Letter from the President: Amplify Our Voice

Dear SPOA members and friends,

Our collective voice as landlords is very important —and I am pleased that we had a great turnout during the City of Boston’s first listening session for rent control on May 24, 2022. It is imperative to have an even higher turnout for the next session, which will be focused on landlords exclusively, on Thursday, July 21, from 6:00pm to 7:30pm.

After engaging in an active lobbying effort by hiring Richard Tisei and Jim Eisenberg of Preti Strategies two years ago, the feedback that we consistently get is that our legislators never hear from housing providers.

Tenant activists have been organizing for decades. They are very effective at messaging and they are well funded. We need to understand this and acknowledge that we are making up for lost time.

As small landlords, you must prioritize communicating with and getting to know your elected officials. This should be treated as an essential part of your duty on a regular basis, if you wish to stay in business.

Tenant activist groups have grabbed a firm hold of the COVID crisis to leverage emergency measures into one bad policy after another for housing providers. It amounts to death by 1,000 cuts for landlords, who must face the possibility of TOPA, rent control, ongoing eviction moratoriums, right to counsel, eviction sealing, and the list goes on. 

Rent control is the focus of much media coverage, as Mayor Michelle Wu draws attention to this in Boston. However, we should not be distracted by that yet, as the prospect of TOPA and surtaxes passing this month, either alone or as attachments to other bills, are more immediate threats.

The Wu administration is pushing rent control in the form of “rent stabilization.” We all know that it is the same thing. While Mayor Wu created a Rent Stabilization Advisory Commission and charged it with “studying local housing conditions, as well as the structure and outcomes of rent stabilization programs in other cities… [and with] making recommendations…on strategies to stabilize Boston rents and protect tenants from displacement,” it is becoming clear that the Commission has already made up its mind.

The administration’s apparent strategy is to adopt the policy as a given, carefully control the public process, and hope that rent control activists see the effort as sufficient, or get the Massachusetts legislature to cave on passing new laws allowing it, or both. In Massachusetts, rent control simply won’t be made law unless it passes as new legislation or gets voted on as a ballot initiative. Wu supporters claim that rent control was overwhelmingly mandated by her election. However, only three in every ten Boston voters cast a ballot.

TOPA changes the way that private property conveyances happen. You have no exit strategy. If you look at the property that you have owned for decades as your savings and retirement, you will be penalized up to 227 days, or more, as your tenants organize to buy, peruse your financials, or get usurped by a predatory development company, or a large corporation that can afford to wait you out.

How would legislators feel if their 401(k)s were subject to such a process? We should ask them. Please do so constantly throughout this month before the end of the legislative session on July 31.

Rent control will need to be defeated by a broad-based coalition of shared interests coming together. We need to be preparing for that fight as well.

SPOA keeps asking for money because of the lobbying effort that we have undertaken. We are all volunteers with our own properties and families as well. Your donations go to our legislative voice and the printing of our newsletter.

It falls on us to advocate for ourselves—with all property owners participating. Either we gear up for the fight of our lives, or we risk the collapse of our industry—with small owners first on the chopping block. We need to wake up to that reality, and we need to fight not only for ourselves, but for our tenants and the many businesses that depend on us. The health and safety of our communities are on the line. Please donate and help us amplify our voice!

Yours Sincerely,

Allison Drescher

President

SPOA