At the end of June, the National Low Income Housing Coalition, the National Housing Law Project, and the Tenant Union Federation released a comprehensive National Tenants Bill of Rights (TBOR). The proposal was written with direct input from tenant leaders, people with lived experience of housing instability, legal aid experts, and advocates nationwide. The main objective is “to shift the power imbalance between tenants and landlords that puts the 114 million people who rent their homes at greater risk of housing instability, harassment, eviction, and homelessness.
The tool presents seven essential rights that follow a tenant’s experience “from applying for housing and signing a lease to living in their home.” they are as follows:
- The right to a a fair application
- The right to a fair lease
- The right to Freedom from discrimination and harassment
- The right to a habitable home
- The right to Reasonable rent and costs
- The right Organize
- The right to Safeguards against eviction
Why do tenants rights and protections matter?
Supply, stability, subsidy, and infrastructure are all essential to effective housing policy, as detailed in Shane Phillips’ The Affordable City. In his book, Phillips writes:
“Strong tenant and rental housing protections are essential for cities to remain accessible to a wide range of families and individuals…Supply helps moderate prices at the city and regional levels, but only tenant protections will provide adequate security at the neighborhood and household level.”
While we know there is a nationwide shortage of affordable units and pursue measures to increase housing supply, we must also think about the people at the center of the affordable housing crisis. Supply is critical, but rarely by itself sufficient. Phillips goes on to write:
“A reasonable median rent is not the sole measure of an affordable city; the experience of individual households – their stability, their fair treatment, and the safe, healthy upkeep of their homes – is at least as important.”
On our July 9 Housing Call, we spoke with Nick MacLeod, Executive Director of the North Carolina Tenants Union (NCTU), about his reactions to the release of the tool, its importance, and what it could mean for our state. MacLeod observed that a lot of these rights seem obvious, and many people may assume these rights already exist and are protected by law. The unfortunate reality is, in North Carolina, and many other states, many of these protections are NOT codified by law, leaving a large portion of our population at the mercy of the market and property owners who may not even be members of the communities they own property in. On our July 16 Housing Call we will have representatives from National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) to tell us more about the National Tenants Bill of Rights (TBOR) and the federal policy landscape around it.
Protections in Practice vs. North Carolina Reality
Having tenant protections does not mean dampening ownership and housing production. In the words of Shane Phillips: “the brawls over which of these policies to prioritize are ultimately a distraction. We should prioritize both.” Rights for tenants are not designed to punish landlords or restrict the market. Rather, they exist to try and ensure a fair, just, and thriving market.
Here are some examples of the tenant protections in the TBOR look like, compared to the legal reality in North Carolina.
The right to a fair application looks like:
- Strengthening regulations of tenant screening companies
- Streamlining the application process for federally assisted housing
Landlords have an absolute right to deny anyone housing for any reason OTHER than those protected by fair housing laws. As it currently stands in our state, landlords are legally allowed in no uncertain terms to discriminate based on history of incarceration, any past eviction record(even if no judgment was rendered), source of income, and credit score. Additionally, application fees are based on the discretion of the landlord, often resulting in hundreds of dollars for non-refundable application fees. Because credit and background checks are often not transferable, they can be used by landlords and other companies as a way to generate profit, incentivizing them to accept more applications than they can possibly handle.
Without transparency around screening criteria, streamlined application processes, and fair housing enforcement, landlords may be excluding protected classes of people, hurting those that are already the most vulnerable and creating unnecessary barriers to housing.
The right to a fair lease looks like:
- Requiring that leases clearly list all rent and mandatory fees
- Requiring landlords to provide critical information to tenants
- Prohibiting unreasonable or predatory lease terms by clearly defining rights and responsibilities of both landlords and tenants.
In North Carolina, tenants don’t have a right to a “written” lease, meaning there can be ‘oral leases’. Without a written record, there is no way to have clarity about the terms, fees, and obligations in a lease. This often leads to a power imbalance between the landlord and the tenant. Landlords can also implement aggressive fines and impractical regulations that don’t actually protect the wellbeing of those in the household or the community and can create a faster route to housing instability.
The right to freedom from discrimination and harassment looks like:
- Strengthening fair housing protections and enforcement
- Stopping discriminatory and retaliatory evictions by landlords;
Currently in our state, the law protects tenants from retaliatory eviction if and only if there is no other reason they could be evicted. There are many reasons a landlord can use to justify evicting a tenant. Owing rent is only one example. Others include:
- Tenants can be evicted without cause at the end of their lease or at any point if they are on a month to month lease.
- Tenants can be evicted if they used their own money to do critical repairs whether or not repairs are the landlord’s responsibility.
- Tenants can be evicted if they owe back rent even if it is due to losing their job for health conditions created by unsafe housing conditions, spending more on food or childcare, etc.
- Tenants can be evicted if the landlord can assert (but doesn’t have to prove in criminal court) that the tenant(s) engaged in illegal acts. Even if the person who committed these acts does not or no longer lives in the unit, the tenant can still be evicted.
Protections against retaliatory evictions are often inaccessible or functionally non-existent because of all the ways someone can be evicted in North Carolina.
The Right to Reasonable Rent and Costs looks like:
- Protecting renters in federally assisted housing programs
There is no law currently in place in North Carolina that limits the amount that landlords can raise their rents by. Additionally, they do not have to consider anything else other than the return on investment, not even length of tenancy, history of on-time payments, vulnerability of the tenant, and many more factors that might make a more compassionate landlord hesitate before doubling or tripling the rent outside of an existing lease term.
The Right to Organize looks like
- Creates a right to organize for all renters;
In North Carolina, tenants are allowed to form tenant unions under their first amendment rights to association. Much like unions, associations advocating for what they need based on what they are experiencing, the right to organize is a fundamental part of civic engagement and fairness. Rights are only real if they are enforceable. However, due to the many forms of retaliation that is allowed under the law explicitly or due to lack of enforcement, the rights of tenants to organize can be hindered by that same retaliation that they are not protected from.
The right to organize can also look like:
- Establishing a tenant opportunity to purchase
As home ownership is increasingly growing out of reach and the share of the rental market that is controlled by out-of-state corporate landlords is growing, the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act would create a critical path to homeownership and wealth generation and to local control of North Carolina’s housing stock.
The Right to Safeguards against evictions looks like
- Federal just cause eviction protections
There are plenty of legitimate reasons for a tenant to be evicted; however, “because I feel like it” or “I want other tenants now” are not examples of legitimate reasons.
Just cause protections, also called “good cause” protections in some areas, simply define the circumstances under which landlords can evict their tenants and prohibit evictions for any other reason. They divide evictions into two categories: at-fault evictions and no-fault evictions. Without clarifying what causes for evictions are and are not allowed, landlords have plenty of opportunity for discrimination and retaliation, with little to no room for civil discourse, engagement, or negotiations between residents and their landlords.
The protections in the National Tenants Bill of Rights simply ensure that leases follow the same basic rules of reciprocity and mutuality of obligation as all other contracts do. The same basic rules of structure, clarity, the protection of due process, and protections for each interested party, are needed to support the wellbeing of a community through housing.
Opportunities for Action & Advocacy
There are many opportunities to engage and help build tenant power and achieve housing justice:
Endorse the National Tenants Bill of Rights and share it with others. Local, state, and national organizations, individuals, elected officials, and candidates for office can endorse the National Tenants Bill of Rights! Click here to endorse.
Urge your elected officials to advance the tenant protections included in the National Tenants Bill of Rights at the local, state, and national level.
Learn more about what tenant protections actually mean and what it could look like in your community. Here are a few resources to consider:
- Did you know North Carolina now has a statewide tenants union? Engage with the North Carolina Tenants Union (NCTU) by joining your local union at www.nctenantsunion.org/become-a-member-of-nc-tenants-union/
- Read the National Tenants Bill of Rights factsheet here and the section summaries here
- Read NLIHC’s brief on expanding renter protections here
- Urban Institute brief on “Just Cause” Eviction Laws here
