Joy Coles calls the apartment building she and her four kids have lived in since January a “free-for-all.”
“There’s no security, no maintenance man, no landlord,” she said.
Coles moved into the mold, rodent, and fly-infested two-bedroom unit in Northeast D.C. in the midst of management turnover, she said. When her refrigerator broke on day one, the maintenance worker who came to repair it said the unit seemed uninhabitable. When her washing machine began leaking weeks later, the maintenance worker said he couldn’t help because he quit in February, after the landlord sold the building.
“I had to continue to use the washing machine, so I was able to mop up the water leaking out and put towels down, but mold started to build up,” Coles said.
Coles said tenants didn’t hear from the new landlord until late June, when he announced plans to repair units floor by floor. In his five-month absence, mold continued to grow in Coles’ unit and her four young children developed coughs, hives, and rashes from crawling around damp floorboards. Squatters also moved into the building and even more rodents and flies invaded, she said.
Tenants’ current options to improve conditions
Coles’ building is one of many in the District with documented proof from tenants of poor living conditions and landlords violating the D.C. Tenant Bill of Rights — a document that outlines requirements for property owners to maintain units by ensuring there is heat, lighting, ventilation, and no pests. It also mandates landlords inspect for mold within seven days of receiving notice from a tenant and clear it within 30 days.
Tenants can report issues in their unit to the Department of Buildings (DOB) (formerly the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs), which can inspect properties and require property owners to make certain repairs if conditions violate the Tenant Bill of Rights. But many tenants say DOB does not come to inspect their properties soon after they report issues. Yet even when DOB does, landlords can ignore or refute DOB’s request for repairs, forcing tenants to enter Landlord-Tenant Court. To make the process easier for tenants, tenant advocates are seeking D.C. Council support for proposed legislation called The Heart Act, which would enable DOB to fix tenants’ issues quickly and transfer the legal and financial burden to the Office of the Attorney General (OAG).
Rhonda Hamilton — founder and executive director of M.I. Mother’s Keeper, a local nonprofit improving families’ access to mental health services — has spent the last four years helping residents report uninhabitable living situations to the DOB and testify in Landlord-Tenant Court against landlords who repeatedly violate the Tenant Bill of Rights.
Hamilton is currently advocating on behalf of tenants living in eight properties across D.C., requesting DOB conduct “whole property” inspections of the buildings. Residents have reported between four and 16 violations of the Tenant Bill of Rights at each location, including rodent infestations, mold, water leaks, peeling paint, and insufficient or no security. Other violations include broken A/C units and door locks, squatters, and inoperable garages, front entrances, and washing machines. Hamilton is also assisting tenants at additional properties, including Coles’.
“The calls kept coming in,” Hamilton said. “We kept complaining that there wasn’t proper oversight to make certain that tenants who had ceilings falling in, mushrooms growing in their ceilings, wood floors crumbling, were taken care of.”
When violations aren’t fixed, moving to another apartment isn’t always an option for tenants, especially if they receive federal aid or subsidized housing. Coles, for instance, is searching for another place to live, but receives rent assistance from a domestic violence program. She said she is struggling to find another building that is in her budget and accepts vouchers. Even if she did, her case manager would need to approve the new unit, which she said could take months.
The residents’ other option is to take legal action in the form of a Landlord-Tenant Court case. Hamilton said if landlords refuse to make the repairs requested by DOB, the next step is for residents to go back and forth to court. Tenants typically have to take off work to debate repairs before landlords are held accountable for addressing conditions like asbestos and mold. Landlords often solicit sophisticated legal representation and the process can take years, which Hamilton said causes heightened anxiety, depression, and stress for residents as they continue living in unhealthy conditions.
“It just doesn’t make sense because if you’re already living months on end with mold and you show up to court and then they recess the court, you go back home and are still dealing with the same issues,” Hamilton said.
But it doesn’t have to be this way, Hamilton said. The Heart Act proposes creating the Housing and Repair Trust Fund — supported by fines on landlords who violate the Tenant Bill of Rights and a $0.10 rental amount excise tax per rental unit for all registered landlords — and an accompanying task force to review tenants’ complaints and allocate funds needed for repairs. The bill for these repairs would then be turned over to the OAG to enforce payment against the building’s ownership.
The act would amend the Tenant Bill of Rights to include the fund, task force, and excise tax, also called the Housing Equity Advance Repair Tax (HEART Tax). The amendment would also mandate asbestos and suspected hazardous substances be treated the same as mold, meaning landlords would be required to inspect reports within seven days and remedy them within 30 days.
“This way we have tenants that are living in repaired properties and no longer exposed to health conditions, and the legal issue is left to the legal arm of the oversight, which is the OAG,” Hamilton said.
The task force would consist of one tenant living in housing communities from each of the eight wards, selected via a lottery system, as well as one representative from the DOB and one member from each of the following groups: the D.C. Council’s Housing Committee, the Office of the Tenant Advocate, D.C’s nonprofit advocacy community, D.C’s landlord community, and D.C.’s legal housing community. The task force would select an additional member of D.C.’s private housing community via a lottery system to serve as chairperson.
Tenants who contact the task force would need to provide proof they reported their issues to DOB and the building’s management as well as photographs and court documentation. The task force would then assess the violations and vote to fix the issues using the fund.
In addition to the $0.10 excise tax per unit, the proposed legislation states owners who are in court for repeated DOB housing code violations would face additional fines that would feed the trust fund. Landlords with over 100 outstanding violations would be placed on a “slumlord notifications list” that would be displayed publicly on DOB’s website and updated quarterly, according to the proposed legislation. Any landlords who are on the list and receive subsidized rent support from the District or the federal government would have that money redirected by the OAG, and those who remain on the list for more than two quarters would be fined an additional $0.10 excise tax biannually per violated unit.
“What we believe is if we hit them in their pocketbooks harder, then the behavior won’t be so repetitive,” Hamilton said. “It’s obvious to us that the existing enforcements are not strong enough to deter these landlords from leaving these property conditions the way that they are.”
Perry Redd, the executive director of Sincere Seven, a group that advocates for fair wages for working-class Americans, helped develop The Heart Act alongside Hamilton. Redd said the next step is to recruit co-sponsors on the council and attract the support of tenants and community members. At-large Council Member Robert White, who chairs the Housing Committee has not yet told Hamilton if he plans to introduce the bill to the council, though Hamilton said she has discussed it with him and shared the proposed legislation with his office. A council member must introduce the act before it can begin the long process to become a law.
Redd said Heart Act supporters are launching a public education campaign and will work with apartment complexes’ tenant associations and residents to doorknock and conduct outreach in communities adjacent to buildings where residents have reported violations.
“We’ll be educating the tenants to advocate for their dignity,” Redd said.
On Labor Day, supporters of The Heart Act will rally outside of the Wilson Building at 11 a.m. to call out properties whose owners are in violation of the Tenant Bill of Rights and garner support for the act.
