An Open Letter to Boston City Council on Just Cause Eviction
MassLandlords.net
51 Union St., Ste 220
Worcester, MA 01608
2016 March 9
Boston City Council
1 City Hall Square Suite 550
Boston, MA 02201-2043
Dear Councilor:
I’m writing on behalf of our Boston members to express concern with the proposed “Just Cause Eviction” idea to be heard Monday, March 14. (We represent over 1,100 landlording businesses state-wide, of whom 91 reside and operate in the City of Boston.)
Just Cause Eviction is favored by certain tenant advocates who fear market forces, gentrification and displacement. They state that Just Cause Eviction would be a collaborative mediation process.
Actually, in discussing and preparing the idea, its supporters did not seek to collaborate with us. We believe that their one-sided approach misses two key points:
- Just Cause Eviction is effectively rent control with some of the same economic consequences, and
- The courts already offer a better kind of mediation than what “Just Cause Eviction” could enact.
We recommend all our members take advantage of court mediation, and have for years.
We would welcome alternative approaches to gentrification that would be truly collaborative in nature, such as landlord incentives or zoning reform. We urge you not to pursue Just Cause Eviction for the City of Boston.
Sincerely,
Douglas Quattrochi
Executive Director
Somehow tenants have to be protected from the tenant that is a menace to all and really ruins the “quiet enjoyment” of a good tenant’s rental space.
We need to enforce the laws “on the books now” and penalize the tenant that seems to do whatever they want and use every tactic they can find to stay where they are and not pay rent.
Rent is just the means by which the landlord gains the money in which to make repairs and perhaps provide for the future. The bad landlords are the same as the bad tenants, people that ruin the “quiet enjoyment” of the rented space for all.
We do NOT need more laws to protect against imagined abuses. Now I am speaking not only from a perspective of one who mainly lives in the western 4 counties of this commonwealth, but also from a viewpoint of one who has lived in rental units in the Greater Boston area.
I especially speak for the “landlord” that has only 1 to 4 units and is just providing solid housing for people as a means of doing something good and maybe having a bit of a residual income, especially if the landlord in question is disabled or elderly. In this case such draconian efforts as this would possible push these people “out of business” and the folks that would purchase the property would be the very large conglomerate landlord entities that might have been insensitive to tenants in the past and the reason people want additional laws like this.
We already have many a law to protect tenants. We do not need more laws promoted by people that are being paid, often at taxpayer expense, to push for such laws as a way of justifying their own salaries.
I suggest that when hearings are held you ascertain whether the person is coming of their own volition, or if they are being paid maybe as high as over $35 an hour to present their position. It is one thing to advocate for those that find themselves in poverty at the moment. It is quite another thing to be pain for any position and come to a hearing not to advocate for a just cause but rather because you are there as a hireling to advocate for that cause as your job and not because you believe in it.
I might further suggest that if hearings were held in the evening you might find far fewer supporters of many such measures because often these same people are so “dedicated” to “the cause” that they will NOT be there if they are not being paid.
I sit on many boards and committee with many groups and I find it interesting that if a meeting time falls on a holiday, even if it is not a national one, the so called “advocates for the poor” can not attend, even if the poor get there. So please look at the financial incentives for various people to attend. For some of us, attendance at a hearing, means that we are losing time from our “work” and therefore losing money. BUT for these hired “advocates” it is their work to attend and are paid for it. If the meetings came at an evening hour when regular workers (such as the small landlord that also may be holding down a “regular job”)can attend, I think you would find the composition of those seeking to speak to be much different.
In my experience over the past 20-30 years, I find it interesting how little dedication to a position many “advocates” have when they are not being paid for their advocacy.
It is a truth that what happens in the largest urban settings of most states often spreads out over all urban settings of that state. It is also true that laws enacted to protect against injustices in a large urban setting are often passed to apply “equally for all” and therefore place a heavy burden on the backs of people trying to “make a living” in non-urban settings.
Hence, I urge you to look at the laws currently on the books and seek such measures that “even the playing field” for all, not just that cater to the loud voices of the hireling group that are pushing for such laws not because they are right but only because that is within the “job description” of what they are hired to do. I would then ask, as a follow up question, of those advocating for such additional laws, how many of these advocacy groups are wiling to establish and operate housing (that is to become landlords themselves) for the good of all who need it.
When the “shoe is on the other foot” you will see a much different position than when one is hired to advocate for something and without any concern for experiencing the ramifications of such advocacy themselves.
So all I say comes down to one thing.
There are many many more laws in Massachusetts to ‘protect’ the tenant than in most other states.
Maybe we need to enforce the laws we have and not enact more onerous ones on a urban level, that tend to eventually become state wide mandates.
And consider whom it is that is advocating for something.
Are they taking time and spending their own money to do so.
Or are they being paid to present this position, with no personal conviction in the matter, it is just their job.
Such are my rambling comments that are born out of a frustration in dealing with some people that are gaining financial gain for “advocating” a position that have little or no conviction for that same measure they are paid to “advocate” for.