0012023 meeting of the Ann Arbor renters commission the purpose of the renters commission is to advise the city council and the city administrator on matters affecting renters in our city the Ann Arbor renters commission is made up of voting members who are appointed by the mayor and approved by city council uh two non-voting city council Liaisons two non-voting members representing different landlord perspectives and a non-voting representative from the University of Michigan Student Legal Services to speak during any of the public comment opportunities you will be able to speak either through the webinar link or by phone for phone access please call 877-853-5247 and enter the meeting ID 935-8080-1941 that's 935-8080-1941 um to be called on to speak renters must press star nine if you're listening by phone or raise your hand if you're viewing through
002the web link and the link is a2gov.org forward slash renters commission meeting that's capital RCM so the capital of each word renters commission meeting uh you will then be called on by City staff and you will have a 30 excuse me three minutes to make your comment and when you have 30 seconds left staff will indicate that so moving on to roll call agenda Point number two uh so I'm going to go through the names here and please state the city uh and or you know in the state if it's outside of Michigan from what you're attending uh commissioner Chen it's not here commissioner Peterson on here commissioner Kelly absent commissioner doubleman uh president in Ann Arbor commissioner else is absolutely commissioner Lowe's president Ann Arbor welcome commissioner Tibbetts here in Ann Arbor welcome uh
003commissioner Rosen here in Ann Arbor a great to see you commissioner Ratcliffe here our present Ann Arbor welcome commissioner Thomas absence commissioner Pitts here Ann Arbor welcome commissioner good here Ann Arbor right and our two council members council member rodina he's not here uh council member Harrison wasn't here yet also I am here obviously calling in from Ann Arbor foreign so we can move on here to 0.4 approval of the agenda is there a motion to approve the agenda as presented so moved so we first have to move it and and second it and then we can propose to amend it we've gone through this a couple times so thank you uh Jeff do we have a second okay second by rosanita um so now the agenda is open to either be approved as it
004currently stands or to be amended so if you want to amend it you can just say I move to amend the agenda to add this item or for example um I moved to amend the agenda to add um three items the green Fair um planning for the next agenda of the runners commission and um the rent control ban in the Michigan State Legislature right so green Fair um let's would you be all right if we did Green Fair rent control ban and then uh agenda discussion at the end [Music] okay so that's um all that is moved by julium um do we have a second for that oh second second by rosanita thank you all right so all those in favor of amending the agenda to add those three points say I I all those
005opposed say name you know what actually I'm just not realizing uh Kristen do we have a quorum I think we do right six right um yeah yep that's fine okay I'm sorry um I'm gonna double check hang on okay yeah I just want to check before we go into this meeting and make sure that uh we do have in fact have a Quantum avoiding members believe it says if we don't have a quorum we can still talk about stuff yes yes so we have 10 um appointed members and coral behalf plus one so six great okay awesome we just met it thank you Chris I just want to make sure all right so uh we amended the agenda adding those three points so just one more time um that was a discussion of the green
006Fair discussion of the proposed rent control ban in the state legislature or rather the repeal of that ban and finally a discussion of our next meetings agenda so now that we have the amended agenda in front of us uh we have to uh vote on whether or not we uh accept this amended agenda so all those in favor of first of all are there any other Mo any other motions on this agenda before we go forward no okay so all those in favor of um approving the agenda before us say aye hi always supposed to say okay great so this agenda is the amended agenda is approved wonderful so that moves us on to the next item number five the approval of our last meetings minutes which was on July 20th I believe uh 2020
007three and uh so is there a motion to approve the last meetings minutes one correction I would I was listed thank you I move to accept the minutes with the correction of Gail's attendance second okay so uh yeah all those in favor of amending the minutes uh as was stated just then um say I okay all those opposed and a great so we're just gonna mend those um I suppose do we have to take another vote on whether we accept the minutes okay great now we could just do a correction that's fine okay thank you so we have just uh approved last minute minutes thank you Gail for checking those okay so that brings us to item number six the first general public comments so Kristen whenever you're ready public comment can be made by
008phone by calling 877-853-5247-488-788-0099 and entering the meeting ID 935-8080-1941 it's an opportunity for members of the public to address the renters commission about any topic for up to three minutes you can also join the meeting with the zoom link and that is a2gov.org renters commission meeting and if you are calling you can press star 9 to raise your hand and if you are joining from the web link you can use the raise hand feature there are no callers or attendees I think we can close public comments thank you we can move on to item number seven um our business so uh we can begin with 7-a kind of education committee discussion so someone from the tenant education committee can you please give us um a summary of what we discussed yeah I can do that
009so we uh August 24th and we had a pretty in-depth discussion about rights and duties and booklets um we kind of went over just a reminder of which sections um City staff has the ability to edit in which sections need to go through the city Charter um we were kind of talking um hoping to somehow be notified within the process when City staff does make a change um to the handbooklets and Kristen had said that we could um be notified in part of that process um we did talk about fines how they have not issued any fines um for landlords not providing the booklets as the ordinance says that they're supposed to um we we talked about the green Fair we did some planning um we also talked about the um housing code we kind
010of touched back on the discussion that we initially had with um can't remember the name of their department now um but the group of folks um from the city that does the inspections in that process and handles complaints um and I guess to sum it up we were really interested to kind of reopen that discussion with them I know from our last meeting they had been really awesome and you know seems like they really wanted to collaborate with us and um we were hoping to kind of just um touch base with them again to see um like in what areas we could maybe I don't know look for opportunities to partner with them as appropriate I guess to say it summarized um and I think Kristen was going to work on that um once the
011new season of everyone moving in slowed down a little bit and that was about every everything I don't know if I missed something from the meeting if anyone else wants to add or if anyone has questions I I think uh two of the items um that you touched on or things we might want to discuss as a whole and one of them what you were just talking about it was like with the housing inspectors and it clearly seems like they're understaffed um and I think it's in our um realm of consideration to see if there's ways to look at funding and so one idea we talked about is trying to figure out like what the uh cost of having the certificate of compliance of occupancy is um and how much that's been raised over the
012years [Music] um and talking about how many fines are collected in comparison of what how many fines were collected in the past and whether that has to do with better compliance or whether that has to do with just not really collecting fines anymore so maybe before I go to the next point and I don't know if we want to talk about this or if we want to push this as a specific agenda item for next time um Zachariah the the fine issue specifically um as part of the greater issue of enough funding for enough inspectors oh there I go okay that was abstract stuff there for a moment on your on your camera um I think these are very good points um I think I mean just a question to you Julia how do you
013think we should start that conversation do you think we should go to rental Housing Services and ask them how they feel about their funding um sure I think it's also okay for us to look at the past I don't know if that's an easy thing to pull up you know like in 1987 they collected you know x amount of fines and today they you know collect X and is if that gives us any kind of information John yeah so I had a question were the fines associated with tickets or some sort of administrative fine if you know what what was the basis for the um imposition of a fine was that inquired into because I'm looking at section chapter 105 which is our housing code section 8 colon 525 information concerning Kenneth's rights where landlords
014are mandated to provide those so are we talking about landlords who haven't gotten the booklets to the tenants and there was a complaint and then there was a ticket and then there was an adjudication and then a finding find cost is that kind of how those work if you know Julia um no we weren't specifically talking about the booklet we were talking about housing inspections in general okay non-compliance with the housing code those things generated for non-compliance so not specific to the booklet but the General Rental inspection all right thank you do you have stats just on total amounts collected or do you have stats on total infractions or total counts issued or issued per so it's a lack of CFC or failure to make there's all different because I deal with those tickets in
015court so I'm just wondering what data you had uh is info the rentals commission is interested in getting kind of a discussion about the best way to get it I talked with Sarah a little bit um Sarah does the foyers and like it's not super easily accessible it definitely exists but it will take a little bit to get to it um so if you have some specific questions I think it'd be easier to request kind of specific numbers um instead of kind of like broad budget or if there's other like specific budget questions that you have another thing you could do about is yes that you could ask the district court administrator for like hey uh what what violations code violations on civil attractions for eight five eleven which is inspection related or um lack
016of CFC or improper registration uh which is 8517 so there are different code Provisions under which an infraction is issued in the um the district court presumably would have that I'd want to know how many rather than total amount of fines and costs which may or may not be helpful I'd want to know how many infractions and for what offenses they're seeing that might be helpful data too over time and how many inspectors now like relative to first okay oh I mean Kristen um do you did you receive a response from staff about the booklets is that something that they can keep us up to date on or um definitely um if the clerk's office is aware of it which we would very likely be aware of it um unless there's some reason um like
017a specific reason not to I don't think it would be an issue okay thank you maybe like if there was like legal advice or something then we would follow that so then can this go to an agenda item for um next month the report on if we're and I guess that's Eucharist and Gathering any stats yeah I will see what I can find um and then I'll do an update book like before the meeting um to both you and Zechariah and see um if it is worth having on the agenda the next meeting is the 19th should be able to get um more information then the other thing I wanted to add from the um education the tenant Ed committee um is um kind of the whole issue of the um white section of the
018tenant rights booklet and at that meeting there didn't seem to be a lot of interest in doing a rewrite and I think it's come up a couple of times in emails and at meetings um and I don't know whether people want to talk about that again or whether we're just putting to bed the issue of rewriting the white section so that sounds like oh there we go yeah yeah I was just gonna chime in and say I think for me I don't see it as a big priority at least right now but that's just my opinion so I don't know if anybody else feels strongly about when writing it so my recommendation would be that we put it to bed until like next spring and see if we want to think about it maybe during
019the course of the winter things will pop up and we'll realize oh we should do that but right now it doesn't seem like it's worth talking about anymore um and then part of the work plan um is the education piece and a chunk of it was educating ourselves um which I think we've done a pretty good job on having the Human Rights Commission come and talk and having the housing inspectors Come and Talk um and I'm kind of wondering if there's any interest in doing any sessions um specific on the white section on Ann Arbor's existing laws for tenants um I mean there isn't a lot uh of law in general but you know like if we wanted to do something like have a session going over what the state law is on eviction and
020how it plays out in local courts or you know things like that how the security you know maybe one meeting just have something on how the security deposit Works in Ann Arbor um so that was one I other idea that came up from the committee and and I just wanted to mention it to see if anybody in the larger commission was interested in that hey Jimmy yeah um I would definitely be interested in that I think another thing kind of related to that that I would be interested in is um like not just the law like leading up to eviction but and I don't maybe this would be um a little off topic but I would be kind of interested in like the eviction process like from a tenant's perspective I think that would be
021um helpful for me to understand yeah Jeff um yeah um you mentioned something that um just kind of clicked in my head and that was um regarding security deposits um and just it just kind of dawned on me that you know some places have you know really really high security deposits sometimes up to you know a full month or more of rent um I wouldn't mind knowing a little bit more about how that might affect people's ability to get housing as well um that one might actually take you know getting somebody from one of the social service agencies to come in and talk a little bit about it because it is huge to pay you know a lot of places are a month and a half which is the maximum under state law paying the
022month and a half and security deposit plus paying first month's rent and plus paying who knows what kind of application fees and all the other stuff that seems to be um bubbling up around now yeah John I saw your hand up yup Julia mentioned it you don't need me here she's got MCL 554.602 at the tip of her uh tongue uh security deposit shall be required to maintain an accordance and shall not exceed one and a half months rent so um yeah the the state law state law addresses um how much a landlord can charge a tenant for a security deposit so we'd be preempted from laying in on that much like we are currently for our rent control um so trying to keep us on thank you John and thank you everyone for coming
023in here um I think we should try to keep on track here about you know I think Julie if I understand you correctly you're you want to well I've heard a couple different ideas I mean from Jamie you seem to be interested in getting more education about the eviction process is that right so would that be to the general group here the commission as a whole of a like a speaker for example yeah I think that makes sense okay and Julia can you can you uh remind us Larry to explain what's you're interested in having happen um I kind of just wanted to see how other people felt about it I you know I worked in tenants issues so I which I'm probably the only one of the voting Commissioners you know um so I
024know a little bit more of the law than other people so I just I'm guessing and so that I I didn't want to make that assumption so I wanted to see if other people felt comfortable with their knowledge or felt that they'd like some more information around that oh um what was it I'm not as versed in the state law here so I wouldn't mind that um especially when it comes to the security deposits not the how much it is per se but getting it back um which is a I think a tenant issue for for some is when you move out I've heard some really like horrible stories of tenants unable to get any of their security deposit back even when they did have some proof that the you know the apartment looks the
025exact same way as it did when they moved in so I think some clarification on that would be good yeah I agree resonates I think my roommate is unfortunately dealing with that where he still hasn't received the security deposit and it's been over a month um so I know that there was a training about eviction that was put on by the Washington housing Alliance and I think that was in um collaboration with uh legal services of South Central Michigan I can email the link out to the recording because it was recorded and it was posted online uh but I think it would be nice to explore um options for inviting a guests to do a rundown on some of these really important topics for the commission um so do we have specific ideas of which
026groups we could invite sure and and I think it's fine if now that we know there's interest and at least a couple of things we could discuss this more at the education committee and line up speakers there I think that's a great idea thank you Julia okay so moving along here are there any questions or comments about the tenant education committee okay we can move on to 7-b which is the green Fair now we have a booth at the green Fair uh it sounds like there's uh at least three of the Commissioners who are willing and and available to attend I think so what I know is first of all thank you Kristen for contacting OSI and making sure that we got a booth we appreciate that um some things that I I know I'd
027be interested in having at the booth are are the city booklets I also have the tenant booklets from the state government which I think are pretty good um that which I can bring I was thinking about printing out a QR code to stick on a table which would bring people to osi's tenant resources page which talks a lot about weatherization um this and I think that the last thing is that there's uh like a large kind of uh easel sort of thing with like a paper and last time we had like sticky notes that people could put ideas on and post on on the board Jamie do you have that okay yes I do across sticky notes and pens as well fantastic so what time does it start tomorrow Jeff oh five okay I'm sorry
028yeah it looks at a hammer yeah it's five to eight I believe five to eight I think that's correct yeah thank you okay so we have Jamie myself and who else I can't remember Julia yeah and we have a great location um so if anybody and it's supposed to be a nice night if people are just want to come downtown you should definitely walk by even if you can't sit with us wonderful any other you know glaringly obvious things that we don't have that we haven't discussed here that should be at the table I just wanted to say I'll be popping by too and staying for a little while so I know I wasn't the first step on the list but um that was because a new job made I wasn't sure how things were
029going to be for the next couple weeks but I'll be out there for a little bit awesome hi um I will stop by as well I don't know if my video is working but um yeah I'll make sure I stop by tomorrow to finally meet everybody in person at least yeah I'm really looking forward to it it's supposed to be pretty warm so dress accordingly and um can't wait to see a lot of you out there tomorrow okay well just send send an email I suppose if there's something you think of it's really obvious that we should have at the table and I'll see if I can do it last minute but I'm really excited for tomorrow last year we didn't have a ton of stuff at our table but it still went great and
030I think it'll go right this time as well we move on to 7-c the discussion of the repeal of the state level rent control ban uh Julia do you want to give background on this since you proposed it sure um so in the late 80s Ann Arbor had a uh you know a voter referendum on rent control um which lost at the same time Detroit ran one that won and before Detroit's could go into effect the state legislature passed the law saying no local government could have rent control um I personally believe in local control and believe in small government and am not a fan of laws passed by the state on what municipalities can do um and whether or not rent control is the right fit for Ann Arbor I I don't feel as
031the issue at the moment because it's not even possible at the moment um but throughout all of history there has not been enough housing in Ann Arbor and it seems like and people have been working on it forever so it seems like we need every kind of tool in the toolkit and we're better off if we don't have Lansing taking some of those tools away um so I would like to see us uh pass some you know motion to encourage the city council to pass a resolution which then would be forwarded to the legislature just basically saying um we'd like to have the band lifted uh we feel that Ann Arbor should be able to decide for itself whether or not rent control is the right fit I I like I could talk forever about
032it but I'm assuming that's probably all you want to hear um if somebody has a question about like any part of it um feel free this is a comment um I just so you know I obviously we're here to to advise city council not the state government however if you know we're all interested in housing issues and I think that we should make our voices heard at least as individuals and talk with our state representatives and I think that by and large our local state representatives and state senators are supportive of repealing the the ban not necessarily of implementing some kind of some form of local rent control um my personal feelings about rent control is that it's you know it's a price control it's not intended to expand the supply of housing of course
033if anything some people there is a group of economists quite a few economists who think that long term certain rent control policies can decrease the housing Supply I've seen other people try to refute that but basically it's really aimed at affordability and obviously we're dealing with an affordability crisis right now in the city so I am happy that the conversation is taking up you know it's really getting started here and so there was a coalition that met in Lansing um beginning of September to demand a few different things but one of their main demands was the repeal of the Statewide ban on rent control so that cities like Ann Arbor could at least start the conversation and seriously consider implementing some form of of uh rent stabilization ordinance and at the end of the day
034I have to say that I feel is when I talk to tenants and they say well you know my landlord increased the rent by 30 from year to year isn't there something that you know you guys can do to help and I I there's really not in most cases uh currently and I I think that's really ridiculous I think that most countries have some kind of um some kind of way to curb that sort of increase we don't we can't even discuss it right now so you know I'm really supportive of it I I think uh Julia I appreciate that you brought this up and one thing that I've seen is that some cities have been passing resolutions uh saying we as a city really support this repeal and we want our state legislature to
035consider that when they consider this bill um Ann Arbor hasn't done that however what they did do is they instructed their lobbyists to go to Lansing and try to support that policy of repealing the ban on local rent control rosanita well I said uh I personally believe in rent control to a certain extent um based on on research and what it means for tenants but just prefacing that like you said like when the rent can go up 30 or if it can go up fifty percent or a hundred percent then that becomes a huge problem but um having just thinking about City Council having a lobbyists talk about it is kind of different because I mean the lobbying firm itself has varying interests as opposed to a letter directly from or a resolution or whatever
036directly from the the city sure our lawmakers are for it but sometimes I think it helps with relationships between city council and some of the city residents knowing that the council is behind it and not send just sending a lobbyist to like I said the firm holds various interests because they're not just employed by our city council it's hard to read the room on Zoom so I'm not like if if people are generally in support of it um I do have the language for emotion um if people have some concerns they want to discuss now or if they want to think about it later we could vote on it at the next meeting too and I have a question Julia do you mean would this be emotion suggestion to city council that they do something
037that they release a statement or something like that yeah what what I had in mind was just that the Ann Arbor's render commission requests Ann Arbor city council to pass a resolution supporting the removal of the state's ban on rent control which is act 226 of 1988. I know I can't vote but I would support I would support that I mean I'm seeing it you know from the student perspective I'm seeing rents like I've never seen them before and what's what I see happening in my world is that um you know students who can't afford there are a lot more students who can't afford to live in Ann Arbor than could before and that's impacting them in a lot of ways you know when you're not on campus you don't have the same opportunities there's
038more stress there's more I mean there's there's just a lot more involved when we have more and more students that can't afford to live in Ann Arbor so from that perspective I would be really in support of of what Julie said um and and I you know I'd love to see it more affordable for for um my clientele I guess Jamie sorry raised my hands yeah I second that um really what everyone has said um I feel like asking city council to make a more formal statement is kind of like the least we can do in our limited um abilities that we have as a commission and I know the university has been doing some research into um like the impact of current oh Financial well so it would be a good time hopefully you
039might want to turn your video on we can't hear you oh I can't hear you maybe other people can I can either no you froze well we'll come back to you Jamie okay sorry about that uh I promise you we'll come back to you but once your internet clears up uh Bob so I wonder if city council may be waiting for this commission to propose this um before they before they would do the resolution I think they would want to see you know what this commission feels about it um before they make their decision thanks bud Jeff um yeah I mean I agree with foreign it's city council has a lot to deal with first of all so you're right um but I also agree that you know in a lot of ways Ann Arbor
040residents know what's best friend armor and to not have the ability to even consider it I think is is a detriment to the community um and then that's just with all the other problems that we have too well seeing as how I haven't really heard any opposition to the idea you propose Julia I think it makes sense to just go ahead and make the motion um do I get this is a question to Kristen can we just make a motion and have that forwarded on to uh city council or should we really write it write it out in resolution form um if you make the motion and approve it we can um put it on the council agenda um you don't have to do the extra stuff okay great and Justice I think I mentioned
041this before but I've believe that so I think the city of Pontiac did pass a resolution I'm not sure what other cities have done that but I think that Ypsilanti is at least discussing it if they haven't already passed a resolution so you know there's a lot of other cities that are discussing this I think it's a very timely issue but I'll pass it over to Julia if you're ready to make that motion sure um the Ann Arbor Runners Commission requests Ann Arbor City Council to pass a resolution supporting the removal of the state's ban on rent control which is act 226 of 1988. okay that's the motion moved by Julia do we have a second for that oh second okay second by rosanita I heard first all those in favor say aye aye opposite
042name okay great thank you Julia I appreciate the fact that you came in this commission with that idea and I appreciate everyone's discussion on that okay are there any other comments on the issue of the proposed rent control ban repeal uh on the state level State legislation okay um before we move on I'll just say that the Coalition that I mentioned earlier that was uh that had that repeal as one of his demands was called the rent is too damn High so if you are interested at all in checking out their demands and seeing what they're about you can look them up online rent is true damn high in Michigan uh they're based on Lansing okay we can move on to 7- D which is a discussion of our next meetings agenda so before I
043open it up um let's see have we talked about anything I think Julia did you mention something that you wanted on the next meetings agenda uh we'll just uh if Kristen had if she could get any data regarding um A Fine Collection from building inspections great so I guess we'll tentatively have that on there and if uh Kristen's able to get the information in time any other proposals well if if we're able to have a education committee um before the next meeting then Jamie I guess we could have on the um you know having somebody to talk about uh security deposits or evictions sorry that wasn't my computer glitching out that was my head glitching out any other ideas did you like did somebody already suggest um like a review of the green Fair you
044took the words right out of my mouth perfect I think it'd be good especially if the larger group is here to review what um you've heard from folks and then you can compare it to last year before really whatever you want right any other ideas there is something that I've been thinking about which is that there's this been discussion about right to counsel which um is a program that's been implemented in different areas around the country including in Detroit very recently where if you if you're you fall beneath a certain income level and you're facing eviction you have the right to an attorney you know right to counsel right and that the idea comes from the big problem that um that many tenants are facing which is that tenants by and large when they're facing
045eviction have very low rates of having uh representational legal representation but landlords have very high rates of you know it's like 97 of landlords go into eviction hearings with an attorney and um I heard from a council member that there was interest and exploring the idea getting more research about the idea of implementing a program here in Ann Arbor I'm not it was suggested to me that that the renters commission reach out to um Human Rights Commission and start some kind of joint group to start doing research on on the issue and do research about what a program might look like for the city um I suppose I'd like I think we should probably discuss that at our next meeting at the latest and um I think I if anyone's interested in that project just
046let me know and we can maybe figure some things out so we have a more coherent uh proposal at the next meeting um I I don't know but now now suddenly we have all kinds of agenda items but um off meeting a couple of us had talked about uh short-term rentals and kind of the Airbnb scene and how that's impacting housing um it's been I think about a year since those city ordinance it was in effect um that that might be something we discussed too at maybe the November meeting or I forget Christian how do we meet in November um like does it fall around Thanksgiving uh let me pull up the calendar it looks like oh the third Thursday November is the 16th so it'd be the week before oh right it's the third
047sorry I I originally went to the fourth also and I was like oh I don't think it's gonna work um but the the third is um the third Thursday it's not a holiday thanks yeah I think that if the next meetings agenda gets too lengthy and it seems like it's going to take up too much time we can just postpone some of those items to the next to the agenda afterwards okay any other ideas all right well if anything comes up just email I think Christian me and Julia and we'll make sure that gets you know it gets considered and put on the agenda all right so we move on to item eight which is our reports eight-a reports from Commissioners committees and our working groups we already had the report from the committee um
048so I think we can just do commissioners does anybody have a report to give Jeff I mean I kind of do but I'm a separate agenda item technically aren't I oh for hhsap um yeah yeah you can just give it now that's okay I don't know if I should do it yet um okay um I attended uh last week my first um hhsad meeting which is um was interesting um uh a lot of the discussion was um there was there were kind of two main issues that they discussed which is um the first one was uh their plans for parking day um I guess they had a tent at parking day um downtown um and a lot of it was plans for for their Community engagement for that um I think it's already happened now
049so I don't know how that turned out yet but I'll find out um uh before our next meeting um the other half of the meeting was a lot of discussion regarding um the home ARP which is American Rescue plan um for uh urban areas in the county uh it sounds like Washington County got about four and a half million dollars um that has been the current um updated draft plan is to use about half of that on affordable housing uh which includes um subsidized housing in in housing that is uh run by either Community organizations or um government organizations specifically for um low-income residents um and the other half was for Support Services uh for those people so it works out um um about 2.2 million dollars per each of those um uh items and
050it looks like the um I did some more research myself because I wasn't totally familiar um it looks like that's through I think 23. um so I don't know how much that's going to or it has to be planned in disbursed by 2030. um so over a seven year period I don't know how much that's going to um really make a huge difference but hopefully it does um and there were some discussion regarding apparently um there's a program in Dallas County Texas for um rehousing that has met with a lot of success since it was implemented in 2021. um it was more of a um uh one of the members mentioned it actually no I'm sorry it was one of the council members that attended that mentioned this particular program um so there wasn't a
051huge amount of detail but it was definitely interesting um if anybody's interested I can get them a link to that some information on that but it was a it was regarded a rehousing initiative in Dallas that apparently has made some significant um reductions in the the homeless population so um it was pretty it was it was worth listening to um I mean also I believe will be at the green fair so um if you see anybody there uh say hi let them know you're the runner's Commission because of my big plan to read Fair as well and that's it for me thank you Jeff I appreciate that you have said the meeting rosanita um I don't know if you said when the meeting was um because I don't know if the announcement had come out
052yet or not but that they talk at all about the changes in the fair market um rate for from HUD that starts in October the fair market rental rates for the area um I don't have that on my notes I don't recall them talking about that okay yeah because that um yeah it's going up in a was I think October 1st um and also did they talk about the eviction money at all and where we stand with that because there had been money allocated to help people with evictions but I know that's been such a huge problem that I don't know if we have we run out yet um that also I don't recall I'm trying to read my notes here from last week um that was um it was mostly planning on on this
053this rescue plan and like I said the um the um nothing excuse me the um why am I blanking all of a sudden um parking day sorry um so um but I can ask them um it might have been a mention in one of the slideshows they had I can try to get a copy of that too and uh just review that as well um and double check and see if I was mentioned here or not I don't recall it don't okay but I'd be happy to look into it I did find online from high that they should go and the new fair market rent prices were going to affect October 1st so I think you're correct there is a new Zone thank you any other questions or comments or reports from commissioners uh so
054I have a report here um I I did mention some of the stuff from that Co the rent Institute an high rally which was in Lansing it seems like there's probably going to be a tenant's Bill of Rights law you know law package that's going to be proposed sometime in in Lansing I don't know what likelihood is that it will be passed or what components of it would be passed but it's probably going to contain the repeal of the rent control preemption along with a lot of other things so I think I would just encourage everyone to keep their eyes out for that I'm sure there will be news about it and it sounds like um uh sounds like our Representatives will be involved in the process from Ann Arbor um beyond that I was
055able to meet with an attorney who was involved in the process of constructing the right to council program for the city of Detroit I asked a lot of questions and I took some notes and I'd be happy to share those notes with anybody or just you know talk to you about what I learned but I'm hoping that we could use that if we decide to go forward with the right to council project um you know in collaboration with with whatever other groups but um I do have those notes and I'd be happy to share them on top of that you know we do have some Communications here there are pertinent to this but I've we had a meeting about Courthouse Square the complex downtown and the problems there and we agreed that we we really
056needed to make sure that they had an attorney um involved and we want to check in with that person um just to make sure that everything was going okay and that there's nothing that the city could do to to help even more and so we we found which attorney from legal services of South Central Michigan was involved and I have we agreed that we were gonna that I was going to try to contact him and I have tried in many ways and many times but I have not gotten through um and I was just hoping that things had maybe gotten better at the complex I'm not positive if that if that is the case or not based on the communications we received um seems quite confusing what's going on there but I just wanted to
057give that update since we agreed that out that was kind of one of my action items to check in and that I was not able to make contact with that person oh and last thing we are looking for um the uh attorney advocate or attorney a tenant Advocate position for this commission so we need somebody who's an attorney who I don't believe they have to live in the city of Ann Arbor but they're interested in tenants issues um I've tried to get someone from Legal Services at South Central Michigan involved but it turns out their bylaws actually prevent them from uh from serving on the commission so if you know anybody who's an attorney who might be interested please do reach out I can be happy to talk to them if that helps but that's
058all for me any other reports oh hi councilmember Harrison welcome hello y'all how are you good are you relate work ran late today sorry I'm late I'll catch up yeah well we're almost through uh tonight I think um but now might be a good moment and you just joined but if you have anything to update us with um that would be great to hear and I guess uh if you have anything about the the fee situation as well that'd be great to hear it yeah um the fee situation we are rolling along here we've had you know our meeting with attorney Riser and he's been working really hard on it and currently um council member rodina and I are in the process of meeting with basically finding a time to meet with him again to
059see um what our next steps are but it is moving along so yeah it's good good stuff thank you anything else gosh I just literally ran in here I'm trying to think um I bet I do have something I can't think at the moment I know um council member rodina sent I don't know if you guys discussed uh he sent a list of uh some of the things we've passed um you know the the South Town approval it's 216 new housing units um let's see what else is on here that he listed um U of M's 2050 campus plan is underway and um they are having looks like a community open house plan for October U of M plans for their physical I'm just reading what he sent um their physical campus obviously um impact
060will impact our work and at times May conflict with it so um he's mentions I encourage everyone to check out the website and consider attending an open house he sent a link so I maybe you can forward that along um and uh 630 plus bed student focused apartment complex approved for South Forest right um you can't remember if it's been shared or not so uh I just I can't think of anything at the moment but I bet I bet I I bet if I have any updates send an email it's been a long two days but uh um I will share this really quick there was yesterday there was the um 2023 um Washington opioid Summit um at Washington I participated in the um the panel I was a panelist on the stigma you know
061trying to get rid of stigma uh breakout session um it does intersect with housing obviously um folks that are housing insecure um and suffer from a substance use disease we know that um being housing insecure makes their situation worse so it was good to see um the community uh different Partnerships organizations be there supporting the recovery uh Community it is recovery month um home new home of New Vision was present our supportive connections Washington County Sheriff's Office U of M just trying to think those are the those are the ones at the top of mind that all had tables and material and things um it was nice they had a lunch um keynote speakers I couldn't make it to the very beginning but the MD HHS was there presenting on the um opioid settlements that
062different you know municipalities have been receiving and I think they had some discussion on who received more and who received less and what the reason was behind it but anyway substance use disease does intersect with housing um and security so I thought I'd mention it but that's the at the top of mine right now so thank you very much yeah I realized I put you on the spot there so that's okay no I should be prepared to share it's just there's so much happening right now but uh yeah um and I I spent some time in the jail today too so um that's some more work I'm doing um but you know that's obviously housing is secure you know we know that folks that are impacted by the criminal legal system um you never you
063know more difficult time finding housing and we also know that um when they're housing is secure you know what that can what that can look like for the individual so um that that's the work that's my work that I do um so that's where I was today but um anywhere yeah and I'm gonna follow up with rosanita on what I missed so sounds good thank you very much uh for all the updates any questions uh comments [Music] okay wonderful um any other reports from other commissioners okay um oh Jeff sorry uh one other thing I kind of wanted to add up councilmember radina has been in contact with me um just from a renter's point of view um the um specifically on Stone school near where I happen to live um we had talked about
064looking to put in um pedestrian flashers uh because um as you as you come over the expressway from the direction um it yeah people go pretty fast over that hill and it's it's a kind of blind Hill so um we've been doing some discussion about um um getting the tenants in the area to um petition the state Council to put in one of the um the push button flashers very nice thanks Jeff and and Gail do you have anything to share from Student Legal Services uh any specific problems that you've been hearing a lot about um we have a couple buildings that aren't quite ready uh we had a bunch of students impacted by the the I guess the second phase of Beekman on Broadway and so um that's been a little bit of a
065problem there was another building no that was a single building so no I mean just the usual move-in problems you know places aren't quite ready not clean um but nothing out of the ordinary I'm sort of waiting and eager to see what's happening with the right to renew stuff and what landlords are doing I think it's a teeny bit too early to see that but I imagine it's going to be happening soon so I'm curious to see um and be curious to hear what the rest of you hear on on how that all is playing out with what landlords are doing with I mean with students and and tenants in general I mean last year the issue was you know questioning whether or not um the the law was in effect but we don't really
066have that issue now so you know now to be a question of what what workarounds they may creative workarounds they find or whether they'll do what we intended and hope that they do so we'll see Thanksgiving okay I think that we can move on then to um did I get this psychody here I'm looking for oh no okay communication is afterwards yeah we can move on to item number nine which is the second general public comment period um Christian whenever you're ready this is an opportunity for members of the public to address the renters commission for up to three minutes about any topic you can call 877-853-5247-488-788-0099 and enter the meeting ID 935-8080-1941 or if you are um joining with the zoom link you can go to a2gov.org renters commission meeting and you can if
067you're calling you can press star 9 to raise your hand or use the raise hand feature if you are attending there's a meeting with the link we'll give it just a minute to see if anyone is joining and there are no attendees all right thank you Kristen now we can move on to item 10 which is Communications if I'm not mistaken we have five Communications on the agenda tonight let me pull them up here so we have a few Communications from residents of um Courthouse Square sounds like they're still dealing with issues and we did hear back also from or cc'd on an email from the property manager I believe as well so we were kind of in the middle of his back and forth um I think actually all of them are from Courthouse
068Square residents so it's kind of a lot to display all at once but um does anybody have any comments or questions about these one from a college student and not the same resident right yes thank you I overlooked that one just now I appreciate it there was one about noise kind of like a noise complaint issue or the college student had a problem with neighbors partying right next to the to their rental unit thank you so let's first discuss the courthouse rare issue if anybody has anything to add I I know that the building has some government money besides just the um Section 8 vouchers that individuals have uh does did the city like a couple years ago when they were threatening to close the building maybe four or five years ago did the city
069put any money into Courthouse Square was it just all the answer to that was I I had a hard time hearing was that uh you don't have an answer to that correct I was yeah I do not have an answer to that oh God yeah it seems like we don't know oh Kristen I don't know either I know there has been some coordination with the city in the past but I think that was like quite a long time ago so um is that something the rentals commission is like interested in more thorough info on well it seems like if there was some City Connection to the building that that might be a little bit of Leverage to he'll write a letter to the owner and be like this is ongoing problems you know it's not
070working the way you're addressing it now yeah resonita well I mean I do want to say that the property manager um in their letter did say that the issue with the elevator part of it was a an unsubstantiated rumor and also gave what could be further clarification as to what was happening with the person who was um experiencing some of the issues and one of the problems on their part is that they do have somebody who may be living with them who's under the the 55 and older range um as well and so there it's a much bigger it's not really again um like I've said before this isn't really in our purview um as this person continues to send letters um and just from what I'm reading my was it my personal don't sue
071me reason because um just based on my professional past is that this person needs a different type of advocate than what we as a commission can provide and instead of coming to us given their age it is either a legal services or fair housing but also they should be in touch with like the Area Agency on Aging or OCR the office of civil rights um those are like the only two other things that I can can think of um as a as a recommendation for that individual thanks rosanita Julia um I I agree that I mean we can't really do anything for an individual tenant you know except to try to steer them in the right direction um and that's kind of why I was bringing up the issue if there had been some city
072funding in the building that that would be one way where I feel it could come under our purview um and even though we're only getting for the vast amount of communications we're getting is from one individual there are tons of problems with the building and the management company it is not just this individual there have been long-term problems in this building this is a management company that kind of swooped in and has taken over low-income housing management all over Southeastern Michigan they've totally taken over like cash Corridor in Detroit in all kinds of communities um and there's lots of problems when they first came in they were just like blatantly breaking the law and changing people's leases and doing rent increases so I I just want to push that this really is a problematic management
073company Australia there's Anita um right and so like I I said though is that it because of their age I that's why I say the local Area Agency on Aging which is AAA 1 dash B um because they have Helping Seniors with those kind of issues they're better equipped with that and then I said OCR the office of civil rights would under if they if it's a building that is a voucher building then that would be under HUD um because they are somebody not only are they receiving HUD funding and so um if they wanted to escalate that is the appropriate way to escalate that as well as OCR the offices of civil rights portion under there is because they are somebody who is over the age of 55 which puts them in a senior
074category um which is a protected class underneath the office of civil rights and um you know under the Ada or what was it anyway that's getting a little tuned to the weeds I guess but um I would also say that it might be a good session later for under tenant education um as what to do when there is a complaint if somebody does have a disability or is older or who falls underneath a protected class in a situation like this that's it thanks Rosa needs uh yeah I I think those are good suggestions of uh institutions that this person this tenant could reach out to and I really I wish we had a solid point of contact for the building from legal services of South Central Michigan um like I said you know I've reached
075out a few different ways in a few different times to try to get in touch with their attorney because I think ideally we could ask them about the situation and provide them these suggestions and hopefully they would be able to use those resources to help this tenant maybe you can reach out to the managing attorney there or somebody above that person to see I did yeah I can reach out to them again um yeah I I can do that again because I just I don't want to respond you know have one of have Christian or whomever respond to the tenant giving them advice if it might be conflicting with the advice they might be receiving from the legal services of South Central Michigan you know I know they know what they're doing so yeah no
076I absolutely agree with that um I will make a note and I will reach out to the attorney above this person one more time rosanita um well was it John Reiser is still here does does he have any advice Riser is still here advice regarding what um what else we can do with this particular tenant um I had said I had suggested like possibly the local Area Agency on Aging or um them contacting HUD but how much it what exactly are we allowed to say in a response to attendant complaint like that um or in I think Zechariah had mentioned he attempted to talk with the um fair housing attorney but hasn't been able to receive any response yeah and and Link is it appropriate for Legal Services it sounds like it is legal services
077yeah that's right because I I think we we had the meeting to discuss this particular complex and we agreed well we just want to check in with the attorney and make sure that they have the resources that they need and just kind of let let them go but I was never able to make make that point of contact I think we can respond to the person and kind of provide the same information that we provided folks in the past Legal Services I'm not sure um I don't have the email in front of me if they reference that they're working with them already I know one tenant was but I think that the tenant who with the elevator I think that I believe that's a different um Courthouse Square resident um so I don't know if
078this person is already working with legal services we can I can respond with the same um like list and then we can include maybe that like age-related resources um the group is interested in that Jeff yeah I was just gonna say I don't know um what Authority and or you know liability we have to to do much more than that unfortunately um um you know point the right direction um I I I could see them also um citing an attorney decline for their religion saying they can't tell you anything so you know um whatever we can give them I guess and that we can but that's it's a shame I think we're pretty Limited yeah so it sounds like it makes sense to give them the resources um rosanita maybe if if you could write
079out or find links to those resources the two that you mentioned and maybe email them to Kristen so she could include it in her email if you're willing to do that 'd be great okay so I think those are really good ideas and I will try again to get in contact with this attorney um and just check in okay um and to be clear that legal services in South Central Michigan I think they are just totally spread thin and I think that's why I haven't heard a response um I know they work very hard okay so we can move on to the other communication um well before we do is there anything else in questions comments about the courthouse Square emails because they were from two different residents I think so okay did a building
080inspector go out is the elevator working not aware of um malware we need to try to find out um several weeks so the letter response from management said that the elevator was fixed and that no one was stuck inside it there was no um record of a police report or emergency call that happened and that it appears to just be a rumor the letter also indicated there were two elevators and one was out of service is that correct okay right and someone getting stuck is is kind of a different issue but that is somewhere that I think we do we are able as a commission to forward on a complaint to the building inspectors to have them check it out all right should um so is there anyone opposed to having that forwarded on to
081the building inspectors um as Julia suggested Okay Christian do you mind oh John I saw you unmute no no I mean that's entirely appropriate if the elevator isn't working the you know the building department needs to know about that you know you know so right and I you know we I'm not sure if we do know if it's working at this point or not but anyway sounds like there's no objection so uh Chris and your earlier's convenience can you please do that okay now let's move on to the email from the U of M student um just a quick summary sounds like this person has been bothered a lot by parties that have been going on they seem to recognize that there's not a simple fix to the problem they're dealing with but they wanted
082to make sure we were aware of like this sort of noise complaint I think I would say that you could refer them to our office but I'm not sure that there's all that much that we can do you know other than recommending that they you know if the noise is significant that they contact the police to file a police report I I don't you know in these situations it's really hard for us to I mean tackling Noise Within the building is one thing but like tackling stuff outside the building you know not really the landlord's responsibility not all that much that we can do so I don't know what we as a commission can do I'm I'm not sure that it's all that um I'm not sure that it's our issue but I you know
083happy to hear other people's opinions on that yeah I think it would make sense to just respond saying that the commit you know the commissions received this and that you can always contact Student Legal Services or file a noise campaign with the police does anybody have an objection to that sort of response I mean we get these all the time this is a common not a common but this is these cases comprise the 15th district court docket so um you know it's a noise complaint it's a trash complaint it's a drunken disorderly it's a you know they really should contact the police when in when it's happening if if uh the subject of excessive noise or drunken Behavior outside their apartment you know the Ann Arbor police department has special patrols that deal with just
084this very thing I don't know that it's a landlord tenant I mean issue as much as as it is kind of general you know nuisance and uh you know living in peace um okay any comments or questions about this communication no okay well that's it for the communications so just to recap uh Kristen if you could send an email back to the tenant who's experiencing and I think we emailed about the elevator and who's going in the back and forth with the manager uh our our resources and rosanita if you can email Kristen those two extra resources that we can include specifically for this tenant I will again try to contact the attorney um from Legal Services I just did and um I know was it weird running over but I think one of the
085letters said that she was withholding one of them was withholding rent was that correct or had it in escrow and if so um I don't know if if um anyone followed up to make sure that she had done it via a court order in order to protect herself because otherwise she's just not paying rent yeah and is that the function of this runner's commission pursuant to their bylaws to do that kind of I mean I don't I don't know that it is beware of it you know your bylaws talk about what you're empowered to do and what your purpose is and individual advocacy and Advising them on how to do that might be beyond the scope of is it in the tenant book uh the booklet that we give out at all the escrow yeah
086I believe it is um it does mention it it doesn't well right I agree with John that it's it's not in this commission's purview but you don't have to do it through Court escrow it is legal to withhold your rent for repair is not being addressed right I think that if this tenant goes to the resources that we provide them they'll get a lot of sort of advice um they're able to get through so that makes sense uh so thank you for sending that on to Kristen and um I appreciate everyone's uh willingness to discuss these things I I just feel that uh if someone reaches out to you know part of the city looking for help and we don't steer them in the right direction and something bad happens that would feel really I
087feel like it's our and well it may not be directly in our bylaws I think it's really important that people have good experiences with the city and that they get to the resources that they need so I appreciate everyone discussing this okay so that brings us to the last point in the agenda which is adjournments um the motion to adjourn so moved all right we have a second second second invite Jeff all those in favor of adjourning say I I was supposed to name okay you're adjourned thank you everyone thank you thank you everybody