Tacoma tenants owed fair warning, basic decency

Neighborhood gentrification looks quite nice when viewed from the outside, and Tacoma’s no exception. From Hilltop to South Tacoma, city blocks have buzzed with ribbon cuttings and open houses in recent years, ground zero for major remodels, business startups and infill development.

Investors who snap up rundown apartment complexes and rental houses with plans to upscale them can seem like saviors in the eyes of neighbors keen to see higher property values.

But when viewed from inside the gentrification zone, where low-income and placebound residents sometimes face eviction, an alarming picture comes into focus. 

Consider the Tiki Apartments on South Highland Avenue, where half the tenants were notified April 5 that they had 25 days to clear out; the other half were told to leave by the end of May.

The new owner, CWD Investments LLC, is evicting them to do a major retrofit of the aging 58-unit complex. The buyers are within their legal rights to improve the property, repopulate it, charge higher rents and presumably make some money doing it.

But the company offended basic standards of decency and the tenants’ dignity by giving them so little warning. 

Emergency protections were warranted, and the Tacoma City Council should be commended for responding promptly last month and finding a stopgap solution to a complex problem. Tiki residents, many of them low-income or disabled, now have until the end of June to figure out their next move. 

 It’s encouraging to see city leaders and affordable housing advocates intervene to ease tenant distress, motivated in part by the urgent storytelling of TNT columnist Matt Driscoll and staff writer Candice Ruud. 

 But it doesn’t change the fact that more Tacomans with few resources are being pressed to the edge of homelessness — casualties of a red-hot housing market with some of the steepest rent increases in the U.S. 

 The United Way of Pierce County’s most recent report shows 42 percent of local households earn less than the basic cost of living. That was 2016, and we all know what housing costs have done since then. 

Even middle-class renters would struggle to find a new home in less than a month. But imagine you’re low-income and wheelchair-bound. Or imagine being a single mom and domestic violence victim with kids you want to keep in the neighborhood school.

How do you find safe, affordable housing on short notice? How do you come up with first and last month’s rent and a security deposit for a unit that could cost twice what you’re paying now?

At the Tiki Apartments, the City Council brokered a deal with the new owner giving tenants up to two extra months to vacate; the landlord will pay relocation aid ranging from $600 to $900. This week, the council contributed $10,000 to provide case-management services for tenants.

Additionally, because the Tiki developers aren’t unique and another crisis could pop up any time, the council adopted a Tenants Rights Code, effective May 14; it mandates a minimum 90-day notice to evict people due to structural renovation, demolition or change of a dwelling unit’s use.

The ordinance expires at the end of September, so city officials need to get to work quickly on permanent protections. 

Likewise, state lawmakers should get busy bringing Washington's Residential Landlord-Tenant Act into the 21st century. That means balancing property rights with reasonable safeguards for renters. 

 Rep. Noelle Frame, D-Seattle, sponsored a bill this year to increase notification requirements to terminate a residential rental agreement from 20 to 30 days — or 60 days if the tenant has lived there two years or longer. 

 Rep. Laurie Jinkins, D-Tacoma, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee and co-sponsored Frame’s bill, told us there wasn’t momentum to advance it this session. We hope to see a bigger push next year.

Because as the gentrification wave rolls through the Puget Sound region, too many people are getting caught in the undertow. 

This story was originally published May 3, 2018 at 2:40 PM with the headline "Tacoma tenants owed fair warning, basic decency."