Naima Robinson-Chaney and her three teenage boys need to move out of their three-bedroom house in South Baltimore’s Morrell Park neighborhood by the end of March.
Robinson-Chaney said her landlord hasn’t given an explicit reason for ending her lease, but she suspects it relates to a dispute over a water bill — a dispute that led to a court judgment against her, which makes it hard to find a new place to live.
“I have nowhere to go,” she told WYPR.
With no local family, she worries she will end up homeless with her children. “And if that become an issue, I’m quite sure I’m going to have an issue with [the Department of Social Services] coming to remove my children.”
On Tuesday, the House Environment and Transportation Committee and the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee held separate hearings on a bill that would allow local jurisdictions to pass “good cause” eviction protections, laws which prevent landlords from deciding not to renew a lease unless they have a specific, approved reason. Approved reasons include the tenant damaging the property or breaking the law, the tenant habitually failing to pay rent, the landlord wanting to make significant renovations or repairs, or the landlord deciding to remove the property from the rental market for at least a year.
The General Assembly has considered some form of good cause eviction protections for 14 years, Zafar Shah, advocacy director on housing issues at Maryland Legal Aid, told the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee.
The most recent version does not impose new statewide rules, said Sen. C. Anthony Muse, the bill’s Senate sponsor. Rather, it enables local jurisdictions to pass good cause laws. Muse said Maryland is one of only five states that prohibits counties from passing these laws.
“Each year in Maryland, over 5,000 tenants are evicted without being given any reason at all,” Muse told his fellow lawmakers. “The bill prevents corporate landlords from hiding behind multiple LLCs to avoid accountability.”
Muse said families, and particularly “Black and brown children” are disproportionately affected by “no-cause evictions.”
“One in four of our Black children in renting households faces a threat of eviction every year,” he said.
However, opponents of the bill told lawmakers it gives too much power to tenants and not enough to landlords.
“Put yourself in the position of a landlord, somebody that rents out property,” said Robert Enten, representing the Maryland Multi-Housing Association. “You have a contract, like everybody else has a contract, and when that contract is over, either party can walk away.”
This bill changes that dynamic, giving only the tenant the power to say when the contract — the lease — ends.
Sen. Chris West, a Republican representing the Towson area, also questioned whether the bill provides disincentives to investors in would-be rental properties, which could exacerbate the state’s shortage of affordable housing.
Bill Castelli, a lobbyist representing Maryland Realtors, agreed.
“I think the more control that property owners lose in terms of that property, the less control they have over tenants in the property, the less control they have over the property itself in terms of what they charge,” he said, “it provides less incentive for people to invest in property.”
