 Good afternoon and welcome. Thank you so much for joining us here at Town Meeting Television's continuing coverage of Town Meeting 2021. Today we are talking about one of the Burlington ballot items number five, which is a proposed charter change to provide protections for residential tenants from evictions without just cause. We had a presentation with Brian Pine and Sarah Carpenter, both city counselors to talk about why they felt this was the pro position in effect and why voters should support it. And today we're talking with three people who are going to give us some information about possibly why to vote against it. And that includes counselor Chip Mason, Betsy Allen Pennebaker, who is a landlord, and Amanda Skahan, who is a tenant. And we're so glad you could join us today. I'm just gonna read this quickly in case people watch it as a standalone piece. Shall the city of Burlington, the charter of the city of Burlington be further amended to give the city council power to provide by ordinance protections for residential tenants from evictions without just cause by adopting and adding a new section that identifies certain definitions of just cause, excludes from just cause the expiration of rental agreements as a sole grounds for termination of tenancy, except for certain properties subject to mitigation provisions such as adequate notice and limits unreasonable rent increases to prevent de facto evictions or non-renewals. So there are some current reasons that people might, there may be just cause and maybe Chip, you can tell us a little bit about the current situation, how we got here and your view of this proposed what would be a charter change. It would have to go to the legislature for approval before the charter of Burlington was changed. So thanks for joining us and fill us in on the background from your point of view. Sure, thank you. Thank you for inviting us into the opportunity to speak to this. This started in essence was an outgrowth, one of I think four outgrowths of the housing summit that the mayor held two plus years ago. There were a number of areas. And again, the purpose of the summit was to really take a look at our housing supply. I think it goes universally acknowledged that we have, I wanna say housing crisis, but we certainly are lacking, we hear, et cetera. So this was one of the areas that spun out of that as an area that the mayor thought Tassido was sort of looking, was this just cause eviction or something that the city should be looking at? From there, the answer was yes, it's something we should look further. And it was sent really to two committees, Charter Change Committee, which councilor Shannon shared and also the public CDNR committee, excuse me, with councilor Pine shared. And through the course of, I would say an extended period of time, this ordinance, there was sort of a push pull about what this change should look like. Some initially were of the view that we should just pass very broad enabling legislation that basically where the state says, do what you want on just cause city of Brawlington. And then there were others who felt very emphatic that, well, wait, that's a pretty broad brush and people need to know specifically what is just cause before taking a position on whether this is the right step or the next step. That tension played out over a number of months between the two committees. And ultimately what we're looking at, I would say is sort of the in between. It is specific or enabling legislation. It would afford, should this pass, not just by the voters, but also the legislature and signed by the governor, it would still have to come back to the city council to basically craft ordinance changes around that. However, this does give some pretty clear guidance, I think in terms of what some things that would be okay and others that weren't. As it worked through the process, sort of the first time I saw this, I'm an attorney by trade. I don't do this type of work. I don't do eviction work. But my first question to Councillor Pine and Councillor Carpenter, sort of the proponents was very big concern about the language that precluded what I'll say is eviction at the end of a lease term. As a lawyer, I was trying to wrap my head around how that's eviction. You sign a contract with a landlord that says you're allowed to stay in that space for let's say a year or longer. And I didn't understand how there was an eviction if at the end of the lease, in essence where the tenant no longer has a right to be on the property, how that was an eviction. And I'm particularly concerned as everyone well knows, like it or not, we are a college town. There are thousands of units that turn over on an annual basis. And as I was asking the question to Councillor Pine and Carpenter, what happens, I'm a landlord who rents on an annual basis and counts on that academic calendar for purposes of renting my space. What do I do if at the end of that term, a tenant doesn't leave? The way the cycle works, I mean, I know this, those apartments get rented well and advance of the move-in date on June. In fact, most of them rent in September. So I'm not sure the havoc that will be played if landlords have rented to a new tenant in September on the assumption the space will be free in June and come June, the tenant's not leaving and I have no way to get them out provided as this is drafted. That's the only basis for the eviction. So that was, when this came to the full council, that was really my principle, the principle objection that I voiced. I know other councillors had some concerns on, for example, the rent, the increased language, that constituting rent control. But that really to me, I'm still having a hard time wrapping my head around that. And my view was, if someone is interested in a longer term residency, there's always an option to sign more than a one-year turn lease. But I worry, clients that have come to me over the course of time, I think there's also this misnomer about what eviction is and how challenging it is. We do not have a court system. We don't have a separate housing court in Burlington or Vermont. And in order to evict someone is not an insignificant process. When I've had clients, there's really actually, there's one lawyer that I'm aware of in town who does this as a full-time job. And her advice usually is, it's not worth it for you economically to go through the legal process of evicting a tenant. The best thing you can do is literally pay your tenant in order to get out of the space. That's cheaper than the thousands of dollars you're going to end up paying me and the time it's going to take to get the tenant out. And my concern is always, those costs, as much as we would like to think a landlord simply absorbs those costs and that's the way it should be, that's not what happens in reality. In my experience, we all see this. If your taxes go up, which they do every year, that's not typically a cost that the landlord absorbs. That's a cost that gets passed through, which results in an increase in renting costs. So that's sort of, I'll stop there as sort of a lead-in and the principal concern and objection that I had as this move through the process. Thanks so much, Chip. Betsy Allen, Pennebaker, you are a landlord and I wonder, I know you have a number of concerns, but this charter change sounds like when it happens, it could be written as Chip suggests that the charter supersedes the contract that you have with the tenant. Does that worry you? Very much so, yeah. And I have a few reasons why I oppose this, right? Sort of by practical reasons and philosophical reasons, but I'll lead with the personal reasons, which is that I was sexually harassed by one of my tenants and if that person had had perpetual tendency, I would never have been able to get rid of him because it was that kind of harassment that's incredibly hard to prove. Somebody would go into court and say, oh, it was a joke, right, but this guy would get me in there to allegedly deal with quote unquote black mold in the bathroom and it was really just mold that he had not cleaned, because he had not cleaned the bathroom and then he would leer at me and tell me that, well, I should just go clean his bathroom because that's what women do, right? And every time I went in there, he complained about something, he had pornography everywhere. When I stopped finally being extremely polite to him, he called my husband to complain that I was rude when I was simply just trying to not talk to him anymore. This guy was really problematic and he was also smoking in the apartment and the smoke was going into the neighboring unit where there was a baby sleeping and he said, well, the neighbors should move, right? And so this nice young family that's just trying to have a healthy place for their baby, they would have had to basically, give up their right to safe and secure housing in order to sort of have this guy stay if we had just cause, he would stay and they would go, and so I find this deeply problematic because as Chip says, people don't go to court to do evictions for no reason. It's really hard and it's really expensive. So I would submit that most of those quote unquote, no cause evictions that you see in court are really causes like that where a landlord is trying to protect themselves or their neighbors from harassment or intimidation or criminal behavior that flies just a little bit below the radar. People don't do this for no reason. And if you take away no cause eviction, if you take away no cause eviction, then landlords can't protect themselves against that kind of harassment and landlords can't protect their tenants against that kind of harassment. I think it's a really dangerous move. So do you have some broader political reasons that this might not make sense like comparisons with other communities? Well, I do. First of all, I'll just start with like sort of a more like political philosophical statement which is that I believe that housing is a right. 100% housing is right. The thing about rights like housing as opposed to rights like speech is that rights like housing call in the community to provide the right, right? Just like the right to healthcare calls in the community to provide healthcare. We tend to think in our policymaking that rights like that should be the cost of rights like that should be borne by the entire community. For example, we don't say that doctors once somebody becomes a patient that they should treat them perpetually. We don't say that a farmer once somebody enrolls in their CSA that they should be allowed to be in that CSA forever because food is a right or because healthcare is a right. This is a very unique situation where you're basically saying, well, somebody has a right to something and this very small subset of people has to provide it even if it leads to financial or emotional harm for that person. So I find that to be very strange and very problematic. And then the other thing that I would say is that in jurisdictions where this has been implemented, for example, there's been some really good research from a Stanford team of economists that looked at implementation of rental market regulation in San Francisco, which is often touted by people who are in favor of just cause evictions as a sort of a success case. Well, actually what they found is that for the very short term that first generation of tenants when the legislation went into effect, it was great for them. But when they moved out, what had happened was that landlords like me who got scared of what it could mean for them, they had transferred their units to other uses. So the housing supply in San Francisco actually got cut down by about 15%. And this team of economists estimated that as a result of the rents in San Francisco went up by about 5.1%. And they said that it actually increased gentrification in San Francisco and it increased income stratification, income inequality. Cause you either had the people that could afford to do the luxury apartments that a lot of the landlords had built instead of the buildings that they originally had that were subject to rental market regulation or then you had the few remaining tenants that were still protected under the ordinance when it originally went into effect, the ones that had not moved, right? So all these claims that are out there about how it's gonna prevent gentrification and it's gonna keep rents low, the empirical data does not support that. Well, and I imagined that the gentrification trend would come if landlords take their house off the market because they don't wanna be landlords anymore and they wanna sell it and then there's less rental market housing potentially. Exactly. And I will say that I watched this being debated in the city council and the very next day we put our triplex on the market because and partly that was guided by my personal experience which led me to have a very strong reaction, right? But I said to my husband, I'm not gonna get put in that position ever again. And he said, absolutely not, honey, you should not. And we put it on the market. And we've kept the other one simply because we have family and a very dear friend that live in that other duplex that we have. So we feel safe keeping them there because we know them and trust them. But we're out of the business. So thank you, Betsy. Before we check in with Amanda Chip, was there any data on the instances of problems with landlords? For example, with the noise ordinance, it was determined that actually there were a handful of places that were creating noise problems and that the enforcement didn't need to be city-wide that it could really be focused on those places. Would that be a kind of corollary to this? This was a little bit more challenging. I mean, the answer is no, there was not in a presentation of Burlington specific data. There was some preliminary data submitted by Legal Aid that was Chittenden County in applicability. And part of the challenge is the numbers, I don't remember the numbers specifically, but there was no way to sort of winnow down again on a cause without cause, just a total number of eviction cases. So the answer is unfortunately, no, there was not specific data that either side. How much of it was anecdotal? And I don't mean to undersell, they were real stories. I mean, there were people who came and testified that said, there were landlords who were not doing things that I think we as a community would be proud of. Some of them, and in fact, I find interest, some of you in what's in here is already not permissible under state law. So discriminating against someone on the basis of gender or sex or other things, arguably they'll be duplicated in this no cause eviction, but some of it already was there. So the short answer is no, there was no city specific data to either prove or not prove that this is a problem that merits this type of approach. Thank you. Amanda Skahan, could you tell us a little bit about your experiences at Tenant, your view on this just cause eviction charter change proposal? Yeah, thanks. So I've been a tenant all my life. I've lived in really good housing. I've lived in really terrible housing. I've lived on section eight. And when I first heard about this charter change, I was excited because I think in principle, it's trying to help tenants. It's trying to promote stability, which is something that I think people who rely on leases understand that there's an element to fear each year about whether or not you're going to get renewed. But the more that I look through the language, the more I had concerns about how it's disincentivizing landlords being able to advocate for the maintenance of healthy, happy living environments. I've lived, you know, growing up for a time. We live beneath co-dealers and had some rather difficult living situations at times because of that, because of people coming in and out of the building. And I started to look through some of the letters that were being sent into the committees that were handling these issues of just cause. There were complaints from tenants and landlords about drug dealing in buildings, drug use. You know, if you've ever passed through a building where certain drugs are being heated, there are strong, strong smells from that that could affect your ability to live well in an environment. There were people that were calling about, excuse me, testifying to sexual harassment and to harassment of their children. I think what Chip was talking about before it really is the backbone of why I'm concerned. The eviction process takes a long time, even in cases where it's pretty clear cut. Most evictions are around people not being able to afford where they're living. And those cases still have a long window of time. This is not addressed in that. Those evictions are still going to happen. But now landlords are going to likely need legal counsel in order to advocate on behalf of their tenants in situations where they're being harassed or otherwise made unhappy through their living situation because of other tenants. I'm concerned that landlords are not going to either want to spend that money or be able to afford to spend that money to go to court. And I'm concerned that tenants are not going to feel are not going to feel comfortable testifying. I'm also concerned about the burden of proof and perhaps Chip could weigh in on that more. I think that that's something that might be fleshed out more at an ordinance level. But some of these issues that come up, they're very difficult to prove in a court situation. Typically my experience is that landlords use lease expiry as a way to end problematic relationships without the financial burden and the liability because there's always a risk in going to court that action will also be taken against you. So yeah, that's one primary concern that I have. And then another issue would be that having spent a period of my life on section eight, I understand what it is to some degree in being discriminated against in housing. Oftentimes landlords would be circumspect about renting, even though it's not legal, they're circumspect about renting to people that are using housing vouchers. And one of the reasons for that that I think is interesting and applicable to the issue of just cause is that landlords are worried there's this sort of rumor about being more difficult to get a section eight tenant out of a building than the event that you do have to affect. And so they're much more hesitant to rent to you, much more discerning. I'm concerned that this charter change is going to lead to more upfront discrimination, more background checks, more credit checks. I think it's going to make it more difficult for people to get housing. I just want to make sure, Chip, there's a couple of questions Amanda asked you that perhaps you held on to, you want to respond to. And then I have a couple of questions. One of them related to the court process. And I have to confess, I am not a litigator. So I am not, you know, intimately familiar with court process involving an eviction hearing. So that one I'm at a loss to answer. And I don't know that I recall the other ones, Lauren. Okay. Amanda, did you want to follow up with Chip? Was there anything? No, no, I think that that sort of sums it up, that there's a lot that we still don't know. And we're going to be voting on a charter change where we don't really know what the impact is ultimately going to be. So that I think sums it up for itself. I mean, Amanda hit on a point that I maybe didn't hit closely enough. The people that reached out, you know, to oppose this as we were going through the process were not the big landlords, you know, these were not the names that, you know, the Red Stones, the Bisonettes, the, you know, that Handys that own hundreds and hundreds. This, for them, this is just business as usual. The people that were really reaching out were, you know, those who might have one, you know, one unit, one building and sort of saying, well, wait a minute, does this mean that I'll never, you know, I can't get someone out if they don't want to, assuming it's a good tenant. And that I think was, I mean, the answer was yes. And that was the piece that I think from the smaller landlords that they found most disconcerting, that as Amanda alluded to, I mean, let's be honest, it's very hard, you know, with an application to ensure that you're getting, you know, the best tenants, some are good, some are bad. Some things don't work out, not that it's a bad person, it's just personality conflict or other. And the way that these small landlords have typically dealt with that is not to go through any eviction. There may not be a basis to evict, but really wait till the, you know, just we'll deal with it, you know, the lease is up in June and we'll bring in a new tenant. If we've removed that as an opportunity to address, you know, the underlying conflict, my concern is it's, you know, going to cost, again, that small landlord more, and they simply don't have the budget to absorb, you know, that type of cost. And I think for me, that's one of the big worries. It's the little landlords. It's not, you know, not the big landlords. And again, I mean, I come back to this, and I say this often, I am not aware in any of the testimony, you know, of if it's a tenant who's, you know, paying their bills and everything's fine, I've never known a landlord to just kick someone out just because, you know, just because they want that tenant out. There's usually some conflict in the relations or some reason, you know, it's because, let's be clear, if a landlord's going to re-let, you know, their expenses that they have to incur, re-advertise, you know, go show the property, get the lease signed, you know, those are all expenses that they wouldn't incur unless they wanted a new tenant. So, you know, we somewhat, I think, lose that in this conversation. So let me just ask, and then I'll give Betsy a chance to wrap it up. Am I correct in understanding that the current just cause definition includes a tenant's material breach of the agreement. That is correct. And its violation of the statutes, non-payment of rent and failure to accept written reasonable good faith renewal terms. So that's already in the charter. I mean, right? So it isn't actually exactly true to say that a landlord can't take action against a tenant because they haven't paid rent. I don't believe that's in the charter. There's nothing, you know, that's typically in a lease agreement, but there is not, no, that is all new language. We do not have a current provision that says when you can or cannot. It would be dictated by the lease agreement between the two parties. So what's wrong with those conditions? I said nothing. And if I was willing to strike the language on the expiration of the term, I was prepared to vote in favor of this. What about you, Betsy? Well, one thing I learned as I was looking into this is that about Vermont Legal Aid estimates that about 70% of evictions are for non-payment of rent, or at least that's the only thing mentioned in the court filing. And so if we're looking to actually cut down on the number of evictions, right, then Just Cause doesn't do it. Doesn't do it for the vast majority of them. And that Vermont Legal Aid provided some really interesting research that showed that for a really quite small amount, rental arrears could be paid for most of those tenants. And so that would be a much more effective policy than trying to stick it to a small group of people who are easily demonized to basically, just to externalize the costs onto that group of people. So I think this is, I would describe this as basically policymaking by bumper sticker, right? Like you're going for an easy win, but you're not actually really addressing most of the problem with this. And then I have a couple more points too that I would love to make to follow up on some of the other things people said. You have two minutes. Okay, so I really feel like, you know, I need to address a couple of things that Sarah Carpenter and Brian Pine said when they were on. Basically, as Sarah Carpenter said, well, if you're a landlord, you won't really have problems with your tenants, or if you do have problems with your tenants, what you need to do is get to know them, right? You need to like, like do the documentation. You need to like get to know them and understand them. And I'm sorry, like I do not think that the solution to being sexually harassed was for me to go spend more time with that guy and get to know him, right? And so I found that to be a really like insidious and weird form of blaming the victim. And I have to say I was angry when I saw that. And I also felt like it just showed that this is a person who doesn't like get it. And the other thing is that if we're gonna start trying to document abuses, right? Like we're document criminal behavior in order to get somebody out. Well, we've just cut the police force. They're not gonna have time to come monitor this small-time criminal activity at my building that I would then need to go to court. So basically as a landlord, I'm getting pinched from both sides. I don't have the ability to act on my own to take care of my other tenants. And I also don't have the institutional support to act to take care of my other tenants, right? And the final thing that I would say is that there are provisions in this ordinance or in this charter change to exempt owner occupiers from this, right? The idea is that you don't wanna put owner occupiers in a situation where they're dealing with a tenant that harasses them or makes their life uncomfortable, right? Well, if we understand that owner occupiers need that protection, why would we not think that neighbors who don't live in a building where there happens to be an owner occupier wouldn't need that protection? It's actually a very elitist way of thinking about this, right? Owner occupiers are not gonna get this protection that people who can't afford to be owner occupiers who are still only able to afford to rent are not gonna get, right? So it's actually an incredibly classist prohibition. So if you think that owner occupiers need the protection, then you also need to think that the neighbors need the protection and just cause is really not the right thing. I wanna thank the three of you so much for being here with us today. We're on the question is the number five ballot question for the Burlington voters on the charter change to provide protections for residential tenants from evictions without just cause. Chip Mason, counselor from the city of Burlington, Betsy Allen, Pennebaker, local landlord, and Amanda Skahan tenant. Thank you so much for joining us and thank you for watching. We really appreciate it. Thank you, Laura. Thank you. Thank you.