HomeMy WebLinkAbout06-25-24 Public Comment - Z. Osman - Fully Fund Tenants' Right to CounselFrom:Zehra Osman
To:Bozeman Public Comment; Terry Cunningham; Joey Morrison; Jennifer Madgic; Douglas Fischer
Subject:[EXTERNAL]Fully Fund Tenants" Right to Counsel
Date:Monday, June 24, 2024 5:38:12 PM
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(City Clerk, please post to public comment. Also, I could not find Commissioner Bode’s email address, so
please send this to her as well. Thank you!)
Honorable Mayor Cunningham, Deputy Mayor Morrison, and Commissioners Bode, Madgic, and Fischer,
Bozeman residents need your help. Our housing systems have become financialized, which has caused
skyrocketing housing prices, property taxes, and rental rates. Consequently, people are losing their homes.
They are subject to eviction, financial hardship, and homelessness. Though you may not have many tools in
your tool chest to protect us all from this global housing crisis, you do have access to one tool that can
mitigate its injury to our neighbors who currently have the least amount of housing security — our tenants.
You can help our tenant neighbors have a chance to avert eviction and homelessness by fully funding a
Right to Legal Counsel program for Bozeman tenants.
Google the words “real estate investment in Bozeman” and you’ll see that Bozeman is no longer a city of
only mom and pop landlords. Unfortunately, like the rest of the world, Bozeman’s housing sector has
become a place to park, grow, leverage, and/or hide capital. Residential real estate has become the
investment of choice for many, including institutional investors, who most often acquire housing for the
profits or income that can be generated from it and even convert homes into financial instruments that are
traded on global markets. Residential real estate is attractive for its potential to offer secure income-yielding
investments, a hedge against inflation, portfolio diversification, and low volatility compared to other asset
classes. Yes, housing has become an asset class rather than a place for families to call home and investors
are funding the “mowing-down” of our City to make money.
In May 2024, the FBI raided Cortland Management, a major corporate landlord in Atlanta. Cortland
Management artificially increased rents using RealPage, an advanced property management software that
uses an algorithm to facilitate and encourage landlords to collude in rent increases. Please look up
ProPublica’s story about this software and also look up RealPage in Montana.
Many decisions that affect tenants are often made unilaterally by executives who may have little connection
to the properties they own or the communities they are in. Rents are raised without limits (or with tenant
turnover) and permitting the exploitation of legal provisions, such as no-cause or expedited eviction
proceedings, as a means of increasing rents. No-fault evictions are inconsistent with security of tenure.
Evictions that will render the tenant homeless must also be strictly prohibited. Tenant protections must
extend to all tenants, regardless of who owns the unit in which they reside, the type of tenure they hold,
and/or their available resources/income.
Bozeman’s tenants are up against an unprecedented and insecure financialized housing system and need to
at least have their day in court with access to legal counsel. So far, 17 cities in the U.S. have now enacted
Tenants' Right to Counsel, including Boulder, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Louisville, Newark, New York City,
and San Francisco. Where Right to Counsel has passed, it has reduced eviction filings, kept tenants in their
homes, helped further housing stability for those who must or desire to move, and saved money for the
government.
I strongly urge the Bozeman City Commission to fully fund a Tenants’ Right to Counsel. At this time, it is
the right tool to use given the incredible odds our City is up against.
Respectfully,
Zehra Osman
312 Sanders Ave, 59718