A just cause law is a renter's suit of armor, providing essential protection from the abuses and biases that exist in the rental housing market. The foundation of all tenants' rights laws, a JCEO protects tenants from retaliatory or arbitrary evictions by requiring a "good cause" before a tenant can be evicted. Because fear of losing one's housing prevents many tenants from asserting their rights, all the other rights and remedies for tenants are nearly meaningless if tenants are not protected from unjust evictions.
Currently, there are eleven "good causes" that a landlord can use to terminate a tenancy in Seattle. The causes were carefully crafted to be a barrier to protect innocent tenants and to allow landlords to evict trouble makers.
This month, the Seattle City Council will vote on a proposed overhaul of the JCEO sponsored by Housing Committee Chair Sherry Harris. Hastily introduced and politically motivated, the overhaul contains measures that will so weaken the ordinance that it will become a toothless, ineffective law. The proposal would add seven additional reasons for eviction and relax the requirements on many existing causes. No longer a suit of armor, our JCEO would allow all the abuses it sought to prevent when passed in 1980.
The motivation for the overhaul of the JCEO comes from political pressure applied by the Apartment Association of Seattle & King County (AASKC). For the past three years AASKC has lobbied the Washington State Legislature to pass a law (HB 1256) that would make the Seattle JCEO and other local tenant protections illegal. Years of progress toward fair treatment and safe conditions for tenants would be reversed if HB1256 passes.
Thwarted at the State level, AASKC now seeks to erode the law at the local level by convincing elected officials that the JCEO protects drug dealers. This erroneous claim gave rise to the proposal to allow a landlord to evict a tenant based only on the allegation of criminal activity. In truth, drug-related activity enjoys a separate status from other criminal activity and is already evictable under a three-day nuisance notice. A conviction is not required.
Another proposed change to the JCEO would add an entirely new "good cause" for eviction: sale of a single family house. Currently, Seattle owners have the right to show a rental for sale and make improvements with the tenant still in occupancy. Allowing landlords who merely "elect to sell" the power to evict would create a massive loophole in the ordinance.
An owner could decide to sell as a pretext to evicting a household for a retaliatory or discriminatory reason or to circumvent a city ordinance such as the Tenant Relocation Assistance Ordinance. After eviction, the owner could decide to re-rent to different tenants.
Families and shared households would suffer most, as single family dwellings are often the housing most affordable for such renters. Other cities and states (San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington, DC, and New Jersey) with just cause laws recognize the potential for misuse and do not allow eviction for sale of a house.
Seattle's Just Cause Ordinance is good public policy. It is inexpensive, effective, and easy to understand. Changes to any effective public policy should be limited to specific solutions to proven problems. This legislation fails to match solutions to problems and carelessly offers sweeping changes that threaten the intention of the ordinance to provide a fair standard for evictions.
In response to this threat to fairness and stability for Seattle's renters, the Tenants Union proposed our version of a JCEO that will protect innocent tenants and give landlords mechanisms to evict trouble makers. In addition, we propose penalties to deter landlords from violating the law and compensation for tenants who are wrongfully evicted.
A vote is expected soon, so please call your Seattle City Council members at 684-8888 and declare your support for the Tenants Union's proposals for a strong and fair JCEO. For more information, call us at 722-6848.
-John Gould is Lead Organizer at the Seattle Tenants' Union