Rep. Stevens: Bill addressing rental housing issues still in progress
May 29, 2021 | By Rep. Tom Stevens
It’s hard to write an update when we have just finished the session endgame. Bills were flying around in the ether (it is Zoom after all), going back and forth between the House and Senate, and many of the bills our committee had been working on remained in flux until the very end. We finished on Friday, May 21, with a budget passed and a promise of returning in June for a veto session.
An important bill our committee was working on did not quite pass during the last week, and we remain hopeful it may get to the Senate for a final vote in June. This bill, S.79, would create a rental registry and an enforcement mechanism for towns that do not already have a rental registry for health and safety. This fee-based program would relieve town health officers — mostly volunteers — from the burden of following up on health and safety complaints from either tenants or landlords about unsafe conditions in apartments. This is supported by the Vermont League of Cities and Towns and would create a new baseline for enforcement of habitability concerns in rental properties.
We consider this important because of the dire shortage of rental units in Vermont. Rents are skyrocketing, the number of short-term rentals are taking units off the long-term market, and we know that there are many subpar dwelling units out there. We also know we need them to be code compliant, safe, and affordable.
S.79 also offers a rehabilitation program for owners of rental units who want to bring units that are not currently code compliant back online. This program offers up to $30,000 per unit with a 20% match, and would require the landlord to either seek to rent to families coming out of homelessness, or in the lower economic bracket of 80% of area median income. We are at crisis levels with apartments at this price point, and rehabilitating units will be less expensive and faster than building new (which will happen over the next several years with the influx of relief dollars from the federal government).
S.79 also proposes a new revolving loan fund for lower-income first-time homebuyers with an income of up to 120% of the area median income. This program would offer zero-percent loans of up to $50,000 payable at the sale or refinancing of the home in the future. A portion of the funds would be used to ensure that communities that have been marginalized by restrictive loan and home-buying policies of the past — Black, Indigenous and people of color — have the opportunity to buy a home and build equity, which is the most direct way to build wealth in this country.
Finally, S.79 proposes to adjust the eviction moratorium to allow landlords several options to file for ejectment proceedings during the emergency period that they did not have before. We’ve heard of the difficulties some landlords have had with tenants who have chosen not to participate in the very generous back rent programs we have instituted, which can include payments to cover first, last and security, as well as any rental arrearages and, possibly, rent moving forward through 2021. We have seen great success with the 2020 back rent program, but there are always difficult cases that present themselves.
We hope the changes we are proposing are accepted for the duration of the emergency period, and that relationships between landlords and tenants — especially these difficult ones — find resolution. We're disappointed that this time-sensitive piece of legislation did not pass, but that is what happens in a representative democracy sometimes, when the minority party can choose to delay action by not suspending the rules at the end of a session.
One other resolution we have worked on this year, JRH 2, has passed both the House and Senate once, and it is currently in the Senate for one last adjustment. JRH 2 apologizes for the policies and practices of eugenics made by the General Assembly to the disabled, the poor, French Canadians, French Indians, and the descendents of the Abenaki. It is a first, important step, and it is up to us to continue our work to make amends for the damages we caused because of our actions. Look for a public event marking this when we are allowed to meet together in a safe and respectful way this summer.
Rep. Tom Stevens, D-Waterbury, is chair of the House Committee on General, Housing and Military Affairs