Every resident of Philadelphia should live in a home that is safe and healthy. City Council has an opportunity to get closer to that reality by passing Councilmember Nicolas O’Rourke’s Safe Healthy Homes Act. This package of legislation contains three ordinances that clarify and strengthen renters’ rights to safety, repair, and relocation.

I know how important this is because I’ve lived it. I’ve had the experience of renting from an absentee corporate landlord who failed to care for my home and then retaliated against me when I stood up for myself, leaving me and my family in danger.

When we moved into our Germantown apartment in 2018, I could see problems from the start. There were cracks in the window sills that let in bugs. There were rodents in the home. There was significant water damage in the ceilings and the floors, to the point that the floors were warped.

Over a period of years, I put in repeated maintenance requests to the property owner, who ignored me, all while I held up my end of the lease and paid my rent on time. The last straw for me came when I had no heat for an entire winter. So I filed a complaint with the city’s Department of Licenses and Inspections.

My corporate landlord responded to my complaint by evicting me and my family from the apartment in retaliation. I cannot overstate the mental and emotional harm this experience did to us. We lived in an unhealthy, unsafe home, a home from which we were removed because I stood up for all of us in the face of an absentee corporate landlord.

I eventually prevailed in my eviction proceedings. But it took two years. That was two years of instability and hardship for me and my family. It also took two years from the time that I called the L&I department to the time that someone from their staff saw my apartment.

How can that department fulfill its mission if it takes two years to respond to a complaint? Research has shown that over 40% of renters in Philadelphia live in housing in need of repairs. 

Councilmember O’Rourke’s legislative package has numerous provisions that would protect renters like me. The right to repairs bill authorizes the Department of Licenses and Inspections to establish a proactive inspection program so that we can have inspections before a crisis happens instead of waiting until it’s too late. 

I have also joined renters across the city in advocating for City Council to add $10 million to the budget for L&I to give the department the staff and resources needed to launch a pilot proactive inspection program. L&I has been underfunded and dysfunctional for decades in Philly, and it’s time to change that. The cost of doing nothing is paid for by tenants in our health - and sometimes our lives.

One of the bills that O’Rourke has proposed would strengthen a renter’s right to safety. That means that landlords would be prohibited from retaliating against renters for filing necessary maintenance requests and complaints to city government when properties are in disrepair. There would be consequences if they do retaliate.

Most low-income renters in our city like me are afraid to speak out about the conditions we live in, not only because of fear of retaliation, but also because the only housing options we can afford are in such horrible slum conditions that we are afraid that, if L&I comes, they will shut the whole building down and put us out on the street. That is why the final bill in the Safe Healthy Homes Act is the right to relocation. It would establish a fund to cover moving costs for renters when the department has to issue a cease operations order due to uninhabitable conditions.

Landlords who follow the law, respect their tenants, and maintain their properties have nothing to fear from this legislation. It is only the absentee, irresponsible landlords who have anything to worry about. 

These ordinances will correct years of corporate property owners and city government looking the other way while vulnerable Philadelphians have lived in crisis in unsafe, unhealthy conditions.

Working class Black renters like me are sick of being treated like we’re disposable. It’s time for the city to step up and protect us renters. I hope City Council passes the Safe Healthy Homes Act so that families like mine can live in homes with dignity and security.