Cleveland        As privacy equity and deep pockets buy up tranches of housing throughout the country and endless LLCs hide the ownership of tens of thousands of housing units where tenants are organizing to demand accountability a huge obstacle is often finding a target to address the issues responsibly when the ownership is God knows where out of town, out of state, or even out of country.  In a reform under the Biden administration in the United States there seemed to finally be some hope as all LLCs were required to file clarifications on their real owners.  The new Trump administration suspended that rule even before their seats in the White House got warm.  In meetings with Kris Harsh, a city councilperson in Cleveland, we were encouraged about an ordinance he had introduced that went to the heart of this problem.

Cleveland’s Local Agent in Charge (LAIC) ordinance requires owners of non-owner-occupied residential rental properties to designate a local human representative.  If the property owner resides outside Cuyahoga County or a neighboring county contiguous to Cleveland, the designated LAIC must live or have an office within that local geographic area to accept legal notices and share maintenance accountability.

A huge kicker in trying to prevent owners from escaping city violation notices and repair orders is that the local agent, in Harsh’s explanation, shares liability for the violation.  Or as the ordinance establishes, the LAIC receives the Notices of Violation and can be held legally, civilly, or administratively responsible for code compliance if the owner fails to maintain the property.  There are fines for the owner if not in compliance, as well as potential criminal liability and prosecution by the city. That’s an ordinance with some teeth that bite.

And, that’s not all.  Similar to Rent Safe in Toronto, there’s a funding method embedded in the ordinance that assures enforcement and compliance.  Ownership would have to pay $70 per unit for the registration, which is capped at $30,000, which would cover an apartment complex as large as 430 units.  Obviously, to be square with Cleveland, the owner’s property taxes would have to in order and up to date, or have an enforced payment plan, same for utilities, and a requirement that the units are certified as lead-safe.

This is a problem everywhere we work and organize tenants.  Why don’t we have a similar ordinance or bylaw to give us a handle to win accountability?  Every tenant organizer can recount the frustration for tenant unions in playing whack-a-mole in trying to find someone behind the screen of LLCs and corporate firewalls, which are designed to escape any responsibility for maintenance and habitability issues and create distance from their tenants.  Supporting tenants trying to organize in Atlanta during the pandemic, this was a constant issue, especially in large multi-unit complexes.

In Cleveland, unlike way too many cities, ACORN Cleveland’s newly launched local groups know that these records are also publicly accessible on the internet, so it’s easy to find who the LAIC is, or in some cases where a there isn’t one, leaving the complex owner liable, giving the members an excellent handle in the campaign.  We’ll make sure this ordinance works well!