TACOMA, Wash. — The Tacoma City Council is asking landlords, renters, and property managers to share their thoughts on potential updates to the city’s Rental Housing Code.
The city is collecting this feedback through a survey that can be found on its website. You can also see Tacoma’s current code and what the potential changes could be.
The proposed changes include notices for rent increases and standards for shared housing and late fees. Possible policy requirements could include six to seven months' written notice for rent increases over 10% and 90 days' notice for 6-10% increases, limiting the rent-to-income ratio when screening applicants, such as tenants on a fixed income, and requiring separate leases when renting to four or more tenants.
But a father in Tacoma says he can’t even make it through a standard screening process.
Speaking under the condition of anonymity, the father says he’s been struggling to find a place for himself and his three children ever since he got a foreclosure notice for the home he was renting during the pandemic.
One of the main hurdles he’s had was meeting the financial qualifications to rent an apartment. He says that many of the apartments he’s applied to require that he make three times the rent of the apartment he’s applying for, even as rates go up.
Each time he’s been denied also means his credit score takes a hit, pushing him further away from housing.
Now his family lives in hotels and the family car, hoping something will change soon.
“They want you to make three times the rent, and then you raise the rent and you want me to make three times that,” he said. “In this financial situation? It’s not going to happen.”
The father says he hopes Tacoma’s new policies allow people like himself and others on a fixed income to still qualify to rent an apartment.
Meanwhile, Mark Melsness of Spinnaker Property Management says while he understands the challenge, those financial protocols are necessary.
“You want to look to see that they can maintain that financial relationship throughout the time that they’re living in the home,” Melsness explained.
Melsness says that he supports Tacoma’s move to improve its rental policies, but he hopes those policies can be standardized across the county to avoid confusion.
He also doesn’t want the conversation to stop at making renting easier.
“Why would we put them back into housing? What’re the programs that we can come up with that keeps them in housing,” he asked.
But this Tacoma resident says if adjustments aren’t made, many Tacomans won’t be able to keep a roof over their heads.
“I get where the owners are, where their positions are, but at the same time, it’s like, something’s gotta give,” he said.