Tenant protection measures are back on the ballot as rents and homelessness continue to soar in Vermont’s tight housing market.
During Town Meeting Day voting on Tuesday, voters in Brattleboro, Essex and Winooski will weigh in on charter change efforts to prevent “no cause” evictions.
As landlord and real estate groups continue to lobby against the measure, activists and tenant groups have pushed it in an effort to protect tenants from profit-motivated and retaliatory evictions.
“The housing crisis is really at its height right now and a lot of very good people who have done nothing wrong are finding themselves homeless,” said Tom Proctor, a housing organizer with the advocacy group Rights & Democracy, which has led the local efforts.
Currently, Vermont law permits landlords to terminate tenancy without a specific reason at the end of a lease or in a month-to-month lease, leaving renters with little protection against eviction — what’s known as a “no cause” eviction.
“Just cause” eviction policies, like the one proposed in Brattleboro under Article 2, offer expanded protection to tenants by limiting the circumstances under which a landlord is legally allowed to evict a tenant.
Under the proposal, residential tenants would be protected from eviction without just cause, such as the tenant’s breach of a written rental agreement, violation of state statutes on tenant obligations or failure to accept reasonable renewal terms. The proposal would also cap rent increases at 12% and prevent evictions simply due to increased rent, among other things.
Just cause eviction protections have been adopted in five states — California, New Jersey, Oregon, New Hampshire and Washington — as well as in several cities including Albany, New York; Baltimore, Maryland; and Washington, D.C.
In Brattleboro, the ballot measure is important for Jeffrey Hutchins, who plans to vote yes and be out at the polls Tuesday with his sign because “that’s the proper thing to do. Tenants need rights, too, you know,” he said.
Hutchins, 62, said he was recently evicted from the two-bedroom apartment he lived in for almost nine years. He was paying $1,000 in rent and said the new owners raised his rent by $325 about a year ago.
Landlords have resisted the measure, suggesting it would make it difficult to evict problem tenants and for landlords to charge rents high enough to pay the bills.
Sally Fegley, of Windham County Property Management, who manages several apartments in the region, including in Brattleboro, said area landlords oppose the Brattleboro measure as it is currently crafted because it would hurt good landlords and good tenants. She is among about 30 landlords and Realtors who have been meeting regularly to discuss the issue.
A landlord and a tenant each have the right to continue or terminate a lease before the term is up. So the lease is “a very valuable tool for landlords to manage their properties effectively,” Fegley said, especially when they have to deal with bad behavior.
“The Brattleboro article would make it impossible for a landlord to ask a tenant to leave the property when the lease expires, which is crazy,” she said.
Most landlords are looking for good tenants who will stay, Fegley said.
“So once you find a suitable tenant, you’re not going to say to that tenant at the end of the lease: please leave,” she said. “You’re going to be so glad if that tenant stays with you. The only tenants you’re going to ask to leave are the tenants who were making trouble.”
Matthew Parisi, who owns 33 rental units, including properties in Winooski, also opposes the proposed charter changes, particularly the clauses limiting rent increases.
“I can’t control the cost of what happens with our taxes, inflation, etc., and if something like this passes, it could potentially lead to issues where I am in a rent control situation, for lack of a better word,” he said.
He said it took him six months to evict tenants who had stopped paying rent and were engaged in “serious drug activity.”
The Vermont Landlord Association did not respond to requests for comment.
In Winooski, the just cause eviction effort is delayed by a year due a procedural glitch. Even if the measure passes on March 7, the city is required to hold a “validation vote” afterward. A date has not been set yet, according to town officials.
Article 4 on the ballot lays out a detailed charter amendment on what the ordinance would cover or exclude.
Only a year ago, elected officials intervened to prevent two dozen largely refugee, low-income families from being evicted from a Main Street building. Landlords Rick and Mark Bove initially sent no-cause eviction letters to tenants in order to undertake a major renovation project at the 24-unit complex.
With 65% of residents renting there, Winooski’s effort is most likely to pass, Proctor said. “I think we’ve done a really good job of speaking to the new American community there about what this ballot initiative is,” he said.
Couched within a larger effort to rewrite the charter, Article 9 in Essex consists of a simple one-line question asking voters whether the selectboard should be empowered to “enact an ordinance to protect residential tenants from eviction without just cause.”
That leaves it open to interpretation and could go either way, Proctor said.
When the housing commission discussed the item, “the overall feeling was that while we do believe there is more information needed to ensure a meaningful structure and policy we support creating the Just Cause Eviction ordinance to protect renters across our community,” Katie Ballard, chair of the joint Essex and Essex Junction Housing Commission, said via email.
Two other communities — Hartford and Montpelier — were also considering charter changes banning “no cause” evictions but did not get it on the ballot in time for the upcoming election. Petitions to get the matter on the ballot for 2024 are already being circulated in both communities.
Montpelier got really close but ran out of time partly because of restructuring a new housing committee formed in May. “So the intent was there,” Proctor said.
Town officials are in the process of reviewing the entire charter — including adding just cause evictions and a cannabis tax — but decided to wait until 2024 to consider it all, Proctor said.
Should town voters adopt a tenant-protection charter amendment, the state Legislature and governor would need to approve it.
Montpelier resident and co-chair of the Central Vermont Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) Joseph Moore, who helped push the measure forward, said no-cause eviction weakens housing anti-discrimination laws around race, disability, family status and undermines enforcement of health and safety code violations because whistleblowers are not protected from eviction.
Burlington’s just cause eviction clause — the only one that has passed in Vermont — is expected to be reintroduced in the Legislature this session. Approved by voters in 2021, the bill was vetoed by Republican Gov. Phil Scott in May after the Vermont House fell one vote short of advancing H.708.
But House Democrats picked up seats in last year’s midterms to regain a veto-proof majority, changing the likelihood of an override this year.
Olivia Q. Pintair contributed reporting.
Correction: Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this story mischaracterized how the proposed charter changes would affect potential rent increases.