Group that pushed Tacoma’s ‘Tenant Bill of Rights’ proposes new initiative
A new initiative could boost the enforcement of tenants rights in Tacoma as organizers start gathering signatures to put the measure to voters.
Tacoma for All, the group that spearheaded an effort to get voter approval for a “Tenant Bill of Rights” in 2023, is starting the process to get voter approval for a measure that would strengthen requirements for landlords to comply with the city’s tenants rights laws. The group has started collecting signatures for what it’s calling the “Safe Homes for All” campaign, with the goal of obtaining about 9,000 by June 15.
If Tacoma for All gets the signatures it needs in time, it would pave the way for the measure to appear on the ballot in November. The group is doing so using Tacoma’s citizen’s initiative process – a process outlined in the city charter that allows residents to ask the voters to approve or reject ordinances, instead of the City Council.
What would the measure do?
The measure consists of several programs and rules that seek to improve landlords’ compliance with the city’s existing tenant protections. Tenants and landlords in Tacoma are subject to the voter-approved “Tenant Bill of Rights,” also known as the Landlord Fairness Code Initiative and the city of Tacoma’s Rental Housing Code.
The Landlord Fairness Code outlines requirements like a school-year and cold-weather eviction moratorium and a requirement for landlords to provide tenants with relocation assistance in the event of a rent increase at 5% or more. Felicia Medlen, Tacoma’s housing division manager, said those protections can only be enforced through individuals pursuing legal action.
The Rental Housing Code includes requirements like a cap on late fees for unpaid rent and a 180-day notice requirement for rent increases. Medlen said the city enforces those rules and has a penalty process in place for landlords who don’t comply with the Rental Housing Code.
The new initiative would require landlords to pay a per-unit rental license fee, proceeds from which would cover the cost of the enforcement of the city’s tenant laws. It would also require landlords to pay penalties for each violation of the city’s tenant laws to the tenant: at least $500 and not more than five times the monthly rent for the unit in question, according to the measure.
Large for-profit landlords would face additional penalties for repeat violations to cover the costs to the city of managing enforcement. The measure would allow the city of Tacoma to develop a separate rental-license fee structure for nonprofit low-income housing providers.
It also would require the city to start a program to educate both landlords and tenants about the city’s existing tenant laws.
“Noncompliance with the city of Tacoma’s tenant safety and protection laws remains a serious problem that erodes the safety and wellbeing of thousands of tenants across our city,” the measure states.
Ty Moore, co-executive director for Tacoma for All, said he’s confident the group will get the signatures it needs.
“We want to have a real deterrence, and we want to have a system that brings tenants justice for when their rights and their lives have been violated and disrupted,” Moore told The News Tribune.
Tacoma for All doesn’t want the taxpayers to bear the cost of funding the enforcement of tenants laws, Moore said, hence the license-fee structure.
“There may be some limited startup costs that will have to come out of general fund, but the program is designed to be implemented on a phased-in timeline,” he said.
The city of Tacoma is facing a structural budget deficit in its general fund, and city officials have warned of a $15 million shortfall in the 2027-2028 biennial budget, The News Tribune reported last year.
Sean Flynn, executive director of the Rental Housing Association of Washington, criticized the initiative, saying it would drive housing providers away from the city. Flynn said the cost of the per-unit rental license fee that the initiative proposes would trickle down to tenants, which would in turn drive rent prices up.
“If you want more affordable and more abundant housing in Tacoma, this is not the way to do it,” he told The News Tribune.
A controversial process
The group used the citizen’s initiative process for its Tenant Bill of Rights campaign in 2023, and a “Workers Bill of Rights” campaign in 2025, which sought to strengthen protections for workers in Tacoma and proposed raising the minimum wage to $20.
City leaders challenged both initiatives. For the Tenant Bill of Rights, the Tacoma City Council put forward another renter’s rights measure at the same time, but after a lawsuit a judge ruled that the city couldn’t do so.
The City Council last year embarked on an effort to update some of those rules, drawing “unprecedented” numbers of public commenters , former Mayor Victoria Woodards said at the time.
Litigation over the Workers Bill of Rights is ongoing. After the activists submitted signatures to put the measure on the ballot in November 2025, the Tacoma City Council had the option to enact it or reject the initiative and submit it to Pierce County elections officials to put it to the voters.
The council last year opted for the latter option but did so days after the county’s deadline to receive ballot measures for the November election. That meant the measure could not appear on the ballot – at least not until Tacoma for All and United Food and Commercial Workers Local 367 sued the city and county, and a judge ordered the measure to appear on the February 2026 ballot.
The city took the matter to the state Court of Appeals, which issued a stay of the judge’s decision as the appellate court reviews the case. The case is ongoing, according to court records.
Moore said it will be a challenge to get the 9,000 signatures the group plans to collect by mid-June – far more than the roughly 5,000 it needs to submit to the city. But with that extra wiggle room in signature count and timeline, it should be enough to get the measure to the November ballot, he said.
“If we submit signatures by June 15, council can’t make any excuses,” he said.
It is possible that the City Council could choose to enact the measure directly without putting the measure to the voters, a decision that Moore said Tacoma for All would welcome.
“That would be a great outcome,” he said. “But I guess I’m not holding my breath that that would be their decision.”
What would it cost the city?
Medlen said she won’t know what it might cost the city to implement Tacoma for All’s new initiative until the measure is confirmed to appear on the ballot.
“Until we have some more concrete information around that, it’s going to be hard to really quantify costs associated with it,” Medlen told The News Tribune.
If voters approve the measure and city staff determine that it will require an additional cost to implement, it would be up to the city manager and City Council to decide how to set aside funds for that purpose, she said.
