Tenant speakers expressed concerns about the ongoing displacement of Somerville residents, at the listening session on rent stabilization held last Thursday. ~Photo by Bobbie Toner

By Maile Blume

Somerville tenants advocated for rent stabilization legislation that is stronger than that of Boston, during the second of two listening sessions on rent stabilization held by the Somerville Anti-Displacement Task Force last Thursday. The goal of the listening session was to inform a draft of rent stabilization laws for the city.

During the listening session, tenants asked the task force to implement rent stabilization measures to address the ongoing displacement of the Somerville community.

Ronel Remy, a statewide organizer with City Life / Viva Urbana, a grassroots organization that fights for racial, social, and economic justice, said he was forced to move six times in about seven years due to uncontrolled rent increases. “Somerville embraced me. I thought I made it. That was my American dream. I was very happy here, until we lost rent control,” he said.

Remy said that his landlord doubled his rent, after rent control was ended in Massachusetts in 1994. “I got pushed away because we lost rent control. And I’m thinking, it’s not just rent control, we need a box of tools that could remedy what’s going on,” he said. “It’s just not fair that those who have a lot, you know, can dictate everything that we do,” he added.

Educator Naima Sait said that she has seen many families leave Somerville due to rent increases. Sait worked with many Haitian families and families from French-speaking parts of Africa, as a French teacher at Somerville High School.

“After we went back to in-person, my student body completely changed,” she said. “So many of the families that I worked with over the years had to move out of Somerville,” said Sait. She added that many of her senior students had to commute from other cities to finish up the school year.

Capping annual rent increases

Almost every speaker at the listening session asked for rent increases to be limited to the rate of inflation, and capped at 5% per year or below.

“The vast majority of the renters I work with can barely afford an annual rent increase of 2%,” said Community Organizer Samatha Wolfe, who works with Community Action Agency of Somerville (CAAS), an organization that fights to end poverty in Somerville.

Wolfe said that in order to stop the displacement of low-income tenants, especially those belonging to communities of color and immigrant communities, the city needs to cap rent increases at 2% per year. Many speakers also voiced support for rent rollbacks for current tenants, to prevent further displacement.

On the question of whether certain types of buildings should be exempted from rent stabilization, many speakers said there should be no exemptions. “A third of housing in Somerville is owner-occupied, and we know that most of those homes are not single family, so exempting all of those multi-family buildings from rent stabilization means that thousands of tenants will remain unprotected and at risk of displacement from their homes,” said Wolfe.

Speakers also suggested that the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) established by Social Security could be used instead of the rate of inflation as a measure to determine the cap on yearly rent increases.

“I don’t think people’s wages necessarily increase at the rate of inflation, and I think 5% is often too high, when the rents are already too high,” said Housing Attorney Susan Hegel. Hegel was one of the speakers who urged the task force to consider the use of the COLA or another index when drafting the new legislation.

Expanding tenant protections

Speakers also advocated for just cause eviction protections, which would limit the legal circumstances under which a landlord could evict tenants. Many tenants also said that these protections need to be specific. “It needs to have language that is not left up for interpretation,” said former Somerville resident Jurett Mooltrey-Weathers, whose building in Somerville was recently sold, displacing tenants.

Speakers also voiced support for vacancy controls, which would prevent landlords from raising the rents of vacant units. Resident Haley Brown said that she moved eight times in 11 years due to rent increases. She said that vacancy controls are “essential to protect tenants from landlords who will kick them out in order to increase the rent.”

Brown added that housing is not a commodity. She said, “Artists, community activists, teachers, people with a diversity of backgrounds, experiences, and incomes are the lifeblood of this city. If they can’t afford to live here, there will be nothing to stay for.” Gabrielle René, a community organizer with City Life / Viva Urbana, said she was displaced from Somerville as a high school student due to high rent increases. René said, “We deserve to have communities. We deserve to have places where we know our neighbors. And we deserve to have a community that we can afford, that is affordable and habitable.” René added, “Yes, they can make it affordable and habitable for everybody.”

Nicole Eigbrett, the co-chair of Somerville’s Anti-Displacement Task Force Residential Displacement Committee, said that the legislation could reach the Massachusetts State Legislature this fall, after the task force submits its recommendations to the mayor, and the city council votes on the finalized proposal for the new laws. It could take months or years for the resulting bill to be approved at the state level, said Eigbrett.

If passed, the bill would permit the city to implement a rent stabilization local ordinance. Then, the city would reach out for additional feedback from the Somerville community, before the ordinance draft would be brought before the city council again. More information on the legislative process can be found at the Somerville Anti- Displacement Task Force website.

“These specific listening sessions are only the beginning, and we very much look forward to staying engaged with our community as this legislative process moves forward,” said Eigbrett.