They could have been describing a house of horrors: a leaky roof, black mold, neglected repairs, disrespect.
“Housing advocates are “pretty unanimous in the opinion that the legal playing field is tilted towards the landlords,” said Glenn Burleigh, community engagement specialist with the Metropolitan St. Louis Equal Housing and Opportunity Council.
The picture painted of potentially dangerous living conditions came from St. Louis-area tenants, part of a crowd of about 40 gathered in a community room Tuesday for what organizers hope is the beginning of a movement.
Billed as a “Renters’ Town Hall,” the event gave tenants – most of them people of color – a chance to talk about current challenges and brainstorm possible solutions.
From those concerns, and the residents expressing them, Action St. Louis, a grassroots racial justice organization, aims to build a local “tenants’ movement,” complete with a tenants’ “bill of rights.”
“People shouldn’t have barriers based on their gender, their income, race, or anything else, in order to have access to safe, affordable housing,” said Kennard Williams, St. Louis native and lead organizer for Action St. Louis, which sponsored the meeting along with Arch City Defenders.
“The tenant movement would lead to an inclusive model of housing for everyone.”
The federal Fair Housing Act already prohibits housing discrimination based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex (including gender, gender identity and sexual orientation), familial status, and disability.
But economic realities, including poverty, a too-low FICO score and a career-limiting education, can leave tenants with few attractive options.
One renter spoke of an apartment complex that was “raggedy as hell,” with “no property manager and no maintenance manager.”
“But they still want their rent money,” he added.
Missouri landlord / tenant law does not allow tenants in Missouri to withhold rent in response to habitability issues, according to iPropertyManagement.com. Under certain circumstances, the tenant can pay for the repair and deduct from rent if the landlord fails to make necessary repairs.
One person said, however, that any threat to withhold rent can result in threatened eviction.
Missouri “does not make it very simple or intuitive for tenants to hold their landlords accountable for repairs,” said Glenn Burleigh, community engagement specialist with the Metropolitan St. Louis Equal Housing and Opportunity Council.
An employee at the city’s Building Division said citizens are urged to contact the Citizens’ Service Bureau to report any apartment in disrepair. The CSB database listed 726 reports in 2021 requesting an inspection for “interior building code violations.”
It was not immediately clear what became of those requests.
Landlords are supposed to have an occupancy inspection, prior to renting, but this “does not guarantee that things will be nice,” Burleigh said.
“A lot of times, the landlords do cosmetic improvements, prior to inspection,” he said. “These often hide issues that become apparent after a few months or years in an apartment.”
Also, landlords sometimes keep the utilities in their names, “which can help them evade inspections between tenancies.”
Officials with St. Louis and Missouri apartment associations could not immediately be reached for comment.
The list of challenges outlined at the meeting went beyond derelict repairs. Hurdles mentioned ranged from difficulty getting Section 8 vouchers and rising rents to the lack of affordable housing and “being talked down to.”
Anthony Johnson, a renter in the West End, expressed concern about gentrification.
The nearby Central West End neighborhood is one of the hottest areas of the city for development: 481 building permits were issued last year and this for development worth $456.57 million.
Johnson suggested tenants find a way to “build a collective identity.”
Williams hopes to build solidarity through monthly “canvassing” of renters, literally going out and knocking on doors.
Through the burgeoning tenants’ movement Williams hopes to develop stronger protections for tenants.
Housing advocates are “pretty unanimous in the opinion that the legal playing field is tilted towards the landlords,” said Burleigh. “There are numerous reforms that would need to be implemented to level said playing field. One that EHOC and other legal nonprofits have long championed is the tenant right to counsel.
“As is, the landlords are far more likely to be able to afford to retain legal counsel in these proceedings,” he added. “That’s a big advantage in any legal situation. Right to counsel would give tenants legal assistance and help correct that significant imbalance.”
The meeting came as the pace of eviction filings gains speed following a holiday lull.
In January, the St. Louis County Sheriff’s Department “executed” 139 court-approved eviction orders. That includes 26 cases in which residents were physically removed from their residences, according to John Sullivan, communications director for the St. Louis County Courts.
That 139 tally is the highest monthly total for the county since 166 orders were executed in September, not long after a federal moratorium on evictions lapsed.
In January 2020, before the coronavirus pandemic swept across the nation, 213 eviction orders were executed in the county, county data show.
Princeton University’s Eviction Lab database has tracked 14,184 eviction requests filed with the courts in St. Louis since March 15, 2020 including 8,499 filed in St. Louis County and 5,685 filed in the city of St. Louis.
Using data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, Eviction Lab researchers determined that in each month between September 2021 and February 2022, residents of majority Black neighborhoods in St. Louis saw more eviction filings than residents in majority white neighborhoods.
In October 2021, the difference was almost two to one: with 292 cases filed to remove residents in white neighborhoods compared with 569 filings aimed at residents in majority Black neighborhoods, according to the data.
Meanwhile, millions in funds allocated to help cash-strapped renters are going unspent across the country, in part due to bureaucracy.
Locally, St. Louis and St. Louis County are looking for a group to jointly administer the disbursement of city and county rental assistance funds, said Nick Dunne, a spokesperson for the office of St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones.
More than $12.44 million from the Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP-2) remains earmarked for renters in the city of St. Louis. Those funds will start going out once the joint agreement and contract with the provider are completed, Dunne said.
The city will determine whether more resources are needed, including whether to use funds from the American Rescue Plan Act, once the ERAP-2 funds have been allocated, Dunne said.
Karen Robinson-Jacobs is The St. Louis American / Type Investigations business reporter and a Report for America corps member.
