At St. Paul City Hall these days, the political conversation is increasingly focused on renters.

For starters, a coalition of anti-homelessness advocates, Heading Home Ramsey, has invited landlords and St. Paul City Council members to talk about one of the most uncomfortable topics they can broach together — evictions.

Their inaugural meetings have drawn dozens of landlords and a heavily engaged audience.

Council Member Rebecca Noecker, who represents downtown St. Paul and surrounding areas with high-rental populations, attended a session on Thursday evening at the Riverview Branch Library.

Also on Thursday, Council Member Mitra Nelson, a renter who represents Green Line communities such as Hamline-Midway and south St. Anthony Park, organized yet another effort to amplify the concerns of renters at a time of low vacancy and escalating rents.

Nelson’s “Renter’s Voice Summit,” which was held at Hamline University and co-organized by five neighborhood district councils, drew some 80 to 100 people.

She distributed information culled from the Minnesota attorney general’s lengthy handbook on renter’s rights and responsibilities, among other fact sheets. Many renters, she said, are unaware of the legal protections that already exist.

“It’s important for people to understand what the law says about retaliation,” Nelson said. “You have a right to request repairs from your landlord, and call the city to ask to do an inspection and move the process along. There’s a lot of people who don’t ask for help because they’re afraid.”

GREATER OUTREACH TO RENTERS

Across the city, some neighborhood district councils long dominated by homeowners have called greater outreach to renters overdue. They’re actively taking steps to give apartment dwellers a seat at the table.

On Wednesday, the West Seventh Street/Fort Road Federation approved a change to its bylaws requiring that three seats on its 14-member board be reserved for renters. The bylaw change had been a priority of incoming president Dana DeMaster.

With the goal of recruiting more renters to its land-use committee, the Union Park District Council has created a renter’s engagement task force.

“When I started in June, we didn’t have any renters on the board at all,” said Brandon Long, the executive director of the Union Park District Council. “We now have four, out of 21 seats. We’re making at least small progress. What I’ve found is renters and homeowners have at least slightly different political views.”

Kate Mudge, executive director of the Hamline-Midway Coalition, said landlords and homeowners also showed for the Renter’s Voice Summit, which involved a presentation on the city’s housing-related policy efforts, as well as small group discussions.

A common theme was affordability.

“There’s concern about lack of affordable rental properties,” Mudge said. “For people who have a pretty good deal on their rent, there’s an underlying sentiment of worry about what happens if their apartment building is sold. Where would they go?”

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In Breonna Taylor case, limits of law overcome calls for justice It’s a common misconception, Mudge said, that all renters are transient and disconnected from the neighborhoods they live in.

“What we heard from renters was many had lived in their neighborhood for 10 or 15 years, and were involved in their community,” Mudge said. “Just because you’re not a homeowner, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a transient. And even if you do choose to move, you have every right to participate in bringing your issues forward.”

HOMEOWNER UNITS DECREASE, RENTERS IN MAJORITY

If there’s change in the air when it comes to renter’s rights, or at least broadening the housing conversation, it’s not by accident.

St. Paul used to be a city mostly composed of homeowners. It isn’t anymore.

In the 2010 U.S. census, homeowners comprised 51.3 percent of city residents, a slim majority at the time over renters, who made up 48.7 percent.

Over the past decade, the numbers have flipped, and renters have become the majority, at roughly 51 percent of the city.

Not only have homeowners been outnumbered, the number of owner-occupied units actually went down following the recession and housing crisis of 2008, in part because of home demolitions or conversions to new uses, including rental housing.

According to the city’s findings, from 2008 to 2013, the overall number of owner-occupied units in St. Paul decreased from 60,054 to 55,717. Rental units increased from 51,480 to 57,271.

As far as the overall amount of housing available, the net result was largely a wash — and that wasn’t a good situation to be in coming out of the recession, as the city’s population began to increase.

CITY COUNCIL LOOKS AT FAIR HOUSING RULES

Fast forward five years.

Last July, with housing vacancies at a stark 2.4 percent, or less than half of what experts say is needed to keep rents growing no more than inflation, the St. Paul City Council passed a Fair Housing resolution acknowledging that the city faces a housing crisis. A task force report called for a wide-ranging response.

In particular, the city’s 2019 budget created a $12 million Affordable Housing Trust Fund to give the various strategies teeth.

At least a handful of steps have already been taken.

Mayor Melvin Carter’s administration last November hired Kayla Schuchman as housing director within the department of Planning and Economic Development, and more recently hired Fair Housing Coordinator Kirstin Burch within the new Office of Financial Empowerment.

Since then, the city has made a concerted effort to draw landlords into the state-authorized 4D rental program, which offers property tax breaks to building owners who keep at least 20 percent of their units affordable.

City Council staff are researching the pros and cons of other policy approaches, regulations and mandates, such as banning questions on initial rental applications relating to criminal history.

Another topic of discussion will be whether to require advance notification when a rental housing development is about to be sold, giving nonprofits the opportunity to make an offer.

“Those should all be coming back to us in June in the form of a report,” Noecker said.

AND WHAT ABOUT THE LANDLORDS?

How do landlords feel about these efforts? When the city of St. Louis Park went through a similar policy process around renter’s rights, the Minnesota Multi-Housing Association was at the table. They hope to be included in the conversation in St. Paul, as well.

“MHA worked with St. Louis Park and multiple other cities on tenant protection proposals,” said Blois Olson, in a statement. “We value these partnerships and have found that when we are engaged early and often in the process that the resulting actions generally accomplish the shared goals of tenants, property owners and local governments.”

Among their concerns, property owners worry about new rules costing them more money, costs that would be passed along to renters at a time when rents are already high.

“It is critical that cities work together to find consistent regional solutions, rather than adopting a patchwork of regulations that can be confusing and burdensome for tenants and property owners alike,” Olson said. “It is also important to note that adding regulations often results in higher operating costs that end up being passed along to residents in the form of higher rents.”

Nelson said her Renter’s Voice Summit was a healthy start, and she’s still mulling next steps.

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On Thursday night, a particularly poignant moment stood out to her.

“A renter stood up and said oftentimes it feels like there’s a trade-off between affordability and quality,” Nelson said. “We really want to get at this issue that the only affordable housing around seems to be in a pretty bad condition. ‘I can make rent, but it’s in a pretty bad unit.’ No matter where you hang your hat, everyone deserves dignity, respect and protection under the law.”