Shannon Corrick: Renters need legislative protections from gouging
By Shannon Corrick
Cheney’s my home. I’ve lived here since 1999. There’s a lot I love about living here, but rising rent is definitely not one of them.
Most of the homes in this area are rental properties. It’s great being in a community with so many young people who are college students, but landlords know they can rent to groups of college students who can each pay $500 for a room in a shared house or apartment. Workers and families are being displaced because this raises the rent for all of us.
My husband and I raised our kids in the house we rented. We cared for our home, and made several improvements while we were there, including putting in a garden and flower beds. My grandson could spend time playing in the yard. It was a nice, safe house, it was our home.
On May 29, my “mom-and-pop” landlord sent us a letter saying our rent was going up from $990 to $1,395, effective July 1. With such short notice, I didn’t have enough time to get a new job or a second job to save up money to cover rent. On grocery store wages, I couldn’t afford that, so we had to move to an apartment right next to the tracks with trains coming through 36 times a day. No more gardening for me, and no yard for my grandson to go outside and play.
My landlord said he was hiking the rent because “that’s what the market will bear.” I don’t feel like it was a personal attack on us, but I do feel outrage that this is happening to so many people. I call it rent gouging, and it’s a crisis that’s displacing thousands of people from our homes.
Home owners can count on the relative stability of their mortgage. But for the rest of us who rent, landlords can raise the rent as much as they want. In fact, on average, rents increased by 63% between 2010 and 2021 across the state. Many of us are paying more than 50% of our income to rent.
Bills being considered by the state Legislature would provide more protection for tenants. They would require more notice from landlords when they significantly raise the rent, tie rent increases more closely to inflation, allowing landlords to increase rents, but not more than 7%. If we had had these policies in place, our rent would have gone up no more than $68 a month, not $400 a month. We would still be in the house we called home for so many years.
I hope our legislators – Sen. Mark Schoesler and Reps. Mary Dye and Joe Schmick – will support action to protect so many of us who are vulnerable to displacement when landlords decide to hike rates because “that’s what the market will bear.”
Shannon Corrick is an essential worker who lives in Cheney.