Unrepentant Tenant: Rent control rallies and 1980s rent tenant battles

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June 16, 2022

Volume XXIX, number 40

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Rent control rallies and 1980s tenant battles

by Mark Fearer

The summer heat is not only breaking records (thank you, climate crisis) but also manifesting itself in the world of rent control and activism.

Two separate rallies have been announced to bring attention to outrageous rents. On June 30 at 6:30 p.m. on the west steps of the Colorado Capitol, two organizations, Together Colorado and 9to5 Colorado, are holding a rally to protest the recent veto threat by Gov. Polis on a rent stabilization measure for mobile home lot rents. HB 1287 passed with some good protections for mobile home residents, but only after the bills’ sponsors agreed to gut their own proposal by stripping out the most powerful protection, namely, to limit rent increases for mobile home lots. It’s a good opportunity for mobile home residents to voice their opposition to Polis’ veto threat, said Meghan Carrier, of Together Colorado, and push back against the despair on unending rent increases (see Unrepentant Tenant, “Rent relief in St. Paul and the Polis Betrayal,” May 5, 2022).

e second summer rally will be on July 10 and will protest the state law banning rent control. Sponsored by the Colorado Housing for All Coalition (which includes Together Colorado and 9to5 Colorado), I’ll write more about that event in my next column.

Returning to the big picture of tenant protections from 1969-1985, three Boulder tenant groups were active— e Boulder Tenants Union, Boulder County Tenants Organization and the Renters Rights Project. As they organized and counseled thousands of renters during those years, they collected a mountain of information and saw a number of consistent issues come up, and raised them to the City Council and the media to get meaningful changes. (Simultaneously, Boulder’s Human Rights O ce was receiving more than 200 tenant complaints per year on similar issues. Other organizations, such as Boulder Legal

Services, CU O Campus Housing and others, also elded similar grievances.)

Tenants didn’t always get those changes, but it did result in Boulder having the best renter protections of any Colorado city, although it still lags behind many states. Sadly, few tenants know about those protections, back then and now.

My last column left o with BTU working with the city’s Human Relations Committee (HRC) to get an ordinance requiring landlords to have a written copy of the lease (if over 30 days) and tenants getting a copy of that lease. at happened in 1983, in spite of lobbying by landlords from the Boulder Rental Property Association. e previous year, BTU had pushed for a raft of other tenant protections, including a Warranty of Habitability, just-cause eviction protection, creation of a Housing Commission, interest on deposits, and privacy protection.

CURRENTLY, COLORADO LAW ALLOWS

LANDLORDS to evict tenants on month-to- BANNING NO CAUSE month leases (with EVICTIONS Currently, minimal notice) or not Colorado laws allow landlords to renew leases. evict tenants on month-to-month leases (with minimal notice), or not renew leases—for any or no reason. BTU had received a number of tenant complaints about these nocause or unjust evictions, and proposed working with the city to require just cause for those situations. No action was taken by either the HRC nor the city council on that issue.

HOUSING COMMISSION

Rather than deal directly with tenant issues, City Council referred most of those issues to the HRC during the early 1980s. While the HRC did hold hearings on most of the issues, they didn’t have the time nor expertise to deal with the proposals BTU was advocating for. During the summer of 1981, the HRC recommended the city establish a separate committee to deal with housing issues, especially rental issues. City Council ignored that advice, and several months later, BTU started another petition drive to create a Housing Commission.

“According to the petition,” the Colorado Daily reported in December, 1982, “the housing commission would be composed of nine city-appointed Boulder residents, including three tenants and one student. Five members would also have to be low- to moderate- incomes between $9,900 and $15,250 a year. Housing commission functions would include the study and preparation of a comprehensive housing policy for Boulder, plus provide a forum for landlord, tenant and homeowner issues. e Commission might also investigate the possibility of cooperative housing in Boulder and the impact that speculation has had on the price of city homes. (… )the commission could initiate a warranty of habitability or ‘better repair’ laws for rentals, banning ‘no cause’ evictions, and requiring landlords to pay tenants interest on security deposit.” No Housing Commission was created, but several years ago Boulder created a Housing Advisory Board. e HAB has yet to address tenant issues.

PRIVACY PROTECTION

BTU also heard numerous complaints about landlords gaining entry into tenants’ homes with little or no notice—either when they were present or not. No law requires notice of any kind be given. Lease terms may address the issue, but is often about the landlord’s convenience, not tenant privacy. After much debate, in late 1983, on a 5-4 vote, the council passed an ordinance that required landlords to give reasonable notice. But they refused to de ne what a reasonable time period was, making it virtually toothless.

Interest on deposits and warranty of habitability were also high on BTU’s agenda, and will be discussed in a future column. is opinion column does not necessarily re ect the views of Boulder Weekly.

ASK, LISTEN, VOTE ACCORDINGLY

Since Dave Anderson’s column on guns came out last week, there is indeed hope for some action in the Senate, perhaps in response to the bill that passed the House (The Anderson Files, “Fear, despair, and gun profiteering,” June 9, 2022). With elections coming, gun control, reproductive freedom, homelessness, tax fairness and more are driving voters to the polls. Time to ask questions of candidates to see where they stand. For example, do you support renewing the expanded Child Tax Credit that lifted 4 million children out of poverty? Ask, listen, vote accordingly. None of the crises in America are beyond answer, the question is who is willing to take action? Find out and then let’s elect/ re-elect them.

Willie Dickerson/Snohomish, WA

AS IF BOULDER CARES

This was my speech to Boulder City Council during open comment last night:

Let’s talk about Boulder exceptionalism. Philosophy professor Matthew Harris threatens mass murder at CU, God King Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche and his son are revealed as abusive sex cultists, while real Buddhist Wynn Bruce burns himself to death to protest climate arsonists like our drill baby drill governor! CU hires Trump insurrection attorney John Eastman and fires scientist Detlev Helmig for studying oil and gas emissions. CU invests student money in oil and gas, sealing their climate fate. Yet, city government caters to Polis, CU, Shambala, Xcel, all the 800-pound gorillas.

Boulder, where the roads are crumbling, swimming pools are half closed and half the city department heads have left since 2019, but there’s always millions to persecute the homeless and prevent people from using direct democracy to solve our own problems AND problems caused directly by government.

The new city manager, city attorney and city IT director have their jobs because we exposed their predecessors lying, cheating and defrauding taxpayers of half a million dollars, all to try to kill our online petitioning for direct democracy, which we voted for overwhelmingly, in 2018! (All documented at tinyurl.com/ petitionstory)

Yet the new administration told Boulder County Democrats a pack of lies when asked why the city wouldn’t give adequate notice that the online petition system has been fixed. People aren’t using it because they refuse to tell people it’s fixed and waited months to decide to fix it.

I’ll document the lies next time. As if you cared.

Evan Ravitz/Boulder

ONLY WOMEN SHOULD HAVE GUNS

As I stood in the kitchen listening to news of the latest mass shootings, I blurted out, “It’s always guys! Women never do these crazy things!” So, I searched and discovered that, since 1982, there have been 124 men shooters to 3