The Prince George’s County Council in Maryland has passed emergency legislation aimed at closing loopholes and stopping other retaliatory measures that landlords around the county have been taking, after the council passed a bill capping rent hikes.
The measure temporarily capping those hikes at 3% took effect last week. This new law takes effect immediately, after the clerk, council president and county executive sign it. It passed 9-0.
“I’m just very angry that we’re here in this situation, angry that we need legislation like this,” said Council member Krystal Oriadha, who spearheaded this and other bills aimed at affordable housing and helping renters.
The original bill capping rent hikes at 3% is a temporary measure while a working group tries to develop a longer term plan that helps shield county residents, which includes a significant number of renters, from being hit by extreme hikes in rents. Several of those renters, including numerous seniors who live at a senior living complex off Route 301 in Upper Marlboro, testified before Oriadha spoke.
“Never would I have believed that I would be facing a crisis such as this regarding our rent,” said Shirley Young, an 87-year-old who lives in The Lodge at Marlton. “I have had two years to deal with slamming and gouging.”
She accused her landlord of hiking her rent by $200 per month without conducting income verification.
“Where can we go? If all of these developments here in Prince George’s County are following the same kind of rules of slamming and gouging our seniors, this bill must go through,” said Young. “We are in dire need of life survival.”
But the panic and concern extended well beyond that particular complex.
“Please, we need this bill passed as soon as yesterday,” said Ellen Lyons, a Laurel resident. She said her rent went up by $100 per month recently. “We’re asking you now, before we become homeless: Help us. Not only to get a one-year bill, but something permanent for the seniors.”
It wasn’t just seniors who testified. Advocates from Casa de Maryland, as well as local faith leaders, also attested to the growing seriousness of the problem.
“Some of us are wearing purple because that is the color worn in November to raise awareness of homelessness, and we want you to be clear that’s what is at stake if we don’t address this issue in Prince George’s County,” said Rev. Leslye Dwight of Community of Hope AME Church in Temple Hills. “You are charged with helping to fix a broken system.”
Pastor Krishnan Natesan of Love AME Church was even more forceful about the impact that the increasingly unaffordable housing is having on his community.
“We’re not talking about people that have tremendous, dispensable resources and income that you can just pay another $600,” said Natesan. “I can imagine that, after you’ve worked and you’ve paid your dues and here you are on a fixed income, and people want to gouge you, I don’t think that we can stand for that.”
“I just want to say I’m standing with all of you,” he went on. “I’m standing with a single mother. I’m standing with them and I just hope that everybody would stand with them.”
Minutes later, the nine members of the council who were there for the vote did just that.
