Proposal to strengthen Tacoma tenants’ rights reaches important milestone
Community organizers on June 16 submitted nearly 9,000 signatures at Tacoma City Hall for a ballot initiative that would create an enforcement mechanism for Tacoma’s tenants protections.
Tacoma For All, the group that spearheaded recent efforts to bolster tenants rights in Tacoma, is looking for voter approval on a measure that would strengthen requirements for landlords to comply with Tacoma’s tenants rights laws. Currently, those laws are only enforceable when people pursue legal action.
The “Safe Homes for All” campaign outlines a per-unit rental license fee that it says would cover the cost for the city to enforce its tenant laws. Tacoma is facing an ever-growing budget deficit, now up to $40 million.
The measure would build on existing protections and laws for landlords and tenants in Tacoma, outlined in the recently-controversial Landlord Fairness Code Initiative. That measure, which voters narrowly approved in 2023, outlines strong protections for Tacoma’s tenants, including a moratorium on cold evictions during cold weather months.
“What we have today is over 8,700 Tacoma residents who are making a simple demand,” Tacoma For All executive director Tyron Moore said at a press conference before the group delivered the signatures to the city clerk. “That the rights of tenants be respected, that landlords be held accountable, and the city does their job to enforce the law.”
Now that Tacoma for All has submitted the signatures, the city clerk will forward the signatures to the Pierce County auditor for verification, according to the city’s website. Once the city clerk assesses the validity of the petition based on the auditor’s findings, the measure will go to the Tacoma City Council for review.
The council could choose to implement the measure directly or reject it and send it to the ballot for voters to decide. Last year community organizers used the same process to put a “Workers Bill of Rights” on the ballot. The council chose to reject the measure and send it to the ballot but did so after the county’s deadline, triggering a protracted legal battle in which organizers allege that the city meant to block the measure from appearing on the ballot – which the city has rejected.
The matter is before the state’s Court of Appeals, with oral arguments currently scheduled for Sept. 15.
Moore said the group is following the case closely, out of concerns that the city might attempt “some creative legal maneuvers” to prevent its latest measure from getting to the November ballot.
“All we can do is jump through the hoops that the city charter has put before us, and I think we’ve done everything right so far,” Moore told The News Tribune.
In the days before Tacoma For All delivered the signatures, at-large Tacoma City Councilmember Latasha Palmer announced plans to introduce a resolution that would recognize the need for rental housing units to be kept in good repair and affirm the importance of educating tenants and landlords about those requirements.
Moore said the group viewed her resolution as a friendly addition to their ballot measure – different from what Tacoma For All has described as the city’s efforts to propose a competing resolution to past citizen’s initiatives.
“We viewed what she was looking into as a parallel set of policies,” Moore told The News Tribune.
He said Palmer is a member of Tacoma For All and received its endorsement during the election.
In the hours leading up to the City Council study session in which Palmer planned to introduce the resolution, she issued a statement to The News Tribune saying that she was going to take “additional time to think about how to best advance my work.”
Palmer did not make herself available for an interview with The News Tribune and did not further elaborate on her reasoning for tabling the resolution. Moore said she pulled the discussion since Tacoma For All moved to put Safe Homes For All on the ballot.
“Some of it might not be viable until it’s decided by voters,” he said.
This story was originally published June 16, 2026 at 2:35 PM.
