Del. Jheanelle Wilkins (D-Montgomery) and advocates from Renters United Maryland rallied in support of good cause evictions legislation in front of the State House on Tuesday. (Photo by Danielle J. Brown/Maryland Matters)
Advocates for renter protections braved frigid morning temperatures Tuesday for a rally urging lawmakers to finally pass “good cause” evictions legislation to protect tenants from kicked out without a justified reason.
“I know it’s very cold out here – which is just another reminder of how important it is to keep people safe and stable in their homes,” Christianne Marguerite, communications director for Progressive Maryland, said at a rally hosted in Annapolis by Renters United Maryland.
The legislation, also known as “just cause evictions,” would require that landlords who want to cancel a lease must inform tenants of the reason, from a specified list outlined in the bill. Reasons would include not paying rent, engaging in disorderly conduct or breaching the lease agreement, among other issues.
Last year, the measure passed the House but never came to a vote in the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee. But Renters United Maryland, a coalition of progressive advocates, are looking to Judicial Proceeding to bring the legislation to a vote this year and help push the bill over the finish line.
“We are on the cusp of finally passing good cause eviction … this will be the eighth year that we’re introducing this bill,” said Del. Jheanelle K. Wilkins (D-Montgomery), sponsor of the bill in the House. A companion bill is being sponsored in the Senate by Sen. Anthony Muse (D-Prince George’s). Both Muse and Wilkins sponsored the measure last year.
Their continued efforts this year will likely face pushback from housing developers and property managers, who say good cause evictions contribute to an “overregulated” housing market that is less friendly for future housing projects. This is at a time when state leaders are pushing for new development to solve a 96,000-unit housing shortage.
But Wilkins called housing “a matter of life or death. It is stability. It is security. It is access to resources, access to health care, access to food. And we have to make sure it is a part of our agenda to protect our communities under this administration.”
“As of yesterday, our communities are truly in danger,” she said, referencing Monday’s inauguration of President Donald Trump. “We saw executive orders that took action to literally harm the communities that we serve and the most vulnerable. One thing we can do, in terms of the plethora of things that the state has to do, is protect them when it comes to their housing.”
Advocates believe that without good cause requirements, tenants are at the whim of their landlord, who can use eviction to retaliate against tenants who raise concerns about inhospitable living conditions. All the landlord has to do is give 60 days’ notice, which leaves tenants a small window to find a new living arrangement.
Sen. President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) said before the start of this legislative session that good cause eviction legislation has “not been a priority” for the Senate, especially as the state looks to encourage new development to help tackle Maryland’s housing shortage. He said lawmakers will need to find balance between protecting renters and ensuring that developers want to build in Maryland.
“As we are looking to increase supply, if we put in policies that make it less of an incentive to build, we kind of cut our nose to spite our face,” Ferguson said at the time. “If we’re going to increase supply, it has to be the right balance with policy so that developers come in and quickly build … but we’ll see how things move forward.”
That very issue came up Tuesday afternoon, as renter advocates and housing developers pitched their cases to senators on the Judicial Proceedings Committee in a four-hour hearing on the pros and cons of good cause evictions, along with other contentious housing policies such as rent stabilization and vacancy control.
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“The reality is that many Maryland residents live in their homes at the whim of their landlords,” said David Wheaton with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, who said Black residents tend to be disproportionately hurt by evictions and housing instability.
“Any time their lease is up, or their landlord wants them out, they face possible eviction, even if they are keeping up with rent,” he said. “They’re doing everything they can, but at the end of their lease, they still are told that they have to move out.
“When these folks leave, where are they supposed to go?” he asked.
But Arianna Royster, senior adviser for the apartment company Borger Residential, told committee members that landlords are not incentivized to evict tenants without good reason, and good cause legislation could get in the way of removing “problem tenants.”
“These policies put good residents at risk by limiting the ability of housing providers to manage their properties and act quickly to remove problem residents,” she said. “As good business practice, apartment community owners and operators want long-term residents. And we strive to avoid eviction where possible. The process to evict and turn over an apartment is expensive.”
Gabrielle Duvall, president of the Southern Management Cos. which manages apartment complexes across Maryland and in Virginia, said that good cause evictions would restrict landlords and property managers in ways that other industries are not.
“If I behave poorly in a restaurant, we all agree, the restaurant can simply say … ‘We don’t want to do business with you any more.’ If my children misbehave in a grocery store, they can ask us not to come back,” she said.
“We are taking away, with just cause, the right of housing providers to say, ‘We are no longer in a contract together – we don’t want to continue doing business with you for the benefit of our other residents and we need to ask you to leave,’” Duvall said. “And for some reason, it feels okay to regulate housing differently than any other industry.”
At the end of the four-hour meeting, Committee Chair Sen. Will Smith (D-Montgomery) noted that good cause evictions, the state’s housing shortage and efforts to build up new developments are all part of an “extremely complex problem set.”
“The conversation continues,” he said.