HOME Line’s statewide tenant hotline remained historically busy in April. Looking at our total volume of client interactions (new clients as well as follow-up interactions with previous clients—by phone and/or email), we’ve had 10,170 client interactions through April 30, a 71% increase over 2021, which turned out to be our busiest year ever to date.
Looking at the top 10 types of issued advised on over the hotline in April, 2022, there are a couple notable items.
Evictions are at the top of the list and have been for two straight months. This is not normal for HOME Line’s tenant hotline. It’s not even close to normal. Repairs are the top issue every year for the hotline and it’s exceptionally rare if it is not in the top spot for any amount of time. For two months now, eviction calls have outnumbered repairs as eviction filings continue to escalate throughout the state.
Landlord notices to vacate/lease non-renewals also remain historically high. Generally speaking, calls about evictions and landlord notices to vacate are both a form of landlord-initiated displacement. Together, they make up 39% of all client interactions in the last month. Compare that number to last April, for instance, when these types of landlord displacements only amounted to 27% of HOME Line’s tenant hotline calls.
Rent Increases are also in the top 10 reasons for three straight months. St. Paul’s rent stabilization policy is now in effect as of May 1st, but questions about this new rule have swirled for months as the city has been mulling over how to enforce the law (voted by St. Paul residents to approval by a ballot initiative) since last November.
Minneapolis is forming a working group of stakeholders to advise the city council on how they should approach rent stabilization based on the Minneapolis voter approved ballot initiative from last November, but it’s unclear when something concrete might appear.
In other notable landlord/tenant legal news, Brooklyn Center enacted a renter-protection ordinance that went into effect in April which gives tenants good cause protection from lease termination/non-renewal and requires a landlord to give a 30-day notice before filing an eviction for non-payment of rent or for a material breach of a lease. This is the third metro-area city that now requires advance written notice prior to the landlord being able to file an eviction along with Minneapolis (14 days) and St. Louis Park (7 days)—both of these cities have this protection in place for non-payment of rent evictions only.
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