Michael Walker’s letter to the editor in The Gainesville Sun today advocates for the passing of the Renters’ Rights Ordinance.

Michael is a professor of english at Santa Fe College and longtime ACLC member.

OP–Ed in the Gainesville Sun, Nov. 1, 2018
Written by Sheila Payne and Jason Fults,  members of the Alachua County Labor Coalition Housing Committee.

Our community has a severe shortage of affordable housing. With 3,000 new residents projected to be moving into Alachua County every year, the Alachua County Labor Coalition supports a variety of measures to help increase the overall number of affordable housing units in the future.

However, we also believe this community must address existing housing costs for our community’s most vulnerable residents now. Renters in this community are due basic rights and protections such as a safe place to live, freedom from discrimination, affordable utility bills, and disclosure of their rights and responsibilities as tenants.

We believe that these aims can best be achieved through a comprehensive renters’ rights ordinance. The proposal that we are putting forward — in consultation with city and county commissioners and Florida Legal Services as well as landlords, renters, neighborhood associations, faith communities, civic organizations, and other stakeholders throughout our community — is revenue-neutral and based upon existing programs and services with a demonstrated track record of success.

It poses a threat to no one except landlords with a pattern of misconduct, and in fact levels the playing field for the majority of landlords throughout our community who strive to keep their housing livable.

Universal, low-cost licensing and inspections of rental units should be mandatory. This community recently experienced three fires within 10 days, with the loss of life in one fire, 35 tenants displaced in another fire and none of the residents were alerted by working smoke detectors. This is just wrong.

Under this proposal, inspections would be carried out by certified inspectors to ensure the safety of the dwelling, including structural integrity, working smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors, proper locks, electrical outlets and other basic safety standards.

Energy/water efficiency standards in rental units are one of the most immediate ways to decrease overall cost of living for many folks. These standards should be developed by utility experts and could be assigned a point value, allowing landlords to choose from a range of options to achieve low-cost, high return on investment efficiency upgrades. A layer of insulation in the attic and low flow toilets, for instance, would go a long way to helping lower renter utility costs.

Safety and efficiency standards could not only save lives, but they could also help reduce total housing costs by addressing the dramatic inequities in efficiency investments between owner-occupied and rental properties in this community.

In acknowledgment of the amount of rental housing to be inspected and brought up to code and the added workload and expense, landlords should be given a window of compliance. If needed, public funds from already existing programs for homeowners and other sources could be made available as grants or low-interest loans.

Another chronic problem identified by renters is the practice of some landlords to routinely deny the return of security deposits to their tenants, regardless of cause. This practice leaves students and low-income tenants with little recourse and creates tremendous financial instability.

The Alachua County Labor Coalition supports an arbitration program modeled on the county’s highly-successful wage recovery ordinance. This program would be designed to offer a fast and cheap alternative to longer, more drawn out court proceedings and would be free to tenants and landlords and available upon either party’s request.

People deserve protection from discrimination, and discrimination in housing is particularly insidious. The Labor Coalition proposes that protections against discrimination based upon source of income and citizenship status be added to city and county code. These protections are sorely needed, according to local legal services agencies, and have been successfully implemented in other communities.

Both landlords and tenants would benefit from increased education, and this education can be easily provided during initial discussions about a rental agreement. Licensed landlords would provide tenants with basic information about their dwelling units, including compliance with local codes and occupancy limits, the previous 12 months’ utility consumption or efficiency rating, and other educational materials that describe renters’ rights and responsibilities as tenants.

Please join us in supporting renters’ rights during the many upcoming community affordable housing conversations.

Evictions are wrong but are made even more dangerous because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The ACLC has been working with the Evictions Lab to establish a baseline and better understand this looming crisis. Between 2012 and 2016 there was an average of 559 evictions filed during the months of March, April, May, and June in Alachua County. During this same period in 2020 there were 156 evictions filed. This 402 case difference is entirely the result of Governor DeSantis’ stay on evictions for failure to pay rent.

Two things will happen soon:

1. Evictions for other reasons, such as leases expiring, will increase in the next few months.
2. The stay on evictions will eventually end and the floodgates will open.

When this happens we will see hundreds, if not thousands of eviction cases being filed at once. The ACLC has put together an evictions’ task force to help with this. We have a team that is sending information packets to all who have evictions filed against them. We also have a team who will follow up with canvassing a week after our packets are sent to them.

Please email us at ACTenantsAssociation@@laborcoalition.org if you wish to join one or both of these teams. We need as much help as possible!

Safe and Healthy Housing Ordinance

At the July 16th City of Gainesville commission meeting, the long-awaited draft Renters Rights/ Safe and Healthy Housing ordinance was finally voted on and passed unanimously by the City Commission . The ACLC is the initiator of this housing ordinance and we have been working 2 years with many involved ACLC and community members to see this ordinance through so that the rental housing stock does not continue to deteriorate in Alachua County. The anti-housing discrimination ordinance recently passed is part of this bigger ordinance.

Renters in this community are due basic rights and protections such as a safe place to live, freedom from discrimination and predatory landlords, affordable utility bills, and disclosure of their rights and responsibilities as tenants.

The draft ordinance includes:

• Universal, low-cost landlord licensing
• Rental code standards for condition of home
• Inspections to ensure compliance with basic safety and energy/water efficiency standards
• The landlord will be required to show tenants a document that discloses the home’s efficiency rating, assigned by city inspectors.
• Arbitration to resolve rental deposit disputes
• An education component where the landlord will be required to have new tenants sign a copy of the disclosure of renters’ rights and responsibilities.

Despite the reigning chaos, we will still go forward with our Medicare Birthday Party on July 30th, this time on a Zoom call. Your wonderful pot luck dishes will be missed, and of course the slice of our birthday cake will be missed even more so. But for now, we have found another way to celebrate, without food.

We actually were able to pull in an amazing speakers to come and put on a lively discussion. Max Richtman, the CEO  from the National Committee To Preserve Social Security and Medicare, will let us know just how fragile our benefits often are, and the fight behind the scenes to keep them alive and working for us. Kayser Enneking and Scott Darius will continue to inform us about the progress of the  Florida Medicaid Expansion campaign.  We will also have a brief update about how the COVID virus has accelerated the Medicare for All campaign all over the country.
There will be ample time for questions for all speakers, and a lively discussion. If you have any questions you would like to submit please send them to info@laborcoalition.org

Join us for this wonderful event!

Find the Facebook event here

Join from PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android: https://aflcio.zoom.us/j/95221899589

“Jack Price’s passing is everyone’s loss. He was an inspiration to me and probably to most people who knew him. Often when we call someone an inspiration, it is an empty word. But that is not the case when referring to Jack.” – Ronnie Lovler

“We are losing giants, and it makes me weep. Though we only became friends for a few years before I left FL for NY, my memories of Jack Price are warm and numerous, which speaks to the kindness that permeated his way of life.” – Kimberly Hunter

“A dear, kind, good, caring and enjoyable man – I will miss him. There will not be another Jack Price. I was fortunate to have spent time with him”. – Gabrielle Ayala

On August 2nd from 4pm-6pm we will be holding a memorial for Jack via Zoom. We are gathering in his honor to share memories, music and a prayer. More event details will be posted soon.

We need your help! We are gathering photos of Jack to include in a presentation at the event. Please post any pictures you have of Jack in the comments or email them to info@laborcoalition.org

Also, If you are interested in sharing a few words about Jack at the Memorial please email info@laborcoalition.org for further guidance.

Find the Facebook event here

Join us via Zoom https://aflcio.zoom.us/j/96774505376

ATTN: The Alachua County Labor Coalition (ACLC) is a 501(c)4 and does not endorse candidates. We will print all candidates’ responses to our questions on our website and share them via our email newsletter

County Commission Candidate Kevin Thorpe

1) Do you support paying a living wage to all County workers including part-time, temporary, seasonal, and contracted workers? The ACLC defines a living wage at $15.39 an hour, the MIT Living Wage Calculator rate for a family of four with two working adults and employer-provided healthcare.

a. What is your plan to get us there using the Alachua County Government Minimum Wage ordinance?

b. How will you ensure contracted workers are paid the set wage?

c. What ideas do you have to help improve wages and benefits for workers throughout our community?

As an employer myself, my lowest paid employees were paid a minimum of $16 an hour for the last decade or more.   The County’s commitment to sustaining a living for wage for all County employees must begin at the Commission level.

The County’s approval process for the awarding of all contracts must include and enforce a living wage requirement.

Currently, we rely far too heavily on a “commuter” workforce.  The county’s focus must shift to a “home grown” workforce model that involves vocational training in secondary education and apprenticeship programs prior to high school graduation.

2) Do you support providing paid administrative leave for part-time, temporary, seasonal, and contracted county workers in the event of emergency work closures (e.g., hours missed due to hurricanes, pandemic, etc.)?

Absolutely.  As an employer, none of my employees have missed a paycheck or experienced a salary decrease during the COVID-19 shutdown.

3) Do you support a “Renters Bill of Rights’” which would:

a. Ensure universal licensing and inspections for all rental properties?

b. Inform renters of their rights under existing laws?

c. Offer an alternative to courts to settle disputes over security deposits and damages?

d. Protect renters from high utility bills by enacting policies that require landlords to make basic investments in energy and water efficiency?

 Yes to all 4 questions in this series.

4) What role should local government and private developers play in ensuring that there is adequate affordable housing in our community? What is your plan to help our community overcome its current shortage of affordable housing?

 I support the current Charter Amendment to create an affordable housing trust.  For years, I served on the board of directors for Habitat for Humanity and negotiated the land purchase (on behalf of the seller) for the 15 acre parcel that is the site of Habitat’s first subdivision in Alachua County.  I am the Co-Chair of the North Central Florida Foundation for Affordable Housing.  Unless the County intends to enter the residential building environment, it must negotiate in good faith with residential building contractors.  This is a must.

5) Federal and state laws give most workers the right to form and join unions. Do you support the right of all private and public sector workers to organize a union? Would you publicly support workers in our community who are seeking workplace rights, including a living wage and the right to union representation?

Yes to both questions in this series.

6) Do you support a local hiring preference that includes the use of responsible contractors and certified apprenticeship programs for taxpayer-funded projects?

Absolutely.

7) Do you support lowering the Sheriff’s budget and diverting funds to social services?

Yes.  In very, very specific measures, especially when the call center receives a request to assist someone who is believed to be suffering from some form of mental illness.  This is not the same as the broad and often undefined term to “defund” law enforcement.  

8) How will you reform the Alachua County Court Services, which recommends cash bail over 90% of the time?

 It is completely illogical to assume that a person is less likely to be a threat to society simply because they can afford to get out of jail.  The “burden of proof” that determines a person’s fitness to be released should be determined by the threat they may or may not pose to society.  This effort extends beyond the reach of the Sheriff and the jail and must be lobbied for on the County and State judicial levels also.  The County Commission should lead this fight.  The social and direct economic cost of detaining someone who poses no apparent threat to society can no longer be ignored.

9) The Alachua County Commission is responsible for facilities and utility-related costs at the jail including the current inmate phone contract. Do you support making this contract more equitable so that incarcerated people can stay connected to their loved ones?

Yes.

From City Commissioner Reina Saco:

“The recent change to the City ordinance will mean that Gainesville is on par with the County on housing discrimination protections. Both the County and the City have taken a stance to prohibit housing discrimination against veterans, immigrants, and survivors of domestic violence, and now prohibit landlords from refusing to accept alternative means of income like housing vouchers. A landlord can’t refuse to work with a housing authority or reject a tenant because they subsidize their rent with a voucher, SSI, child support, or other benefits.

Another change that went into the City ordinance is the updating of protections for the LGBTQA community. Previous ordinances had listed transgender individuals as protected because of a “mental disability“ but the entire chapter has been updated to remove outdated and harmful terminology. The updated ordinance at the City ensures that everyone regardless of immigration status, sexual orientation, income status, or prior service can now have a fair shot at accessing housing in the city. If a potential tenant or tenant faces discrimination because of any of these issues or thinks that a landlord or management company is treating them differently on the basis of these issues, then they can contact the Office of Equal Opportunity at the City or County.”

ATTN: The Alachua County Labor Coalition (ACLC) is a 501(c)4 and does not endorse candidates. We will print all candidates’ responses to our questions on our website and share them via our email newsletter

County Commission Candidate Jason Stanford

1) Do you support paying a living wage to all County workers including part-time, temporary, seasonal, and contracted workers? The ACLC defines a living wage at $15.39 an hour, the MIT Living Wage Calculator rate for a family of four with two working adults and employer-provided healthcare.

a. What is your plan to get us there using the Alachua County Government Minimum Wage ordinance?

b. How will you ensure contracted workers are paid the set wage?

c. What ideas do you have to help improve wages and benefits for workers throughout our community?

Yes, I support paying a living wage to anyone employed with Alachua for any given amount of time.

I support the county’s established transition plan, and would continue to do so as commissioner.

This is easily verified in program audits and monthly reports to the county project officer. I believe the best way to ensure that paying a living wage is a part of Alachua County’s culture, is to negotiate this policy into contracts. If a contractor is found to violate a living wage policy, then the county should be able to terminate the contract and hire a contractor that will pay a living wage. This will establish a standard that one must be a company or contractor that already invests in its employees or they’re not ready to do business with Alachua County. 

Requiring a living wage for county employees and in contracts is good start to establish an employment standard in the county. I would also support some type of social or community incentive for local businesses to adopt living wage policies as well. A local living wage ‘certification’ for businesses could drive competition for contracts as well as create a pool of companies the local community could do business with.

2) Do you support providing paid administrative leave for part-time, temporary, seasonal, and contracted county workers in the event of emergency work closures (e.g., hours missed due to hurricanes, pandemic, etc.)?

Emergencies are not predictable. Neither are the costs of responding to an emergency predictable. I support a policy of protecting all classifications of county employees during an emergency. However, I believe a clear policy would need to be established that protects the employee’s job after the emergency (if possible), and addresses a coverage period if the emergency is not short-term.

3) Do you support a “Renters Bill of Rights’” which would:

a. Ensure universal licensing and inspections for all rental properties?

b. Inform renters of their rights under existing laws?

c. Offer an alternative to courts to settle disputes over security deposits and damages?

d. Protect renters from high utility bills by enacting policies that require landlords to make basic investments in energy and water efficiency?

Yes. I also support making past inspection reports available to potential renters of any property in Alachua County.

Yes. I also believe that all forms of communication should be employed for this notification. Persons with disabilities or literacy issues are often overlooked when providing this type of notification. 

I support the idea of mediation for these types of disputes. It frees up the clogged court system and will save taxpayer dollars.

Yes. This should already be in place, and I argue this should be a priority for renters’ rights in Alachua County. This will reduce energy consumption, save renters money, and help the environment. …a long-overdue low hanging fruit.

4) What role should local government and private developers play in ensuring that there is adequate affordable housing in our community? What is your plan to help our community overcome its current shortage of affordable housing?

Lack of affordable housing is not unique to Alachua County. This is a nationwide issue and efforts to address it are happening at all levels of government in every community. However, Gainesville and Alachua County are communities with large numbers of renters. And while the students at both UF and Santa Fe do account for a significant number of renters, many working families are also renters and have different long-term needs for housing. I believe that working to address affordable housing issues will be an on-going effort, and local leaders should be regularly assessing what policies are working well, and which ones need to be updated. A renters’ bill of rights (that is enforceable) coupled with an established standard of paying a living wage in this county would begin to address this challenge. I would also support a policy that requires any future housing or neighborhoods that are built must include a minimum number of units (at least 10%) that are not only affordable but are also accessible.

5) Federal and state laws give most workers the right to form and join unions. Do you support the right of all private and public sector workers to organize a union? Would you publicly support workers in our community who are seeking workplace rights, including a living wage and the right to union representation?

Yes, I support unions. I am a teacher and a proud member of the Alachua County Education Association (ACEA). Strong unions can have major impacts on worker’s rights, and salaries. I would be proud to openly support workers attempts to unionize.

6) Do you support a local hiring preference that includes the use of responsible contractors and certified apprenticeship programs for taxpayer-funded projects?

Yes. I fully support this. As a commissioner, I intend to openly advocate for growing a strong local economy through programs like apprenticeships, and professional certifications that can be earned in high school; making our graduates job-ready. Now, more than ever, we must invest in our local businesses and young people entering the workforce. Because of the pandemic, our national economy is going to struggle for years to come. Already, we are seeing big corporations file for bankruptcy, close stores, and lay off workers. We need to ensure that our local workers have job security, and upward mobility opportunities. I also believe that Santa Fe College can and should play a larger role in these types of endeavors. I would support putting resources towards expanding those partnerships and opportunities outside of Gainesville, and into some of our smaller municipalities as well.

7) Do you support lowering the Sheriff’s budget and diverting funds to social services?

Budgets are our moral documents. Where our tax dollars are prioritized, so go our views on who is valued and who is not. Law enforcement officers are not social workers, and should not be paid to do such work. Social services and schools in our local communities have been being defunded for years and redirected to law enforcement agencies for other costs. Its time to return those funds back to where they belong. I believe in, and support reducing the resources designated for social services at the sheriff’s department (and jail) and redirecting them to local non-profits that provide mental health and substance abuse services, as well as outreach to the homeless, and marginally homeless. Funding should also be directed to violence prevention programs that target youth and other at-risk communities. I believe Alachua County should promote a culture of safety and social justice rather than a culture of incarceration.

8) How will you reform the Alachua County Court Services, which recommends cash bail over 90% of the time?

I support improving current programs inside Alachua County Court Services that will divert non-violent offenders away from jail. Specifically, Drug Court, Mental Health Court, Pretrial Services, and Weekender Sentences are programs that if implemented properly will reduce incarceration rates as well reduce costs of operating the jail. Data repeatedly shows that disproportionate numbers of people are arrested for having a mental health or substance abuse issue. Statistically, most people arrested for these reasons lack access to quality healthcare such as counseling or therapy, as well as medication. Criminalizing those with health conditions is not a solution. Our county needs to address mental health and substance abuse issues more aggressively by providing increased services to those at-risk at the time of arrest, and reduce incarceration rates for this population. Further, working families that have a member who is incarcerated are at increased risk of financial crisis due to loss of income. Allowing alternative sentences to offenders who do not pose a threat to communities, such as serving their time on the weekends will help prevent job loss, provide greater family security, decrease incarceration rates, and improve overall community health. I believe that programs that exists such as those in the Court Services program, can be effective if they are fully funded, and properly managed.

9) The Alachua County Commission is responsible for facilities and utility-related costs at the jail including the current inmate phone contract. Do you support making this contract more equitable so that incarcerated people can stay connected to their loved ones?

Yes, absolutely. I also support including more modern communication technologies into the contract such as email and video calls. Families, particularly children, need to see their loved ones as much as hear from them while they are incarcerated.