Category: Affordable Housing

Davenport Rent Abatement Ordinance passes! - Of Interest to Our Community

11/30/2024

Davenport Rent Abatement Ordinance Passed!

Quad Cities Tenant Alliance and Quad Cities Interfaith

We are thrilled to announce the passage of the Rent Abatement Ordinance, a monumental step forward for housing justice in our community. This victory is a testament to the power of collective action and the unwavering support of our community, allies, and leaders.

To every community member who attended meetings, shared their stories, signed petitions, and stood with us, we owe you our deepest gratitude. Your voices were heard loud and clear, and your courage has inspired meaningful change.

Thanks to your help the Davenport City Council passed the Rent Abatement Ordinance unanimously.

What is the Rent Abatement Ordinance?
A Rent Abatement Ordinance can allow the inspections department to temporarily relieve tenants of the duty to pay rent when there is a threat to life and safety. The goals of implementing the Rent Abatement include incentivizing tenants to report building issues promptly for repair, incentivizing owners and property managers to complete repairs promptly, and to preserve Davenport housing stock in safe and decent condition.

No one should be paying rent for an unsafe building!

Read the Ordinance in full at City of Davenport's website here.

Dennis Platt and Gavin Grassman, Co-Chairs
QCTA
[email protected]

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Davenport emergency evictions - After Action Report

3/30/2024

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Davenport residents face emergency evictions! - After Action Report

Quad Cities Interfaith (QCI) and QC Tenant Alliance (QCTA)

From the QCTimes

TOM LOEWY, SARAH WATSON, AND GRETCHEN TESKE
Mar 28, 2024

DAVENPORT APARTMENT VACATED

Lamond Lathan-Burge is happy to have a roof over his head. But the 23-year-old isn't sure where he'll go after the city of Davenport vacated his apartment building on West 4th Street on Tuesday on advice of Shive-Hattery structural engineers. He spent Tuesday night in the Relax Inn on North Brady Street. Scott County made rooms available at the extended-stay hotel. The city notified tenants of the evacuation of Schricker Apartments at 401 W. 4th St. and "has secured available resources to assist in displacement," according to a Tuesday news release from the city's Development and Neighborhood Services Department. Per the apartment building owner, the current expected number of units vacated is 18, according to the city.

Notices taped to the building's doors told residents the building was being evacuated immediately and that with proof of residency, rooms are available at the Relax Inn from March 26 to March 31 at no cost. Pets are allowed.

An unexpected notice
Shive-Hattery was hired by the city of Davenport, and its report recommended the immediate vacate order based on the conditions of a wooden wall believed to be a structural wall. Nicole Gleason, Davenport's public works director and assistant city administrator, told the City Council on Wednesday night that recommendations from Shive-Hattery were that the building should be immediately evacuated because of the building's potentially unsafe structural conditions and could "fully or partially collapse with little or no warning." Lathan-Burge said he wasn't surprised the building was vacated. "A couple of days after I moved in, I was hanging out and playing some video games and mice ran through my living room," he said. "I didn't have a stove for two months, and then they installed a gas stove. Turns out I had a gas leak, and I had to have MidAmerican Energy come and fix it. "And it just felt like the maybe the floor was sagging. It was weird."

Displaced residents find temporary home
Lathan-Burge said he didn't fault the city, but he was taken aback by the lack of notice. "I came home and the stuff taped to the door said we had to be out by 4:30 (p.m.)," Lathan Burge said Wednesday while he stood outside the Relax Inn. "That wasn't a lot of notice. I just put together what I could, put it all in my car and came here." Lathan-Burge said he felt "really bad for some of the people living in the apartment building who might not be physically able to move stuff." Courtney Jones, senior operations and partnerships manager for the city of Davenport's office of administration and finance, said, "Tenants will be allowed to retrieve belongings so long as admittance into the building is coordinated with the property owner." "This really just puts a lot of stress on everyone," Lathan-Burge said. "So when I got here, I was told I only had one day (at the Relax Inn). Then we had to work out how long I could stay. I'll be staying at the Relax Inn through Sunday. "After that, I'm not sure. I either have to move back in with my mom, or I have to find a shelter that will take me." Lathan-Burge paid $800 a month for his one-bedroom apartment at Schricker Apartments. "I paid my rent early, so now I'm really low on cash," he said. "Things are going to get hard for me and the other people who lived in that apartment. “I’m just not sure what I'll be able to do."

The Quad Cities Tenant Alliance, a part of nonprofit Quad Cities Interfaith, hosted a rally on Wednesday ahead of Wednesday evening's City Council meeting, calling on leaders to provide the tenants with security deposit and two months of rent by Monday to find somewhere else to live. "This is another example of landlords' complete abdication of responsibility for the health and safety of their tenants," said Beth Longlett, a member of QCTA and Zion Lutheran Church. "The tenants are forced to find new housing — in an already tight market — without the means to do so." "We've seen this over and over. Landlords rarely return security deposits in these situations. When tenants are displaced because of landlord neglect, the city should require landlords to pay tenants immediately. It should be a condition of having a rental license in Davenport," said Dennis Platt, a member of QCTA.

A last resort
One long-term resident of the Relax Inn described it as a "last resort" for people who cannot find permanent housing. That same resident, who asked to remain anonymous, said the hotel's owners "try to help people" and "there are good people living here." She also said some of the residents scare her. Lathan-Burge said he received a scare early Wednesday morning.

"I woke up to a man and woman screaming at each other," he said. "It was right outside the door. Then he started hitting her. "It was disturbing. “The Relax Inn has seen some violence and drug activity. Joseph Fitzgerald Dodd was arrested in October 2023 for a Sept. 17, 2023, shooting at the motel that left a man injured. Also in September, a man was arrested for allegedly peddling multiple drugs — including "crack" cocaine, heroin and meth — out of a room he rented. Local law enforcement agencies served eight search warrants on rooms in the Relax Inn in 2023. All of those search warrants were related to the people staying in the rooms, not the owners, managers or employees of the motel. The manager working Tuesday at the Relax Inn said the owners "work very hard to keep people safe." He added that the management "can't turn away people based on how they look" and it is "very hard to tell what people will do in their rooms." Multiple complaints about the hotel last year led to some inspections in 2023. The complaints ranged from trash left in rooms to dirty sheets to cockroaches. These inspections fall under the jurisdiction of the Scott County Health Department, according to the state department's website.

'A stopgap'
The county, through its general assistance fund, is paying for residents displaced from 401 W. 4th St. to stay at the Relax Inn until Monday. "We're a stopgap," said Lori Elam, the Scott County Community Services director. Elam said the city of Davenport reached out to the county and nonprofits for help with relocation assistance for tenants Every county has a general assistance fund, Elam said, which can be used for assistance with rent, utilities, transportation, and even cremation and burial services for people who need it. Elam said the hotel accepted payment from the county. Vendors must go through a process to determine eligibility. "This is an emergency situation," Elam said. "We were just trying to help folks get off the street quickly, and we were able to use general assistance to do that." Elam said she was not aware of recent inspections nor had heard concerns about the hotel.

COMMENTS AT THE DAVENPORT CITY COUNCIL OPEN FORUM:

It has been 304 days since the building at 324 Main Street in Davenport, Iowa, collapsed and nothing has been settled for those who died, were injured or lost their homes.

PACG and QCI member Loxi Hopkins said, “The city needs to show responsibility for those displaced and in need.”

Paul Vasquez, 3rd Ward Alderman, Davenport said, “The Council is more reactive than active. Resolutions approving City Home funding applications for Davenport Projects are given to out-of-state landlords. The city needs to adopt basic housing and rental housing inspections and enforcement.”

Dennis Platt, 6th Ward resident and a member of the QC Tenant Alliance, listed a number of properties where tenants have been evicted. The city should push landlords to take care of their properties in substandard status and allow housing choice vouchers to tenants who are displaced from those properties.

Susan Meenan, 7th Ward resident and a member of QCI, said, “Landlords should refund deposits and rents and provide moving costs.”

LaShanna Dixon, QC Tenants Alliance, said, “People deserve much better.” Her sister, LaCanna Dixon, said, “That she doesn’t see any compassion from the city when these buildings are condemned.”

According to one resident, he received ½ hour to vacate because Shive-Hattery, a Quad Cities Architecture and Engineering Firm, found structural issues that made the building unsafe. An eviction notice was never posted. The police knocked on doors to make sure that everyone was out.

Tenants’ immediate needs are laundry soap, toilet paper, bath towels, toilet plungers, and hygiene products. Check the QC Tenant Alliance or the Quad Cities Interfaith websites for updates on where to bring these important items! Once drop off information is available we will post it.

Ann McCluskey

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Take action for housing justice! - What You Can Do Now

11/2/2023

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Your Efforts are Working. The Pressure is Building! Keep Emailing HUD!

Quad Cities Interfaith

It has been only 1 week since 150 supporters showed up to the Town Hall for Housing Justice, and we have already received word from Steven Eggleston and Kimberly Dannae, the Field Office Directors at HUD for Iowa and Illinois! The pressure on HUD to meet with us in the Quad Cities is building! Mr. Eggleston reports that they have received our "multiple email messages"--at least 58 emails to be exact! He promises to get back to the community in "a reasonable amount of time." This is major headway, but whenever means never until HUD sets a date and time for a meeting.

Keep emailing. We need every Quad Citian who cares about housing justice to continue building the pressure! Please send the link to your neighbors, friends, and family. Click this link to ENSURE HUD hears our message.

As we shared at the Town Hall, the QC faces a housing shortage--we need at least 6,645 units ensure safe, decent, and affordable housing for every neighbor. Testimonies from directly impacted people powerfully demonstrate how municipal divestment from housing has catastrophic consequences for us and our neighbors. As LaShanna Dixon said: "For my cousin Branden, the cost of renting in the Quad Cities was his life. I am here today because I don't think renting should be a death sentence." We cannot let another collapse like the one at 324 Main Street happen ever again. We will continue the struggle together: "Fight, fight, fight! Housing is a Human Right!"

That's why the Quad Cities community is calling HUD to come to town. We need HUD to audit local municipal compliance with HUD standards for inspections and ensure proper investment in safe, decent, and affordable housing. If you have not emailed already, please email HUD to demand a meeting. Click this link to ENSURE HUD hears our message.

You can also take Action for Housing Justice by:

1. Sharing the email link with friends, family, and neighbors to get HUD to the QC!

2. Organizing a tenant alliance at your apartment or volunteering with the Quad Cities Tenant Alliance. Contact [email protected] or visit qcinterfaith.org to learn more

3. Voting in your local election on November 7th. Find your polling place HERE

4. Attending your City Council meetings to push our local leaders to put housing justice on the agenda. Meetings are every Wednesday at 5:30 PM at Davenport City Hall.

PACG Webmaster

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PACG Book Club - "Homesick", November 2023

10/29/2023

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PACG Book Club - Homesick: Why Housing is Unaffordable and How We Can Change It by Brendan O'Brien
Monday, November 27th at 5 pm - hybrid meeting

Edwards Congregational UCC
3420 Jersey Ridge Rd
Davenport, IA (map)

PACG Book Club

Note: Our next PACG Book Club discussion will be one week late, due to the Thanksgiving holiday. We will not meet in December.

In November, we will read and discuss Homesick: Why Housing is Unaffordable and How We Can Change It by Brendan O'Brien. Brendan is the son of Kevin and Eileen O'Brien, long-time supporters of PACG. Kevin told me about his son's book at the PACG Picnic & Pie Auction this year. Brendan also gave a few presentations recently in the Quad Cities about his book and the issue of affordable housing. Ed Tibbets also interviewed the author and wrote an interesting article on Substack. We felt this would be a great read and a timely topic. We will also try to arrange a joint book club discussion in early 2024 with the Project Now book club. It would be great if we can arrange to have the author give another presentation to our joint book clubs!

Here is more information about the book from Goodreads:

Nobody who sits in traffic on Sedona, Arizona’s main stretch or stands shoulder-to-shoulder in its many souvenir shops would call it a ghost town.

Neither would anyone renting a room for $2,000 a month or buying a house for a half-million dollars. And yet the people who built this small town and made it a community are being pushed further and further out. Their home is being sold out from under their feet.

In studying the impact of short-term rentals, Brendan O'Brien saw something similar happening in places ranging from Bend, Oregon, to Bar Harbor, Maine. But it isn't just short-term rentals, and it's not just tourism towns. Neighborhoods in Austin and Atlanta have become rows of investment properties. Longtime residents in Spokane and Boston have been replaced by new, high-salaried remote workers. Across the country, a level of unaffordable housing that once seemed unique to global cities like New York and San Francisco has become the norm, with nearly a third of all US households considered housing cost burdened.

This situation has been abetted by the direct actions of developers, politicians, and existing homeowners who have sought to drive up the cost of housing. But it's mostly happened due to a society-wide refusal to see housing as anything more than real estate, another product available to the highest bidder. This trend of putting local housing on a global market has worsened in recent years but is nothing new. Housing in the United States has always been marred by racial and income inequality that mocks the country’s highest ideals.

Deeply researched and deeply felt, Homesick argues that we can be so much better. And we can start where we live.

Contact me if you need a Zoom link.

Alta Price

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Davenport Rent Abatement Ordinance passes! - Of Interest to Our Community

Davenport Rent Abatement Ordinance Passed!

Davenport emergency evictions - After Action Report

Davenport residents face emergency evictions! - After Action Report

Take action for housing justice! - What You Can Do Now

Your Efforts are Working. The Pressure is Building! Keep Emailing HUD!

PACG Book Club - "Homesick", November 2023

PACG Book Club - Homesick: Why Housing is Unaffordable and How We Can Change It by Brendan O'Brien
Monday, November 27th at 5 pm - hybrid meeting

Edwards Congregational UCC
3420 Jersey Ridge Rd
Davenport, IA (map)

PACG Book Club

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Davenport Rent Abatement Ordinance passes! - Of Interest to Our Community

Davenport Rent Abatement Ordinance Passed!

Davenport emergency evictions - After Action Report

Davenport residents face emergency evictions! - After Action Report

Take action for housing justice! - What You Can Do Now

Your Efforts are Working. The Pressure is Building! Keep Emailing HUD!

PACG Book Club - "Homesick", November 2023

PACG Book Club - Homesick: Why Housing is Unaffordable and How We Can Change It by Brendan O'BrienMonday, November 27th at 5 pm - hybrid meetingEdwards Congregational UCC3420 Jersey Ridge RdDavenport, IA (map)​PACG Book Club

Archives

Categories

PACG Book Club - Homesick: Why Housing is Unaffordable and How We Can Change It by Brendan O'Brien
Monday, November 27th at 5 pm - hybrid meeting

Edwards Congregational UCC
3420 Jersey Ridge Rd
Davenport, IA (map)

PACG Book Club