News & Articles

An issue that has been simmering on the back burner for some time is the possible return of the Housing Access Center (HAC) to Duluth.
Prior to 2010, the HAC promoted stable rental housing in Duluth “by educating existing and potential landlords regarding rights and responsibilities and by mediating disputes between landlords and tenants,” as well as maintaining lists of available housing for tenants. They operated out of an office in the Damiano Center. In 2010, the HAC’s federal funding was cut and the program disappeared. Today, housing advocates are urging the city to bring it back. The program’s proposed funding mechanism is controversial with the city’s landlords, who would be asked to pay a special rental license fee to cover most of the HAC’s budget, which would be about $120,000 annually.
The push to bring back the HAC originated in May of 2014, when affordable housing advocates gathered at the Coppertop Church for a Summit to End Homelessness in Duluth. The number one recommendation to come out of the summit was to bring back the Housing Access Center. According to proponents, the HAC’s mediation services had been 90 percent effective in preventing evictions.
“Tenants who are facing eviction,” organizer Joel Kilgour explained, “are also facing the very real possibility of homelessness, because there is nowhere else for them to go.”
Despite this, the mayor did not include funding for the HAC in his proposed 2015 budget. On September 22, 2014, city councilors, feeling the mayor’s budget was too austere, voted to increase the property tax levy by $250,000, from $19.87 million to $20.12 million. In an amendment to the budget, Councilors Joel Sipress and Zack Filipovich proposed that $30,000 of the increase be earmarked for the Housing Access Center. Some councilors didn’t like the idea of earmarking money for one organization when there were so many other priorities in the city. Though the levy was approved, the amendment was voted down.
Even without the amendment, the full levy left open the possibility that $30,000 could still be used for the HAC. That left $90,000 that would need to be raised from other sources. Comments made by several councilors during the same meeting indicate that the idea of a fee on landlords was already under consideration.
“If we want to explore the idea of an additional fee, that is possible this year,” said Councilor Emily Larson. “We would approve that fee at the end of this year, and we would make a motion at the beginning of next year to approve that budget.”
“I do feel very strongly about funding the Housing Access Center,“ said Councilor Barb Russ, “—in part from a tax levy, as well as CDBG funds, and I know that we’re going to have to look elsewhere to come up with all the money that will be required to get this off the ground.”
“There was some discussion about perhaps landlords paying some additional amount on their rental license,” said Councilor Linda Krug. “So there does need to be some more conversation about that.”
These comments constitute the first public mention of a landlord fee by city leaders that I am aware of—but, clearly, they had been discussing the issue behind the scenes. If landlords were aware of it, it was only through their own vigilance. When I recently spoke with Barbara Montee, president of the Duluth Landlords Association, she said, “They don’t typically call us. You know, you’re just supposed to read the paper and pay attention, I guess.”
On November 6, 2014, the HAC plan made its official public debut at the city council’s Committee of the Whole meeting. Jeff Corey, executive director of One Roof Community Housing, and various other housing advocates gathered in council chambers to make the case for the HAC. One Roof Community Housing is a nonprofit group that was formed in 2012 by the merger of two other nonprofits, Neighborhood Housing Services and the Northern Community Land Trust. If approved, the HAC would be administered by One Roof.
Joel Kilgour led off the presentation. “Obviously, we need more housing in Duluth, but that’s a long process and it’s expensive. This is a program that we could start immediately to try to keep people in their homes, to try to prevent evictions, to limit the cost to both landlords and tenants of housing disruption.”
Bob Grytdahl, the city’s Human Rights Officer, said, “The Housing Access Center is a critical component to support the housing-first philosophy. Stable housing benefits all of us. […] The Housing Access Center provides a trusted source of information and works as the front line, at times as informal mediator for both tenant and landlord. Often, the Housing Access Center is able to calm the waters, unclog the communication, identify the problem and work out a solution.”
Cynthia Finley, former director of the HAC, talked about her experiences. “There is no similar place in our community for landlords and tenants to go to get educated about their rights and their responsibilities in the rental world. We foresee this entity as providing landlord trainings, rental licensing classes, providing resources on landlord and tenant laws. Ready-to-rent classes are pivotal, especially for tenants who maybe have little to no rental history, and landlords that are afraid to rent to folks that don’t have that kind of history.”
Rick Klun, executive director of Center City Housing, which manages 424 low-income rental units in Duluth, described how helpful the HAC’s mediation services had been for Center City in the past. A property manager with WJA Properties, which manages twelve buildings in the city, said that the HAC had been a “godsend.” “We depended on them. When we had a problem, we could go to them. We never had to do an eviction. We never had to go to court. They helped us in so many, many ways.”
Mr. Corey wrapped up the meeting by helpfully passing out a sheet comparing Duluth’s rental license fees with the fees in Rochester, St. Cloud, St. Paul and Minneapolis—presumably to show how easily Duluth’s landlords could shoulder the cost of funding Corey’s program.
The two property managers who spoke to the council may have been an anomaly. In the days following the Committee of the Whole meeting, the city council received emails from 29 landlords, all of whom opposed the fee. In addition, the Arrowhead Multi-Housing Association, a group representing area landlords, issued a formal statement in opposition to the fee. (Barb Montee told me that she didn’t know anybody in the Duluth Landlords Association who supported the fee, but because they were “very independent,” she could only speak for herself.)
The one email in support of the fee came from Pam Kramer, executive director of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, a nonprofit community service agency.
Nobody that I contacted was able to provide me with a specific amount that the proposed fee would be. For their part, landlords seemed less concerned about the amount than about the existence of the fee itself.
“There’s no guarantee in there that they’re not going to raise it,” said Montee. “When the city money goes away and the county money gets cut because of tax changes or whatever, who do you suppose they’ll go after? […] It’s not that they’re bad or mean. It’s just human nature to go after [the money].”
It’s no secret that the city of Duluth has become increasingly reliant on fees in recent years. In the old days (say, ten years ago), if the city wanted to fund a Housing Access Center, it would go to the general fund budget and fiddle with numbers, adjusting one account and squeezing another, until the desired amount of money was freed up. Today, that is not possible. The general fund today is maxed out, and then some—and so, when we need money for something, we start charging fees. Today, the city’s street repair and streetlight maintenance, which were once included in the general fund, are being paid for with fees.
The proposed HAC funding solution takes fees one step further. With other fees, the money collected is spent on city projects. With the HAC fee, the city’s only function is to be a conduit for the money from one group to another. Will we see a future in which everyone pitching an idea to the city has to identify a group that the city can take money from to fund it? That is what One Roof Community Housing is doing. As Denette Lynch, one of the landlords opposed to the HAC, wrote in a letter to the city council, “It would be like requiring bars to fund Mothers Against Drunk Driving or lose their license.”
Whatever one thinks of the HAC (and there is no reason to doubt that it does good things), this funding mechanism establishes a precedent that leaves me feeling uncomfortable.
The city should fund its desires in the straightforward governmental way: By paying for them out of the general fund. If our desires cannot be met by the general fund, then perhaps we should consider doing without them. If we cannot do without them, we should consider a levy increase, complete with public hearings and transparency. There is no project so important that it justifies turning the city into a glorified bagman, whose only purpose is to shuttle cash from one private group to another.

A vocabulary triumph

One of the great aggravations of my life has been listening to people constantly misuse the word “podium.” A podium is a small raised platform that you stand on when delivering a speech. It is not the thing with the slanted top that holds your papers, which you stand behind. That thing is a lectern. But everybody calls the lectern a podium.
To be clear: You stand ON a podium, and you stand AT a lectern.
I regret to say that after hearing people call the lectern a podium for so many years, I began to capitulate and use the word incorrectly myself. That is why I was so excited when Emily Larson became city council president and started identifying things correctly.
Three or four times a meeting, we hear President Larson invite people to “come up to the lectern” or “push the little button on the side of the lectern to raise it.” Each time, I feel like doing a little air-guitar riff and shouting, “Rockin’ out with proper English! Yeaaahhhhh!”
But instead I just doodle something, because I’m a professional.