Somerville Housing Providers Under Assault
Dear SPOA members and supporters:
We have heard from many of you, voicing your concern over the current Rent Control discussions being held in Somerville.
There have been two listening sessions held to discuss the possibilities of a Home Rule Petition being discussed by the City Council.
We know many of you are concerned and you have a right to be. The City of Boston held a similar series of discussions last year. The process was designed to appear as though the "powers that be" were interested in hearing from all stakeholders about Rent Control, but that's not really what happened. There were multiple failures in the registration process for the meetings, notifications of the meetings and impacts to speaking time in the public sessions. Yet it is also important to remember that we are all bound by the constraints of the current laws that are in place, both on a municipal level and state wide.
What can you do? We strongly encourage Somerville owners to contact your City Council members and let them know your thoughts on implementing Rent Control.
A list of their contact information can be found here: https://www.somervillema.gov/departments/city-council
Please copy us at askspoa@gmail.com when you send in your comments to them. SPOA will then gather the responses and send them to state elected officials. Please don't forget this! The more responses that are sent in, the more impact we will have weighing in on the process.
As property owners, we know you are busy with your daily lives and families, particularly in the midst of summer here in New England; however it is important to understand voicing your opposition to bad housing policies will be a part of all of our lives for the foreseeable future. Property rights are under assault in the state of Massachusetts and to overcome these obstacles is going to take a monumental collective effort.
Talking points on why Rent Control is bad housing policy can be found below. You can add these into your correspondence if helpful.
It stunts the production of new housing
It makes it more difficult for property owners to collect their hard-earned rental income
It leads to the disrepair of existing housing
It makes it more difficult for property owners to remove non-compliant tenants from their properties -- to the detriment of those owners and their buildings, as well as the other cooperative tenants who rely on their landlords to provide them with safe, maintained living places.
Sincerely,
Small Property Owners Association (SPOA)