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<br />Star Trlbtme
<br />Monday/May 29/1995 .7A
<br />Rent troubles
<br />Continued ire page 6A
<br />lords tips on how to show apartments
<br />ta, strangers without getting mugged:
<br />make them show an 1.D. card first
<br />arid always stand by the door, for
<br />example.
<br />Sbme say it's all just a sign of the
<br />times. "The tenant issue is a hot
<br />one," said Connie Fournier, the city's
<br />dCpuly chief of inspections. "Crime
<br />and demogrsphitx have changed. I
<br />can't say it's not a tough business to
<br />be in.°
<br />~-.-
<br />But she disputes that the proposed
<br />licensing ordinance would change life
<br />much for landlords; thg new ]an ge
<br />essendall codifies n --stg~city
<br />licensi rcr rch, in their first
<br />four years, ave resulted in only two
<br />rental license revocations on the ba-
<br />sis oftenant behavior.
<br />One of those revocations was over-
<br />turned in court last year. It involved
<br />the building at 1030 Morgan: Av. N.,
<br />where last week's fatal shooting oo-
<br />carted...
<br />Said Council Member Alice Rain-
<br />ville, alandlord: "The city can't con-
<br />trol 1030 Morgan, so how can a land-
<br />lord be responsible for their
<br />tenants?"
<br />Mayor Sharon Sayles Helton, who
<br />supports the new get-tough policy
<br />with landlords, suggested-that some-
<br />how the city needs to maintain some
<br />leverage over landlords who let
<br />things get out of control. "The bot-
<br />tom line is: We've got to get the
<br />managemtnt of housing under con-
<br />trol," she said.
<br />Still, some warn that elected officials
<br />who are pressing landlords to evict
<br />bad tenants and do more rigorous
<br />background checks on prospective
<br />ones may want to carefully consider
<br />what they're asking for.
<br />In a city with 17,200 apartment
<br />buildings and about 80,000 rental i
<br />units, there were ]0,144 legal evic- !.
<br />bons filed last year. If it became
<br />universal practice for landlords to
<br />reject prospective tenants with previ- ',
<br />ous evictions, there are easily thou-
<br />sands of residenu who could not find
<br />housing anymore.
<br />Indeed, the fear of closing down the
<br />apartment building at 2300-2324
<br />Pleasant and putting 40 or 45 more
<br />people out on the street has given
<br />officials pause in moving against Bi-
<br />gos, whose rental license revocation
<br />would otherwise be a certainty by
<br />now.
<br />Landlords say the number of evic.
<br />bons, which reached 14,236 in 1987,
<br />would be higher were it not for
<br />better tenant screening and the fact
<br />that some tenant behavior has be-
<br />come so egregious that in some cases
<br />landlords .don't even bother to file
<br />costly unlawful-detainer actions.
<br />Some. tenants are arrested and taken
<br />away by the police, some leave of
<br />their own accord and some are liter-
<br />ally paid to go by landlords anxious
<br />to be rid ofthem.
<br />Fournier and other city officials say
<br />that the vast majority of property
<br />owners who screen tenants and man-
<br />age their buildings well have few
<br />problems.
<br />But according to Schachtman, no
<br />amount of landlord supervision will
<br />ever solve what he sees fundamental-
<br />ly as the domestic side of society's
<br />crime problem.
<br />In the past week, he said, he's had to
<br />dea with a drug bust in one of his
<br />buildings, a man who pistol-whipped
<br />his ex-wife and an intoxicated wom-
<br />an whose 14-year-old son pulled out
<br />a gun on the property.
<br />Landlords emphasize that even soci-
<br />ety's outcasts have to live
<br />somewhere.
<br />"The business has changed,"
<br />Schachtman said. "Landlords used to
<br />collect rent and maintain .buildings.
<br />Now the landlord has to act as social
<br />worker, psychologist, conciliator and
<br />policeman."
<br />Pope asks filmmakers
<br />to show responsibility
<br />Associated Press
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