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Landlords and local governments across the country could soon face legal consequences for kicking out renters who for decades have faced housing discrimination: People who dial 911 or are the subject of calls to police.
In American cities big and small, experts say many renters have for decades faced possible housing discrimination stemming from so-called ‘crime-free’ and ‘anti-nuisance’ property ordinances − rules that rely heavily on 911 call records. If a renter − or someone in their household − violates an ordinance by racking up 911 calls, the rules say they must leave their apartment, or be evicted.
Civil rights groups have long argued the ordinances − which at their peak numbered around 2,000 nationwide − unfairly affect people of color, particularly Black families.
“I don’t think we can overstate how damaging and harmful crime-free rental ordinances are, especially for communities of color, domestic violence survivors and low-income populations,” said Emily Benfer, a law professor at George Washington University and researcher with the Eviction Lab at Princeton University.
Meanwhile, landlord associations say crime-free ordinances can be valuable tools to screen potential residents, as a way to avoid risk to their business, said Nicole Upano, assistant vice president for housing policy and regulatory affairs at the National Apartment Association. However, many landlords may also feel as if they’ve been “stuck between a rock and a hard place” when it comes to enforcing nuisance ordinances tied specifically to 911 calls, Upano said.
“Worst case scenario, these ordinances require cities and counties to hold housing providers responsible for nuisance abatement, and sometimes that means having to evict or remove problematic residents,” said Upano, whose association represents around 97,000 property owners and managers in the U.S. and abroad.
After years of advocating against the laws, fair housing advocates are now celebrating, saying the ordinances could finally face the nationwide crackdown they deserve, after the U.S. Department of Justice recently condemned them in a letter addressed to local governments across the country.
In its Aug. 15 letter, the department said flatly that the rental ordinances are discriminatory, and argued they disrupt lives and force families into homelessness. Because the ordinances disproportionately affected low-income people of color, they could violate federal law, the department said.
Specifically, many ordinances across the U.S. may violate the Fair Housing Act, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Violence Against Women Act, the department said.
“What’s so significant about the Justice Department letter is they are urging states and localities across the country to take a hard look at these ordinances and determine if they comply with civil rights laws,” Benfer said. “And if they are taking that evaluation seriously, the vast majority of these laws need to be repealed.”
What are crime-free and anti-nuisance ordinances?
Many municipalities began passing crime-free rental ordinances in the 1990s, as a way to deter criminal activity by signaling to tenants that being involved with the police could jeopardize their housing, Benfer said.
In cases where a landlord violates the ordinance by not cracking down on tenants tied to 911 calls, city officials can unleash fines and license revocations on the owner, said Timothy Zehring, a former Arizona police officer whose crime-free property models became a template for many rental programs.
But Zehring told USA TODAY be believes crime-free and nuisance ordinances passed by municipalities are ineffective and harmful, because they place too much pressure on landlords − the people with final say over whether to kick someone out.
“Government should not be like the camel sticking their nose under the tent telling people how to run their business,” said Zehring, who launched the International Crime Free Association in 1992.
These days, many ordinances function to penalize renters who show up in three or more 911 call records in a 6-month period, said Kate Walz, associate director of litigation at the National Housing Law Project. Too often, Walz said, a tenant won’t even know they’re racking up strikes until it’s too late.
“People will be living their lives, raising their children and all of a sudden they get a call from their landlord saying, ‘You’ve got to go,'” Walz said. “That’s typically the first time they are getting wind of a problem.”
The ordinances also target renters with an arrest record. But in many cases, simply being arrested is not evidence that a crime was committed, said Ryan Moser, vice president of the Corporation for Supportive Housing, a nationwide affordable housing advocacy group.
“Because housing is so scarce, when you create barriers based on people’s involvement in the criminal legal system, you are defacto cutting off a whole subset of people from having housing,” Moser said.
Over the past three decades, many public officials have passed the property ordinances to look tough on crime and please constituents, said Zehring. Because the ordinances put too much pressure on landlords to crack down on 911 calls and prior interactions with police, they can have a discriminatory effect, he said.
“We absolutely, positively, strongly advise agencies do not have ordinances,” Zehring said.
Zehring said despite warnings listed on the International Crime Free Association’s website, crime-free ordinances have proliferated because they helped politicians win elections.
Instead of ordinances, landlords should focus on following civil rights and fair housing guidelines set by the federal government, Zehring said. Beyond that, trimming weeds, hauling rusted vehicles and investing in high quality lighting and proper locks will do much more to deter and prevent criminal activity than an anti-crime property ordinance targeting renters, he said.
“A person could put one foot against the door and they can get in, do a home invasion, do a sexual assault, a kidnapping,” Zehring told USA TODAY. “We tell landlords, if you want to be a part of our program, open your pocketbook, buddy. You are not in this business to take all the money from your residents and not reinvest that back into the safety of the property.”
Each year, Zehring’s organization teaches workshops to about 1,000 police officers across the country, who then train tens of thousands of landlords annually, Zehring told USA TODAY.
Ordinances cause more housing problems, not less, experts say
As the U.S. homeless population in recent years has reached staggering new heights, and rental prices remain unaffordable, housing advocates are again pointing to crime-free ordinances as part of the problem.
Being kicked out of an apartment is extremely destabilizing for low-income people, who may lose a job as a result of having to live farther away from work. If a landlord forces an eviction − which can involve a court notice − that could scar someone’s housing record for life, Benfer said.
“Once that eviction is filed, it not only removes the roof over a family’s head, it also starts that downward spiral of severe and long-lasting threats to wellbeing and stability that can be impossible to climb back up from,” Benfer said.
There is no data showing the property ordinances reduce crime, Benfer said, and “they result in a spike in eviction filings.”
Domestic violence victims hurt by 911 rules
Matthew Desmond, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning non-fiction book Evicted, found in 2012 that in nuisance citations where domestic violence was present, 50% of cases resulted in a landlord formally or informally evicting the tenants.
Housing advocates told USA TODAY the most upsetting part about anti-nuisance rental ordinances is they end up hurting people who call the police for help when they’re at their most vulnerable.
“One of the things that’s most damaging about these crime-free rental ordinances, is that they’re truly depriving whole communities from the safety and protection of law enforcement, and instead forcing them to take matters into their own hands just to keep a roof over their head,” Benfer said.
Anti-crime property ordinances are likely in violation of the Violence Against Women Act, which congress reauthorized in 2022, Walz said.
“Local governments have to actually look at their laws, and they have to remove laws that don’t comply with a person’s right to report crime and seek emergency assistance under the act,” Walz said.
How will the Justice Department enforce the letter?
Going forward, elected officials across the country considering passing crime-free and anti-nuisance rental ordinances may reconsider to avoid litigation from the Justice Department, Walz said.
In its letter, the justice department highlighted lawsuits from across the country where former tenants won settlements after a court ruled they were kicked out of housing unfairly.
Earlier this year, the Minnesota city of Anoka agreed to pay a total of $175,000 to people with disabilities and their families, who were found to be harmed by the local nuisance ordinance. According to the Justice Department, Anoka tenants with disabilities who called 911 were threatened with eviction, including after requesting help during suicide attempts in some cases.
The situation in Anoka is likely not isolated to that city, said Cecil Smith, president of the Minnesota Multi Housing Association, who said he thinks landlords get “caught in the middle” by ordinances.
“You have small communities with limited resources putting pressure on property managers when there’s public resources involved,” Smith said.
In 2022, the city of Hesperia, California, repealed its no-crime ordinance and nearly $1 million remains up for grabs by tenants and fair housing groups as a result of a lawsuit brought by the Department of Justice, which found the ordinance was not enforced equally across racial groups.