back to our to me specifically that's fine yeah can try to get more information was this person referred to Student Legal Services well they mentioned Student Legal Services I just don't know if they ever contact it because I don't know their name yeah I mean it's not it's not something that

106I this particular incident doesn't sound familiar to me like I've talked to someone who's had this situation so but it doesn't mean they didn't talk to somebody else in their office I just think more I need a little more information but I might just be reading through it too quickly sounds good uh where did they mention Student Legal Services here um Varsity mentions it in their response and then um it looks like the first the email that's on Monday January 15 said my parents are suggesting I report this to Student Legal Services Goa so there's an application fee and a reservation fee I see huh okay um all right well what should um Gil do you want anything else to happen next um to make sure these people were connected or did you know did

107connect with Student Legal Services um other than just telling them that they can reach out to me that's that's fine is you know if they if they I assume she's a senior now or the person's a senior now I think they said daughter um so they're still eligible for services so yeah if you wouldn't mind just having them reach out to me and let them know that they were referred by the renders commission and then i' I'm happy to talk to them and see if I can figure it out and if there's any reason to come back to the render commission about it I'm happy to do that okay sounds good Kristen are you able to yeah thank you great Julia I just wanted to say that it did seem to hit upon some of

108the things that we've been talking about there's also the example of they gave money in October and then in March we're told there's no unit um and and just you know you pay 150 who would have thought you had to pay another [Music] um it is one of these miserable things where you can't in and she the mother says it point you well maybe my daughter should have read the fine print better you can't you know I've gone all the things to get a lease walk to get my keys and they hand me a 10-page lease and I'm like well this is going to take me an hour and a half to read you know it's not written in English um and he just lefted and said no just sign it you've got three minutes

109you know so it's like yeah sure I signed it because you don't have any choice I think I think it's G to get worse everything that you guys have said I've heard from some of the people I know the landlords um I I I just don't understand this this this weightless fee which can be a lot they are charging a lot for a weightless speak and and some landlords are like yeah we'll just give it back like that's this person is hoping they have an apartment I it's like a supply and demand it hits all at once with the students yeah sorry I just got to add one more thing thing about that right if you have to put down $500 on four different landlords hoping one of them comes through we don't have to

110have a workshop on gentrification because you've got to have a lot of money to just apply for housing here let aone get something and I just want to repeat something that was in the that report um that we gave the city council uh people who are more likely to have bad credit for example have to apply more often and those are the people who can least afford to apply more often when the fees are so high so it's this impossible situation uh it's really not fair in my opinion I know I've said that many times but um I hope that we're able to address it because I really really do feel for these students and and non-students who have to go through this it's not fair any other thoughts on this email chain I'm I'm

111gonna read through it right after this uh meeting I think I haven't read through the entirety of it the only thing that kind of I mean not the only thing but what stood was that she received spon responses from two different people from varsity and while they're kind of on the same page it's it goes back to like you guys were saying with the application and the rental agreements are so for the application packet can be so thick if you're looking at all the terms and it's really small print then you don't know exactly what what you're doing or signing and when we're looking at students like she's a senior but I think a lot about students who are going into their freshman year in a case like this your campus and you know maybe

112they have parents who haven't rented in like 20 years so there's an education piece that really needs to to be there for the student and for their family on on part of this thank you res any other thoughts about this email okay um so we can move on that's the only piece of oh yeah rosanita yeah go ahead oh they did mention ver to their company and another one that's called The Varsity saying that maybe you got us conf used with someone else um yeah I see looks like it's like an individual complex [Music] maybe right because they're saying they didn't they themselves don't have have a wait list right far and invar management right but it's a couple of paragraphs underneath that that really kind of gets me when when I think it was

113the parent saying talking in the beginning which is the reservation fees is technically is not technically a fee but prepaid rent as long as you sign a lease and move in and it's refundable if the current residents were to renew so how soon before the re before uh are they before the residents leases up are people joining a weight potentially joining a wait list for this apartment good question um sounds like from the other ex uh people the tenants I've spoken to sometime in November December or January frequently people are signing these contracts yeah and that makes it that makes it a even more difficult because I know for um someone's apartment like they said oh we'll give you um was it the letter from management came in January saying we'll knock a little bit

114off of your increased rent if um you renew by a certain day in February but the lease itself isn't up until close to the summer and so that's why I'm asking kind of wondering how far in advance are these apartment weight lists going out because that's that is pretty long to be on a weight list um on a non-refundable potentially weight list if you're paying $150 $200 um like you guys said to multiple complexes and being out of that for several months and then if you do connect to an apartment then you've also now lost say if you did what four other apartments then you've lost what $600 because it's non-refundable yeah it's not acceptable when can we term that a junk fee just a question I'd say right now um when can we ban

115the junk fees um we'll hear about that hopefully at the next meeting or the one after that but U from our council members if you have uh specific thoughts about how to make sure that we include all the fees that should be classified as junk fees in the upcoming legislation um the draft ordinance uh email our council members it sounds like that's the way to um make sure that that gets addressed and and John of course okay I think uh we good to move on see all right then um we can move on to item 11 adjournment so do we have a motion to adjourn I'll move to a journ thank you you have a second second second by Julia all those in favor of adjourning say I I I I all say name okay

116with that we are adjourned thank you everyone see you next month thank you have a good night take care good night