Somerville condo conversion ordinance -- the only city in the state to regulate 2- and 3-family properties

Somerville property owners have been asleep when it comes to condo conversion regulation. This city full of 2- and 3-family properties is the only city in the state to regulate condo conversion in these properties. State law only applies to 4-unit and larger buildings. Times have changed since this regulation began in 1985. Now Mayor Joseph Curtatone wants to "update" the 1985 ordinance. But there does not need to be any regulation at all. It's all voluntary. It's up to the Board of Aldermen to decide. Why be the only city to regulate? Why should 2- and 3-family owners put up with it? They don't have to if they act in large numbers. They need to call, email or write the Board of Aldermen. Each citizen has four At-Large Aldermen and one Ward Alderman representing them. Those are the people to contact. Go to www.spoa.com for more information and for contact info for the Aldermen, including easy-to-use clickable links to their email addresses.

Tenant activists kick their own funders

Bank of America just funded an illegal attack against itself. Their funding supports the City Life/Vida Urbana tenant activists who trespassed and got arrested recently (Sept 08). No doubt they thought they were doing an act of civil disobedience in the tradition of the civil rights movement. They were protesting the eviction of a woman who had defaulted on her Bank of America mortgage and wanted to stay in her home in the new status of tenant. The activists tried to stop the removal of her belongings. I don't agree with the activists; owners-turned-tenants living in foreclosed homes will only slow down the turnover of the housing to new owners and aggravate the current foreclosure crisis. That's why the Massachusetts legislature refused to pass a just-cause eviction bill to keep such tenants in possession of their previous homes. I will stay neutral on the issue of civil disobedience itself. What amazes me is that large institutions are financially backing these activists in their illegal activity. The City Life/Vida Urban website (www.clvu.org) lists several banks (Citizens, Bank of America, Sovereign), The Boston Foundation, The Boston Bar Association, the City of Boston itself, and the United Way of Massachusetts Bay among a host of other financial supporters. The targeted mortgage-holder in the reported foreclosure story was Bank of America itself. The bank's own funding was being used against it. There must be a huge "disconnect" between these supporters and the activists at City Life/Vida Urbana. If they knew what they were supporting, they would certainly pull their funding.

Stupid student occupancy limit in Boston

A recent Boston Globe article made it baldly clear that the new student occupancy limit in Boston -- no more than four full-time undergraduate students in any one apartment -- is pretty stupid. Officials can't verify student status because the colleges and university are strictly government by privacy rules. So how can it be enforced? It can't. Owners may be harassed, but only if students themselves admit to their status will they get into trouble. And there are rules against self-incrimination. They don't have to answer questions. Boston City Councilors should do a little more studying before they launch forward with a new law. They voted unanimously in favor of the law. Now it is in court being tested. What a waste of money for the city and for private landlords.

Just-cause eviction in Boston is rent control

Certain Boston City Councilors want to impose rent control in the disguise of just-cause eviction. It's a rent freeze combined with eviction control. Rents are frozen and tenants cannot be evicted except for seriously violating the terms of a lease or tenancy agreement. This rent control would apply to tenants living in foreclosed properties. Just-cause eviction IS rent control. A rent freeze has no allowance for a rent increase based on improvements to the property. It's the worst possible form of rent control.

The distinctive characteristic of this just-cause eviction is that it would apply only to tenants whose landlords are banks and other "foreclosing owners" who owned the mortgage and now own the property. Once these owners sell, the just-cause eviction would no longer apply. So the length of time this just-cause eviction (and rent freeze) would apply would seem to be short. But in fact, this rent control and eviction control make the property LESS valuable and LESS desirable to buy, so it LENGTHENS the time the property is likely to stay in the hands of a foreclosing owner. It worsens the foreclosure crisis. Property needs to pass to a new private owner as fast as possible. The new owner will then take care of the property, fix it up, and get it fully occupied and pulling in the rental income needed to maintain and improve the property.

The real concern is that this rent control and eviction control could be expanded in the future to other groups of tenants perceived to be in danger of displacement. And so a system of rent control could grow and grow as more groups are added. We already have de facto rent control just recently imposed on owners of large apartments who have been renting to large numbers of students. The student occupancy limit now allows a maximum of four full-time undergraduate students per apartment, which is effectively rent control. Less money can be earned by the owner when the number of occupants is restricted.

Now we have rent control and eviction control being proposed for foreclosed tenants. What is the next step towards full-scale rent control? A rent freeze for the elderly and disabled? A rent freeze for families threatened by displacement or gentrification? If these were allowed, we would be far along the road towards full-scale rent control. That's why it is important to oppose "just-cause eviction" and any kind of rent control, even in a limited form.

PLEASE TAKE ACTION NOW: Property owners need to contact all the Boston City Councilors and ask them to vote NO on "just-cause eviction" and any kind of rent control. The main phone number for the City Council is 617-635-3040. Ask to be transferred to your district councilor and to the undecided at-large city councilors: Flaherty, Murphy, and Connolly. You can find email addresses for the councilors on the city website: www.cityofboston.gov.

Which is it? Lead or stress

Impaired neural development. Impaired language development and memory. Impaired ability to escape poverty for the rest of the child's life. These are the effects that neuroscientists have found in many children growing up in very poor families with low social status. These scientists claim these children have high levels of...no, not lead, they have high levels of "stress hormones."

These are indeed the findings presented recently at the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Stress hormones are associated with poverty, they claim, and these stress hormones permanently trap these children into lifetime poverty.

But if research shows that very much the same effects result from elevated blood lead levels in children, which is it that is causing the effect: lead or stress?

The scientists who claim it is lead also claim that they have made sure in their research to eliminate "confounding" factors, that is, other causes of the observed effects. But they missed this one, apparently. Maybe stress leads to lifetime poverty and elevated lead levels in poor children. Meanwhile, the scientists who are focusing on stress hormones may be forgetting about lead as a confounding factor in
THEIR research. Maybe lead causes stress which causes impaired neural development and lifetime poverty.

Are the scientists telling us the truth? Or are they all mixed up and confused? We think the latter.

Freeloading tenant attacks landlord

A tenant who had not paid rent for a year attacked a Marlborough landlord with a frying pan, sending the landlord to the hospital for stitches in numerous locations on his head. The landlord has been ordered not to drive until he recuperates, estimated to take about a month.

The tenant stopped paying rent a year ago. The owner sent him an eviction notice for nonpayment of rent. The tenant then called the local health inspector, who cited only two code violations: a missing (stolen) fire extinguisher and improper egress from the third floor where the tenant lived in a studio apartment. Those code violations show that the building and apartment were in otherwise good shape. Moreover, the local building department inspected the third floor and said there were adequate egresses. The health department still insists they are improper. However, those code violations allowed the tenant to claim that he was "withholding" the rent and blocked the owner's efforts to evict him.

We call this tenant strategy the "free rent trick," and it is entirely legal in Massachusetts. What is lacking in this state is a rent escrow law that would require tenants who withhold rent to escrow it (pay it to the court) as it would otherwise become due to the landlord. A rent escrow law would thus retain all the tenant's powers to stop paying rent to the landlord and force him to make neglected repairs, but it would stop the abuse of our state's rent withholding law that lacks a mandatory escrow provision.

The attack on the landlord shows how intense the hostility can become when a tenant plays the "free rent trick."

Read the full story from the Boston Globe at this web address:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2008/01/elderly_landlor.html

What is blocking our rent escrow bill?

Basically, our rent escrow bill (S.780) is stuck in the Housing Committee, which is co-chaired by Rep. Kevin Honan on the House side and Sen. Susan Tucker on the Senate side. Sen. Tucker signed on to our bill as a co-sponsor, so she would like to see it move forward. Rep. Honan appears to be the fly in the ointment. It is bothersome that he also happens to be a sponsor of S.1241, one of the two domestic violence bills that, if passed, would slowly bring rent control back across the state. What we can say that is good is that that domestic violence bill is also stuck in the Housing Committee, although as far as we can tell, its proponents have not been active.

Back in 2002, a rent escrow bill was reported favorably out of the Housing Committee and was voted on in both the House and the Senate. The House passed it, thinking they had passed a good bill. In the Senate, we had the votes for it, but then President Tom Birmingham "twisted arms" and called in some political favors and it was narrowly defeated. So if our escrow bill gets reported out of Committee, we feel we can today round up the needed votes to pass it.

Also factors are the House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi and Senate President Therese Murray. If they are opposed to rent escrow, that may explain why it has not moved out of committee. We need to target our emails, phone calls and letters to all these people. When they hear mostly from our side, they will vote on our side. We have done it in the past. We can do it again.

Representative Kevin Honan
Co-Chair, Housing Committee
State House, Room 38
Boston, MA 02133
617-722-2470
Rep.KevinHonan@hou.state.ma.us

Senator Susan Tucker
Co-Chair, Housing Committee
State House, Room 424
Boston, MA 02133
617-722-1612
Susan.Tucker@state.ma.us

House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi
State House, Room 356
Boston, MA 02133
617-722-2500
Rep.SalvatoreDiMasi@hou.state.ma.us

Senate President Therese Murray
State House, Room 332
Boston, MA 02133
617-722-1500
Therese.Murray@state.ma.us


And you need to contact your own senator and rep. Follow this link to find out who they are:
www.wheredoivotema.com