Three times in the past three years, Portland voters voiced their overwhelming support for rent control and tenant protections.

In November 2020, following a decade of skyrocketing rents and a year of unprecedented working-class precarity, more than 58% of Portland voters voted for rent control. Two years later, voters strengthened tenant protections by a nearly 10-point margin. When a landlord association spent nearly a quarter of a million dollars attempting to gut rent control this past June, Portlanders rejected it 2:1. 

While Portland’s residents were voting to prevent vacancy decontrol this past summer, another group of city landlords were working to collect signatures for another Question A for next week’s election, a measure which would once again significantly weaken rent control and tenant protections in Portland.

This referendum, on the Portland municipal ballot this coming Tuesday, Nov. 7, would exempt any landlord who has an ownership stake in nine or fewer units from complying with Portland’s rent control and tenant protection ordinance.

If it passes, thousands of tenants will no longer have any recourse against exorbitant rent increases or insufficiently short eviction notices.   

The fact is, “small landlord” is an incredibly subjective concept with no firm or precise legal definition. Portland’s current rent control ordinance already contains an exemption for landlords who own four or fewer units and occupy one of them. Owners who live alongside their tenants in smaller properties often have a vested interest in maintaining a safe, affordable, and consistent housing situation for their tenants; absentee landlords simply do not have that same incentive. 

Question A would effectively roll back rent control, creating a two-tiered system in which some renters have robust protections while thousands of others possess very few. An estimated 9,000 renters will once again be subjected to the whims of certain landlords, a relatively small group of economic actors who hold a disparate amount of power over the lives of our community members.

If Question A passes, thousands of Portlanders will no longer have protection from rent gouging. Further, they will lose eviction protections, lose relocation assistance, lose added Sec. 8 protections and lose tenant union protections. Those landlords will once again be able to raise rent on their tenants by as much as they want, with no checks or balances.

As I have outlined in past columns, Portland is a city of tenants. About 54% of our residents are renters. Seven out of 10 tenants in our city are cost burdened by rent. The housing crisis across Maine, but especially in Portland, is dire. As we look to our public officials and city leaders to increase our available stock of truly affordable housing units, it is paramount that we keep the price of rent from continuing to climb.   

Rejecting Question A is about protecting the public.

When public health is at stake, we need to reel in sectors of the economy that are harming it. During a housing crisis, landlords should not be able to raise rents without any checks and without oversight, which is what this proposal would allow for one group.

The free market has failed to provide solutions to this crisis. Landlords who own multiple properties in a red-hot housing market are not suffering right now, tenants are. These are our service workers, our nurses, our teachers, our friends and neighbors – the very folks who make Portland the vibrant city that it is, the people who make our city run. We need to keep those thousands of tenants protected. Please join me in voting “no” on Question A on Nov. 7. 

Copy the Story Link