AN ORDINANCE relating to the use of eviction records; regulating the use of eviction history in residential housing; prohibiting landlords from considering evictions related to COVID-19 during and after the civil emergency; amending the title of Chapter 14.09 and Sections 14.09.005, 14.09.010, 14.09.020, and 14.09.030 of, and adding a new Section 14.09.026 to, the Seattle Municipal Code; declaring an emergency; and establishing an immediate effective date; all by a 3/4 vote of the City Council.
The bill passes and the chair will sign it and I'll ask that the quick fix my signature to the legislation committee reports will the first please read under item one the short title into the record. Agenda Item one Council Vote 119 787 relating to the use of eviction records, regulating the use of eviction history in residential housing , prohibiting landlords from considering evictions related to COVID 19 during and after the civil emergency. Thank you, Madam Corporate Council members. If you are not speaking and you're on the call, please double check to make sure that you are muted so that we don't hear ambient noise in the background. So I'm going to go ahead and move to pass Council Bill 119787. Is there a second second bucket? It's been moved and seconded to pass the bill. Councilmember Morales, you're the sponsor of this bill, and I'm going to go ahead and hand it over to you for for remarks. Thank you. Good afternoon, colleagues. We've all been talking for weeks and weeks now about the crisis that is COVID 19. And we know that hundreds of thousands of Washingtonians have filed for unemployment. A growing number can't afford the basics like food or rent. And many tens of thousands of them are right here in Seattle. And we know that the specter of this crisis, one that none of us could have predicted, shouldn't haunt people for the rest of their lives. And so this legislation would do two things to make sure that that doesn't happen. The first is that it bars landlords from denying housing to tenants who faced an eviction during the mayor's emergency and for six months following that. I do want to be clear that this excludes evictions that would result from the threat to the health or safety of neighbors, the landlord or tenant or landlords, household members. So we've had several people call in expressing concern about that and want to make sure that that is those kinds of evictions are excluded. The second thing is that it provides cause for order of limited dissemination, which would hide an eviction from a tenants. Screening from tenant screening companies. And that's something that we know is important to keep people from losing housing options, especially due to the economic shock of the mass unemployment that we have. We know that when the moratoriums and people will still be out of work, this isn't going to get better overnight. And so what we're really trying to do here is just make sure that we are protecting people long term until people are able to get back on their feet. And we know that, you know, these evictions and unlawful detainers can follow people around. It might be cleared from your from your credit report for seven years, but all a screening company has to do is look that up in the Superior Court website and can still be found. So this is really an attempt to make sure that we are protecting folks who are in financial crisis during this episode and make sure that they have that protection long term. I'm happy to answer questions. So Councilmember MOralists, I know that you have an amendment that you'd like for us to consider, so I'd like to go ahead and ask that you put your amendment on the table and then consider the amendment and and then we can open it up for dialog on the bill as amended. Okay. So I move to amend council bill 119787 as presented on Amendment one on the agenda. Is it her second? Second? It's been moved and seconded to amend. The bill is presented on Amendment one. Councilmember Morales. Please feel free to address the amendment. Sure. So this is really just cleans up the title of this bill. So it makes the original language of the section title more accurate and conforms the new texts regarding well, I'm sorry, that's amendment two. So the First Amendment is really just a technical amendment to clean up the language. Great. Are there any questions or comments on Amendment One, which has just been described by Councilmember Morales as a technical clean up amendment? Be seen and hearing none will please call the role on the adoption of Amendment One. Strauss. I. Herbal I. Whereas. Do. Whereas I'm like, Lewis I. Moralities I. Vinciquerra. I. Peterson. I. The launch. President Gonzales. I. Nine in favor none oppose. The motion carries an amendment is adopted. Customer What else? I know you have a Second Amendment, so I'm going to go ahead and put it over to you to make that motion. Okay, I move that we are sorry that we amend council bill 11987119787 as presented on Amendment two on the agenda. Is there a second? Okay. It's been moved and seconded to amend the bill as presented on an amendment to Councilmember Morales as sponsor of the amendment. Please feel free to address it. So this amendment adds a rebuttal presumption in favor of a tenant. If a landlord does see the eviction information and takes an adverse action against the tenant as a result of that information. Colleagues. Any questions or comments on Amendment two? It looks like there are no questions or comments. So I will ask that the clerk please call the roll on adoption of Amendment two. Strauss. I. Purple. I was. Juarez. I. Luis Morales. I. Keller. I. PETERSON No. So what I. President Gonzalez. I. Eight in favor. One opposed. Thank you so much. The motion carries and the amendment is adopted. I believe that is the end of the amendments that I'm aware of. So now would be a good time, colleagues, if there were any comments on the bill as amended. Now is the time to make those comments a state council member. So what floor is yours? Thank you, President Gonzalez. I'm happy to support this legislation from Councilman Morales and happy to have co-sponsored it. Background checks are set up to be extremely unfair to renters, as we heard from some renters in the public comments. For example, if you're taken to eviction, good and fairly and the judge rules that there is no reason to evict you. Maybe it was blatant discrimination. Maybe there was no just cause. Regardless, it still gets included in your rental history as having been taken to eviction court, and it can become extremely difficult to get housing as a result. And it follows you throughout your life. Renters can appeal. You have these false evictions removed from their rental history, but must do so with each and every background check company. Ideally, King County Court would refuse to give out eviction records to background check companies unless those evictions were approved by the judge. But the city does not control King County Court, so this legislation instructs landlords that they must not use eviction records during this emergency against renters. They shouldn't anyway, because evictions are being prohibited during this emergency. But as I said, the background records exist whether the code makes the rent or not. Obviously there will be difficulties with enforcement, and ultimately what Seattle needs is a portable background check methodology so renters can correct all those eviction records and their background check, and then future landlords are required to use that background check. But in the meantime, I'm happy to vote yes on this emergency legislation. I think he comes why wasn't I see Councilmember Strauss and again if for anybody else who wants to speak of you cannot raise your hand, I'll put you in the queue. Councilmember Strauss Resource. Thank you. Council President. I'll just take this opportunity once again to reiterate my strong support for increasing the amount of rental assistance that we can provide people in our community. Because when we're able to invest in rental assistance, we're able to keep people in place and keep everyone in the economic chain made for. And so, again, just reiterating, I will be voting for this legislation and that we also need to follow up with additional rental assistance. Thank you. Thank you so much, Councilmember Strauss, for that important reminder. We've, of course, added already added some millions of dollars for rental assistance and certainly not implying that that is going to meet the scale of the need. But we will continue to make sure that we're advocating for those dollars. Excellent point. Okay. Councilman Peterson is next in the queue and I haven't seen anybody else raise your hand. So if you want to, now's the time. PETERSON Thank you. I'd like to thank the sponsor of this bill, Councilmember Morales, and for the hard work of our staff and council central staff. I believe it's important to point out to the general public this bill has very good intentions. It was just that it was introduced only seven days ago. I believe that's not enough time to consider all the ramifications of this legislation. It would also be in effect for what's really an unknown period of time, because we don't know when the mayor will end her emergency declaration. So I'm proud to join my co-counsel colleagues on several a couple of eviction prevention measures, the winter eviction moratorium. And then recently last week just last week the to restrict to allow the extra defense for six months after the mayors eviction moratorium ends. And that's an important point. So the legislation we passed last week was for six months after the mayors eviction moratorium ends. This legislation before us, however, would be six months after the emergency declaration. We do not know when the emergency declaration will end. It's possible that it could go on for more than a year. The reason is that it's likely that the mayor will keep that in place longer than her eviction moratorium, because the emergency declaration will enable us to get reimbursed by the federal government for a longer period of time. So I'm uncomfortable also in invoking the City Charter's legislative emergency clause, where it says it's necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health or safety. I think there's this is something that we could do in the next couple of weeks or more if we thought it through even further and had more data about what the situation is going to be for tenants, for the relief packages and when the emergency declaration will actually end. But again, I want to thank I want to thank my colleague for introducing this and for her staff being available to answer our questions. Thank you. I think because we're Rich Peterson. Next up is Councilmember Herbold and then Councilmember Lewis. Thank you. I want to also join my colleagues on the council in thanking Councilmember Morales for bringing forward this piece of legislation. I think it's really important to realize that the use of eviction history as an indicator of good tenancy is is controversial . But under normal circumstances, it is premised on the belief of how tenants behave under normal or non-pandemic conditions. But as we all have recognized here in the context of the current emergency, tenants are facing unprecedented circumstances, and how they balance their financial obligations in these unprecedented times are not a good indicator of whether or not they are going to be a good tenant. There are some some comment on behalf of public testimony earlier, questioning whether or not this legislation had received the OPM. A lot of permanent review. I'm happy to report that it has. And I find that the analysis, without divulging the analysis, is is reassuring on our ability to to move this forward , this legislation forward. I also want to recognize that there were some amendments that were being considered earlier on that would have been sort of cleanup amendments unrelated to the to the crisis and that the the amendment sponsors agreed to withdraw those. You know, really housekeeping cleanup amendments, because those amendments themselves were not related to the COVID 19 crisis. And then finally, I think it's really important to understand in practice how these orders of limited to some dissemination actually work. And that's why this bill itself has two parts. It on one hand notifies the courts what we hope they will they will do when there are requests for limited dissemination orders. That is, the ability of of eviction records to show up on people's tenant screening reports. And this has as a sort of a fallback the prohibition on the part of landlords in using this information. And the reason why that so necessary is because the the practice of courts in making decisions around limited dissemination orders has really been inconsistent. And there hasn't been an appellate case on this. So courts aren't consistent on it. And specifically, it's important to recognize that the entire right to ask for a limit dissemination order and the obligation of the courts to consider it is is a discretionary decision on the part of the judges. And so that's why I think this piece of legislation hangs well together with its two parts as well as in in. In coordination with the legislation that we are going to be hearing next, as well as the tenants rights legislation we passed last week. Thank you. Thank you so much, Councilmember Herbold. Next is Councilmember Lewis. Thank you, Madam President. So I'm just going to start my comments by saying I will be voting for this legislation today. And I want to thank Councilmember Morales for bringing this forward. You know, I think it is important that renters who are going to be coming out of this COVID 19 crisis not be in a position where having an otherwise good record as a tenant is blemished by something that may or may not happen with their ability to pay rent during this period and a possible eviction proceeding being brought. So I think it is important legislation and I do look forward to voting for it. I wanted to just take a moment to more use my comments to just do a like a broader call to action to landlords and tenant rights advocates alike who tuned into this today. And I appreciate their public comments. I just want to say that, you know, our council remains committed, as Councilmember Strauss indicated a little earlier in our session, to providing robust, comprehensive and expansive rent support that will ultimately let tenants stay in place, that will make landlords whole and let them pay their bills and pay their mortgages. We are committed to realizing that, and as Council President Gonzales indicated earlier, we have invested millions of dollars above and beyond what we had budgeted for initially in rental assistance and support Congress. According to my conversations with our congressional delegation, is considering potentially another round of federal stimulus and federal investment. I would just like to shout out to all the landlords and tenants who have called in to do advocacy on this. Make sure that you are reaching out to your member of Congress, to your senators, to push to make sure that wide scale rent relief or some kind of direct payment plan to people is part of that next level of federal relief. All of us recognize that that is ultimately what we need to do to get through this. But in the meantime, there need to be certain protections to make sure that renters are not unduly burdened by things that happen during this event of Great Depression level proportions. And these are not regulations or hindrances that we as a council are enacting. Ideally, we're doing it in response to an unprecedented since the time of the 1930s levels of unemployment and insecurity. So join me in making sure that we are going to Congress and saying, you know, we need a large scale relief in this next package that should be coming out later this spring to make sure that renters and landlords alike get the support that they need to get through this. Thank you, Councilmember Lewis colleagues. Any other comments or questions on the bill? Okay. Seen none comes more or less as as we usually practice here on council. The prime sponsor of the bill usually gets the last word. So the floor is yours. Thank you. Thanks, everyone. I want to thank you, Councilmember Lewis. I think your last remarks are really important for all of us to remember. This is an unprecedented crisis. We are we are seeing a levels of unemployment as a scale of crisis that we haven't seen in a couple of generations now. So we know that more rental assistance is important. As Councilmember Lewis said, there is a lot of federal action that's needed. Our own representative Joe Paul, is also advocating for payment protection, paycheck protection for all workers so that they can cover their bills. So we do need to keep advocating at every jurisdictional level to make sure that every city, state and federal government is doing all that they can to keep our community safe. I do want to also say that as Councilmember Herbold mentioned, we had a discussion about a few different kinds of amendments. You know, the idea of excluding small landlords is something that we talked about. But, you know, what we're really doing here is trying to protect people from being evicted and having that stain on their record. And when when you've lost your job, when you really just can't afford rent, it doesn't matter if your landlord is, you know , your roommate in a single family home and you're just renting a room from them. Or if your landlord is a big, you know, property management company, the fact is that you don't have money to pay rent. And so you deserve that same protection regardless of the size of ownership of your of your landlord. So so I want to thank our colleagues for the conversations we've been having over the last few weeks. I appreciate your feedback and your willingness to to talk through these your concerns with us and appreciate your support. Now, as we do, as we take one more step to make sure that renters in the city are protected. Thank you. I thank you so much, Councilmember Morales, for those remarks. I think that concludes debate on this particular item. So I'm going to go ahead and ask that the clerk please call the role on the passage of the bill as amended. Councilmember Strauss. I. Councilmember Herbold. I. Councilmember Juarez. I. Councilmember Lewis. I. Councilmember Morales. I. Council member Macheda I. Councilmember Peterson. No. Council members are the ones I. Council President Gonzalez. High. Eight in favor one opposed. I think you out of work. The bill passes as amended and the chair will sign it. And I'd ask that the clerk please affix my signature to the legislation. Thank you. Okay, folks, we're going to go ahead and move along. Items of business today. So will the clerk please read the item to into the record? Clerk. Madam Clerk, you might be on mute. Agenda item to council bill 119788 an ordinance relating to residential rental agreements allowing residential tenants to pay rent in installments when the tenant is unable to timely pay rent. Declaring an emergency and establishing an immediate effective date all by a vote of the City Council.