TAKOMA PARK, Md.– News this week of a Takoma Park apartment building raising rents by as much as 70 percent is just one example of a countywide problem, according to a renters’ advocate.
Matt Losak, Executive Director of the nonprofit Montgomery County Renters Alliance, says big rent increases are affecting people of all incomes across the county.
“Whether you’re paying $5,000 a month or $500 a month, that can price you out of your home.”
In 2010, the Montgomery County Tenants Work Group, which Losak chaired, made about 50 recommendations aimed at better protecting renters.
Losak says the county agreed to implement some of the suggestions, but so far that has not been done effectively.
Losak is supporting Bill 19-15, introduced by Montgomery County Councilmember Marc Elrich, which would set down what both men call common sense protections for renters.
“One of them would be allowing a renter to have a choice of a 2 year lease every time he or she or that family is renewing a lease. The other would be to eliminate month to month lease fees,” he says. “There’s also a requirement to increase code enforcement.”
“The bill this fall will be considered by the Planning, Housing and Economic Development Committee,” says Losak. “Marc Elrich’s office is working on tweaking some of the language to take away any objections there might be for the cost of the impact of the bill.”
Losak says another problem he’s heard of is retaliation against renters who complain to management.
“We are seeing in too many cases where somebody raises a simple complaint, either because they need maintenance in their apartment, or maintenance in the common areas of the building, or because amenities that they were promised when they moved in have been removed or the costs for those amenities have been shifted to the tenants. The tenants raise these concerns with the landlords and then suddenly they find that their lease is not being renewed, or they’re being labeled as a ‘problem tenant’.”
That’s why Losak also wants a just cause eviction law requiring landlords to provide a good reason to kick renters out.
As it stands now, a landlord in Montgomery County can give a renter 60 days notice at the end of their lease to get out, without giving a reason why.
