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Friend,
It’s been almost 20 years since fair housing advocates suggested the idea of a “healthy homes” ordinance to protect New Orleans renters from substandard housing units and unfair landlords.
In November, following over a decade of organizing by the Louisiana Fair Housing Action Center, HousingNOLA, Jane Place Neighborhood Sustainability Initiative and others, advocates and renters thought they were finally going to see a dream realized. After months of negotiations, legislation creating a registry for rental properties and establishing a schedule for inspections was up for final adoption before the New Orleans City Council.
Instead, Councilman J.P. Morrell, the sponsor of the ordinance, introduced an extensive amendment that, while adding short-term rentals to the mix, stripped away the inspections that gave the proposed law its legs.
“I can’t imagine having to put in a card opposing a healthy homes ordinance offered by the city of New Orleans, but we find ourselves here today after this very effective and very essential legislation has been effectively gutted by the vote you just took,” HousingNOLA Executive Director Andreanecia Morris told Morrell at the city council meeting where the revised ordinance was adopted. “We rise in opposition. What you have today is not good enough. It is not good enough for the people of New Orleans.”
While the ordinance as enacted does include protection from landlord retaliation against tenants who file complaints with the city, it also depends on those tenants risking that blowback to report unsafe or unsanitary conditions. In practice, this does not offer much protection to renters, because if a renter is behind on paying their rent or technically not in compliance with other provisions of their lease, they can still face retaliation for those reasons.
A centuries-old problem
The deteriorating condition of New Orleans’ housing stock is not a new development. One of the oldest cities in the U.S., the Crescent City has an equally old selection of homes. Add the issues of drainage, storms and poverty, and it is easy to see how the shelf life of some of the older structures that give the city its charm can also contribute to its structural weakness. What’s more, many landlords live in other areas of the country and appear to be less interested in keeping up their properties than in collecting rent.
“New Orleans is unique in that so much of our rental housing stock is very old in general,” said Cashauna Hill, director of the Louisiana Fair Housing Action Center. “This is a city that is 300 years old. What we find is that it is not just low-income renters who are forced to deal with substandard living conditions. Because there are no health and safety standards and no rules about the ways in which landlords must engage in the business of renting housing, tenants at all income levels are left to hope that they have a landlord who will be fair and who will make repairs as needed.”
Even when landlords are not responsive to requests for repairs, the fear of being evicted or blacklisted for reporting problems keeps many tenants from speaking up. Renters who were interviewed for this story, in fact, did not want their names disclosed for fear of retaliation. All of them related stories of issues running the gamut from leaking plumbing; holes in floors, walls and ceilings; broken or nonexistent appliances; mold, rot, insect and vermin infestations.
Relying on the anti-retaliation provision alone is insufficient and risky for renters, said Clara Potter, a staff attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Economic Justice Practice Group, which is supporting the efforts of fair housing advocates.
Eliminating the affirmative inspections was a blow to organizers and renters because, Potter said, “If landlords know they are going to be on the hook no matter what their tenant says to the city, that’s a much stronger set of protections for the tenant.”
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In solidarity,
Your friends at the Southern Poverty Law Center
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