This commentary is by Joe Moore of Montpelier, a labor organizer and member of Central Vermont Democratic Socialists of America.
This Town Meeting Day, Montpelier residents will have the opportunity to vote on a just cause eviction charter change measure (Article 14). I am one of the people who collected the more than 300 signatures needed to get just cause eviction on the March 5 ballot. Here’s why I support this policy.
My partner and I currently own our home on Derby Drive in Montpelier but for most of my adult life, up until a couple of years ago, I was a renter. During my 15 years or so as a tenant in multiple states I’ve had some good landlords, some not-so-good landlords and some in between. I’ve experienced unreasonable rent hikes (as high as 20% in one year), heating and plumbing issues that went unaddressed for too long and, in one harrowing case, a brown recluse spider infestation where my landlord refused to call a professional exterminator.
While I’ve never been evicted, my experiences as a renter make me sensitive to the fact that the landlord/tenant relationship is one of unequal power. Your landlord effectively has the legal authority to revoke your access to shelter. This power differential is compounded by the fact that Vermont has one of the lowest rental vacancy rates in the U.S. — Vermonters who lose access to housing have very few alternatives.
Just cause eviction attempts to address this power imbalance between landlords and tenants by protecting tenants from arbitrary, retaliatory and discriminatory evictions. Rather than the existing status quo wherein landlords can evict tenants for “no cause,” meaning they don’t need to specify a reason, the proposed just cause charter language establishes explicit criteria for eviction and provides tenants with the right of first refusal to renew a lease when it expires. Just cause eviction protects good tenants from bad landlords and good landlords from bad tenants. The proposed language would allow a landlord to evict a tenant for nonpayment of rent, breach of the terms of a lease agreement or violation of state statutes regulating tenant obligations. Further the proposed charter change would allow landlords to alter the terms of a lease agreement after expiration, as long as those changes are not unreasonable.
Housing discrimination on the basis of race, disability and gender identity happens, even in small idyllic communities like Montpelier. Federal and state laws exist to protect tenants from discrimination. However, no-cause eviction makes enforcement of those anti-discrimination laws difficult because it means that the burden is on the tenant to prove discrimination, rather than on the landlord to prove that an eviction was not discriminatory. Just cause eviction places that burden of proof on the landlord, where it belongs.
I support the adoption of a just cause eviction ordinance in Montpelier because I believe that no one should have the power to deny another human being access to shelter without justification. It’s that simple. Just cause eviction takes an important step in the direction of correcting this imbalance. It is not a panacea. Meaningfully addressing our current housing crisis will require us to adopt a spectrum of policy changes, including short-term rental restrictions, which City Council took up last year, and adjustments to zoning regulations that limit housing density, among other initiatives.
I’m glad that voters will have the opportunity to make Montpelier the next Vermont municipality to adopt just cause eviction on March 5, and I encourage my neighbors to vote “Yes.”
