Renters and activists urged the St. Paul Metropolis Council to not exempt reasonably priced housing from town’s lease management coverage throughout a public listening to on Aug. 24, 2022. With out sources for enforcement, the creator argues, tenant protections like lease conrol are too typically moot. (Picture by Max Nesterak/Minnesota Reformer)
A 4-3 St. Paul Metropolis Council vote in September affords a cautionary story for cities nationwide: Rights with out enforcement create techniques the place even well-intentioned officers wrestle to make protections work.
When tenants on Ashland Avenue confronted 28.5% lease will increase regardless of residing with water leaks, mould, deteriorating foundations and wobbly staircases, they spent months combating for protections town ought to have supplied routinely. The slim majority (Councilmembers Cheniqua Johnson, Hwa Jeong Kim, Rebecca Noecker and Nelsie Yang) sided with tenants, limiting will increase to three%. That’s the excellent news. However dissenting council members Molly Coleman, Anika Bowie, and Saura Jost revealed how enforcement gaps power inconceivable decisions for tenants and metropolis authorities alike.
Cities nationwide have embraced tenant safety insurance policies — lease management, just-cause eviction, habitability requirements — however then they don’t fund enforcement. The result’s “paper rights” — tenants can’t entry these protections except they’ve monumental sources to tackle landlords, public officers and bureaucratic inertia.
This case illustrates St. Paul’s strategy to tenant points: create elaborate protections on paper, present minimal enforcement, then blame tenants for the ensuing dysfunction.
The town’s lease stabilization ordinance caps annual will increase at 3% however permits exceptions, together with for landlords who can show want for “affordable return on funding.” Because it stands, tenants can attraction these will increase. Since 2022, simply 29 tenant appeals have made it to the Metropolis Council with roughly 7-in-10 circumstances denied previous to this September’s case. What occurred on Ashland Avenue exhibits how this complete course of truly works: Metropolis employees accredited a 28.5% enhance after reviewing monetary paperwork, apparently with out adequately assessing whether or not the items met primary upkeep requirements, with the listening to officer suggesting the council do the identical by means of denial of tenant appeals in opposition to such a rise.
Solely when tenants organized and appealed did issues come to mild. As a substitute of guaranteeing requirements have been met earlier than approving lease will increase, town required tenants to show their items have been substandard.
In different phrases: Right here’s your rights — good luck imposing them by yourself.
When enforcement fails, officers typically select landlords
When council members voted in opposition to limiting the lease enhance, their reasoning revealed how enforcement gaps power inconceivable decisions — and whose pursuits get prioritized.
Coleman and Jost deferred to techniques that had already failed. Coleman argued habitability questions “must be decided by means of metropolis inspections or in housing courtroom” — regardless that the Division of Security and Inspections had didn’t assess situations earlier than approving will increase. Each stated: Belief the method, even when the method simply failed.
Bowie opposed the tenants’ attraction to guard “naturally occurring reasonably priced housing.” Regardless of acknowledging unsafe stairways and deterioration, she proposed permitting a 20% enhance as a result of landlords could be “working at a web zero whereas complying with metropolis code.” For different Ashland items: “These rents are under market charge… This isn’t a scenario of a landlord attempting to jack up the lease.”
This asks tenants to soak up substandard situations and main lease will increase to protect landlord viability. Tenants residing with mould and unsafe situations are already subsidizing the owner’s operation with their well being.
The dissenting votes weren’t from incomplete data — the council had intensive documentation from a HUD-certified inspector and tenant testimony. These have been worth decisions about whose pursuits matter most when enforcement fails.
The 4-3 vote exhibits why enforcement gaps are corrosive: They burden tenants whereas forcing officers into inconceivable decisions. With out enough enforcement, metropolis leaders default to preserving the established order. The end result: tenants lose.
The broader lesson
Tenant protections fail with out three elements:
Proactive enforcement: Cities should confirm compliance earlier than approving dangerous actions. Grievance-driven enforcement burdens susceptible tenants and forces officers to determine with incomplete data. Landlords with important property violations ought to not conceal on a metropolis council consent agenda when their license comes up for renewal or after they self-certify their lease will increase, however be topic to investigation and dialogue earlier than the general public who sanctions their enterprise within the first place.
Ample sources: St. Paul budgeted lower than $500,000 for lease stabilization in 2025 to supervise hundreds of items. It was inadequate this yr, and as half of our metropolis rents, it is going to proceed to be with out considerably extra money. This funds hole forces officers to make judgment calls with out verification infrastructure, and leaves metropolis employees compelled to chop corners after they would slightly do the correct factor by their neighbors.
Clear authority: The dissenting members’ uncertainty about contemplating habitability displays unclear authority permitting failures to proceed. Cities should outline enforcement requirements clearly, and achieve this in a manner that gives readability to decisionmakers and to these looking for remediation.
With out these, tenant protections exhaust tenants whereas leaving officers navigating claims with out assist.
The 4-3 vote went proper, however three dissenting votes revealed how enforcement failures create inconceivable conditions. In cities implementing tenant protections, the lesson is that rights with out enforcement don’t simply fail tenants — they create techniques the place even well-intentioned officers lack instruments to make protections work.