By Tashi McQueen,
AFRO Political Writer,
tmcqueen@afro.com
The Baltimore City Council’s Economic and Community Development Committee recently held a hearing on the Strengthening Renters’ Safety Act, 23-0357. The bill aims to add enforcement actions on buildings with repeated code violations and allow renters to anonymously submit their apartments for priority inspections.
“What this legislation does is it focuses DHCD’s (Department of Housing and Community Development) attention on a relatively small but extremely problematic population of bad actors in the landlord community that are causing undue harm to our elders to folks with disabilities,” said Councilman Zeke Cohen, D-Dist. 1, on March 26.
These landlords, he added, are “simply not maintaining their properties.”
Baltimore resident Jacqueline Matthew testified during the hearing about her experience with poor property upkeep.
“The building poses significant safety hazards, especially for disabled residents like myself,” she said. “I cannot get down the stairs when the elevator is out, and most recently it was out of service for five days. It has forced me to seek assistance from the fire department on multiple occasions to get down the stairs.”
She also said her building’s door locks often break, allowing individuals experiencing homelessness to gain access to her building.
In addition to spurring landlords to address such concerns, the bill would also create the Baltimore City Rental Licensing and Inspection Task Force.
“For me, it’s really important to have a task force just as a form of oversight,” said Cohen.
During the hearing, the mayor’s office and the DHCD said they support the bill but believe more collaboration between the bill’s sponsor, the mayor’s office and DHCD is needed to move forward with the initiative. They also desired to eliminate the task force portion of the bill.
“What the mayor’s office or the administration is asking for by striking the task force is to eliminate what I consider to be critical oversight,” said Cohen. “Essentially, you would have DHCD overseeing DHCD to implement legislation.”
He continued, “If the agency was in a position where it was doing what it was supposed to do,” there would be no need for an external task force.
“We’re not in that position right now,” Cohen said.
Councilwoman Odette Ramos (D-District 14) argued that the bill hearing has been rescheduled several times, with much time to meet with the sponsor.
The bill was originally introduced in February of 2023. It was scheduled for a hearing on Sept. 18, 2023, but was postponed four times until March 26.
Needing more inspectors in order to follow up on inspections was also an issue expressed during the hearing.
A representative of DHCD explained that inspectors sometimes have to go into unsafe environments with nothing to protect themselves, which can hinder DHCD’s employment and retention abilities.
Councilman Robert Stokes Sr. (D-District 12) argued that this bill could result in community residents being put out on the street.
Cohen responded by saying, “We’re not talking about putting people on the streets, we’re talking about revoking” landlord’s licenses.
Cohen’s bill already has the support of six other council members.
The next hearing on this bill is set for April 9 at 2 p.m. in the Economic and Community Development Committee.
Tashi McQueen is a Report For America corps member.
