The reasons a person or a family have for renting a home are as varied as the people who live in rental homes. From students who live with roommates to transplants from other cities; immigrants getting a foothold in a new state or country to newlyweds looking to find a place to raise their family, there is no one reason someone rents rather than buys a home. Condominiums do not hold value and are largely purchased by older individuals who are past the age where they want to shovel snow and mow lawns. Indeed, many renters do not want the responsibility of home maintenance that comes with ownership. If a furnace goes out in a rental home, it’s the owner’s responsibility to replace it. Of course, the downside to renting is that renters get no equity from the money they spend on a rental home or apartment. We decorate, maintain our rental property, take pride in our gardens, love where we live, and yet, we spend hundreds more per month than our home-owning counterparts with none of the rewards of building equity in our property to someday enjoy upon selling or refinancing. Our rental homes are not a nest-egg or an asset. Many renters have no credit and cannot purchase a home, most would enjoy having the opportunity to own their own home, but cannot get out from under the burden of paying more than their fair share of house costs in rent. One cannot save money they are paying to a landlord.
What is most important to know about renters is, we deserve respect. Renting, spending more than half of our income on a property we will never own and could have pulled out from underneath us at any moment, is bold. We place our trust in property owners and corporations because we have little choice to do much else. For many of us, we have lived our lives in rental housing and barring a windfall or a winning lottery ticket, we will see our final days in rental housing. We are at the mercy of capitalism, and we have no way out.
So when a city many of us renters choose to live in because we believe it is a place that will welcome us, pulls the rug out from under us, what are we to do? In early January, the City of Columbia Heights posted a 45-day Vacate notice on the doors of 21 homes managed by HavenBrook Homes. Two of those properties had rental license violations and had their rental licenses revoked. Per the City Council’s own License Revocation Process, they were supposed to inform the tenants with a vested interest in those properties so that they may appear before the city council. That did not happen before they posted notices to vacate. Indeed, the only reason they posted those additional 19 notices is because the city council decided that if a rental license holder lost 2 rental licenses, they would, without notice, revoke all rental licenses held by that owner, regardless of the state of the properties. Many of the homes given notices have not been inspected in years, and the habitability of those homes is unknown. There are people living in those homes, so, they are, on some level, habitable.
So by March 4th, in the middle of a global pandemic, during a Minnesota winter, 19 families need to find new housing.
Havenbrook homes is not, and has never been a stellar property owner. That was never in question. In Minnesota, tenants have many legal options when it comes to pursuing action against their landlords, which any of us could have done, had we had notice that this action was going to be taken by the city council. We never got the opportunity. Of the five members of the city council, only one council member and the mayor has taken the time to reach out to the Havenbrook residents to say, at the very least, “this is a regrettable situation, and we’re sorry this is happening”. The rest of the council? Angry and upset the mayor said anything. The City Attorney and the City manager have washed their hands of us and said they cannot file an Emergency Tenant Remedy Action on our behalf - which is exactly the thing they can and should have done in the first place. The information is there. If I, as a life-long renter can get this information, so can they. Now the mayor has canceled a forum she set up to speak with renters. Isn’t that the sole purpose of her position? I believe this is due to pushback from an ineffective, lazy city council who wants to rest their laurels on the work of the Attorney General who is currently suing Havenbrook Homes.
With this article, I am demanding, and asking the signors of this document to demand the same:
1. City Council will vote to remove the Notices to Vacate from the 21 affected homes.
2. City Staff will immediately remove the Notices to Vacate from the doors of our homes.
3. The City will not Enforce any Notice to Vacate on the 21 affected homes and any way.
4. Confirm in writing to each home that the City and the Police department will not enforce any part of the Notices to Vacate, including the 45 day timeline, citing residents with a misdemeanor, or fining them.
5. The City will publicly apologize for that harm it has caused in this situation.
6. The City will actively communicate with all affected residents by phone what is going on. Written notices will be provided in multiple languages.
7. The City will grant provisional, or time-specific, Rental Licenses to a new landlord until it satisfies that all housing code violations have been fixed, and that all Tenants are satisfied with the quality of
8. Property Management they are receiving from their provisional landlord.
9. The City will hold a public forum for current residents of the 21 properties before granting any regular-termed, permanent, or “normal” license to the Owner / Property Management.
10. The City will allow the owner of the homes to make needed repairs while the homes are occupied whether they are unlicensed or provisionally licensed.
This is the least the city can do. The city council serves at the behest and the pleasure of the people, including the renters they have affected by their actions. I ask the Columbia Heights Faith Community, the Columbia Heights Business Community and the larger Minneapolis/St. Paul community to sign on to this action, in solidarity with those whose homes and livelihoods are threatened.