Landlords and tenants line up to testify at State House hearing

Rhode Island’s housing shortage was the foundation of nearly six hours of testimony at a Wednesday hearing by the House Committee on Judiciary. Up for discussion were 24 bills, 17 of which were devoted to the relationship between tenants and landlords.

One sponsored by Rep. Jennifer Stewart, a Pawtucket Democrat, would increase the advance notice time landlords must give their tenants before raising the rents from 30to 90 days. 

“To rent these days is to kind of live under a ‘sword of Damocles’ situation,” Stewart said, “Because one never knows what the rent increase is going to mean when it happens. Housing is so fundamental because it’s unlike anything else, and we can’t treat it like anything else.”

More than a third of Rhode Islanders, whether they rent or own their own home, are cost burdened, according to HousingWorks RI — that means they spend more than a third of their income on housing. In 2022, the state’s median household income of $41,277 would find renting a two-bedroom unit affordable in only one Rhode Island town, Burrillville. In comparison, $82,902 was needed to comfortably afford the same size apartment in the city of Providence.

Highlights of the hearing included:

• • Rep. Cherie Cruz, a Pawtucket Democrat, introduced one bill that would create a tenants’ bill of rights via a civil representation within the department of housing so that tenants could better access legal representation in disputes with landlords. Another Cruz bill would provide for “just cause evictions,” which are designed to protect tenants from losing their homes against groundless or unreasonable claims.

• • A third Cruz bill would make landlords pay interest on security deposits returned to tenants. It had the support of Rhode Island Secretary of Housing Stefan Pryor who testified that the measure would be “a modest way of helping families build wealth…This is a bill that accomplishes something maybe we all assumed to be true,” Pryor said. “The security deposit is, of course, money that belongs to the tenant.”

• • Rep. John J. Lombardi, a Providence Democrat, brought forth a bill that would prohibit landlords from asking applicants whether they’ve ever been incarcerated. “Inquiry is the key word,” Lombardi emphasized at the hearing. “It’s a crazy market and people are looking for any excuse to throw someone out…No one’s saying you can’t do a background check. I think you should.”
    

• • In a bill from Rep. Rebecca Kislak, a Providence Democrat, landlords would need to list all mandatory fees in both advertisements for their properties and on the first page of a lease. Convenience fees on rent could not be charged either.

It was easy to guess the night would be long, given the 151 written testimonies submitted before the meeting and a large crowd assembled in the House Lounge for the hearing. The majority of written comments uploaded to the General Assembly website came from recurring names who submitted similar testimony in response to nearly every bill that would affect a landlord’s business. The most opposition was directed at Rep. Brandon Potter’s Bill H7049, which would cap rent increases to 4% annually. A total of 29 responses were opposed to the Cranston Democrat’s bill, largely from landlords who argued the bill constitutes rent control and is therefore unfeasible.

But Jennifer L. Wood, executive director of Rhode Island Center for Justice, cautioned against an easy definition of that term in her testimony: “If you’ve met one rent control regulatory scheme, you’ve met one rent control regulatory scheme,” Wood said. 

Wood was one of the experts who testified; there were two each for both support and opposition who were allotted five minutes. Every other member of the public got two minutes. 

“Now we have 90 people that want to testify. So let’s try and stick to the two minutes please. Because we’ve already been here for three hours,” said Rep. Carol Hagan McEntee, a South Kingstown Democrat, as the bill sponsors finished their presentations and testimonies began.   

Breaking rules

Rep. Jason Knight, a Barrington Democrat and the committee’s second co-chair, asked at one point how enforceable these new regulations might be. 

“A lot of what I’ve seen tonight, and the year before, and the year before, isn’t the rules, but people breaking the rules,” Knight said.

Similarly, the two-minute rule was frequently broken during the night. Both written and spoken testimonies from landlords — of which there were many — were largely in opposition to the agenda’s bills. 

Rep. Justine Caldwell, an East Greenwich Democrat, wondered if the Rhode Island Coalition of Housing Providers, testifying on behalf of landlords, approved of any of the night’s bills: “At the start of the hearing I was trying to find any places we might have compromise or agreement.” 

Shannon Weinstein of the coalition singled out a bill by Rep. Joshua Giraldo, a Central Falls Democrat, which would prohibit landlords from inquiring about a potential tenant’s immigration status.

“We actually don’t have any problem with that bill,” Weinstein said. “I think asking a question like that subjects us to liability.”

Justin Mann, also speaking on behalf of the coalition, noted that collection of proposed laws would deeply wound the state’s housing business via an excess of regulation. “There absolutely is a breaking point,” Mann said. “At the end of the day, this is a math discussion.”  

But math was far from the only subject matter of the night’s dozens of testimonies. Competing nightmares emerged from both landlords and tenants. Landlords dominated the first half of testimony, and many did indeed focus on the business of renting properties. Others, like Rose Siegel, told horror stories about “tenants from hell.”

“Every window was broken. The doors were off the oven…She slashed the tires of the neighbor across the street,” Siegel said of one tenant. “I could not get one person to complain. They scared the s*** out of everybody in the neighborhood.”

What would happen if any of the night’s bills were to pass? “I am literally selling everything, I am moving out of state,” Siegel said. “It is so unfair.”

Landlord Chris Bilotti testified against rent control, just cause evictions and Lombardi’s bill that would prohibit asking about applicants’ incarceration history. Bilotti described a hypothetical scenario where elderly and single mother tenants would feel trapped in their rent-controlled apartments, living in fear of retribution from a criminal living above them who they are unable to evict. (Lombardi’s proposed legislation would not prevent eviction in such circumstances.)  

“I’ll be sure to take names so my tenants know who to complain to when the law is enacted,” Bilotti said. He smirked at those parting words — but Rep. David Place, a Harrisville Republican, did not. 

“I’m probably, as far as a landlord is concerned, I’m probably your most friendly member on this committee,” Place said after Bilotti rose from his seat. “You get me mad when you do that, when you threaten my colleagues like that. I take that as a threat.” 

As the hearing stretched into its fourth hour, more housing advocates — many of them clad in red to signal their membership with Reclaim RI, a progressive grassroots organization that previously campaigned for Cruz — began to testify and relay their own struggles. They included Melissa Potter, who expressed her support for Cruz’s attempt to codify a tenants’ bill of rights.    

Potter testified that she signed a lease with her fiancé two years ago. At the time, the couple was told that construction on the building wouldn’t last long. Since then, Potter’s fiancé died and the construction continues. A deep trench in front of Potter’s home became a “dangerous mudslide” with last weekend’s heavy rains. That and inferior heating, black mold and broken walls, make her home a “code violation hell.”

“I work hard, my rent has been paid monthly and on time and my landlord has done nothing to uphold his end of the lease,” Potter said. “I implore you to please pass these bills.”