Housing Activists Vow to Continue Campaign after Ban of Rent Control Ballot Initiative

Source: The Keep Massachusetts Home Campaign

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court today issued a decision barring the proposed rent control ballot initiative from appearing on the November ballot. Proponents from the Keep Massachusetts Home campaign responded:

“This decision is a massive disappointment after all the work that thousands of volunteers and advocates in every corner of the state put into qualifying our rent control initiative for the ballot, but it’s far from the end of our campaign to protect Massachusetts renters from excessive rent hikes,” said Noemi “Mimi” Ramos, Executive Director of New England Community Project and Chair of the Keep Massachusetts Home campaign. “Rather than accept any restrictions on their ability to extract profits from our communities, a few private equity-backed real estate investment corporations financed this lawsuit in a desperate attempt to avoid a ballot campaign they were set to lose. While we disagree with the court’s interpretation, the issue raised by the court is easily fixable, and doesn’t affect the substance of our proposal.”

“Corporate real estate investors who value profit over people just bought themselves more time to raise rents without limits, but we’re only more motivated to take them on,” said Rose Webster-Smith, Director of Springfield No One Leaves. “We’ve proved that lifting the ban on rent control in Massachusetts is not only possible but imperative, and the residents of Massachusetts want it.”

“This decision doesn’t change the fact that high rents are displacing workers and seniors from communities across Massachusetts, forcing people to work multiple jobs just to pay the rent, and making it impossible for young families to save money to achieve the dream of owning a home. And as the state’s housing crisis continues to worsen in the absence of strong tenant protections from greedy corporate investors, we’ll continue advocating for a rent control policy that ensures stable homes and strong communities across Massachusetts,” said Carolyn Chou, Executive Director of Homes for All Massachusetts, the statewide formation of grassroots housing justice groups that leads the Keep Massachusetts Home campaign. “Through this campaign, it’s become clear that many members of the local real estate industry understand the need for common-sense rent regulation, and we’re committed to continuing conversations with all interested parties aimed at delivering the relief tenants so desperately need.”

Background
The campaign for rent control in Massachusetts is backed by a massive statewide movement of renters, homeowners, and neighbors. This spring, housing advocates and volunteers with the Keep Massachusetts Home campaign collected more than 33,000 signatures from voters across the state, more than enough to qualify the modern rent stabilization ballot initiative for the November statewide ballot. As in the fall, when supporters collected more than 124,000 signatures from voters to begin qualifying the initiative for the ballot, the Keep Massachusetts Home campaign was the only ballot campaign this cycle that did not hire a paid professional signature gathering firm to collect the signatures needed to qualify for the ballot.

The ballot initiative, An Initiative Petition to Protect Tenants by Limiting Rent Increases, would have limited annual rent increases in Massachusetts to the cost of living, with a cap at 5%. For an apartment that costs $2,000 per month, that means an annual increase in monthly rent of no more than $100/month.

The limit on rent increases would continue to apply when new renters move in, meaning rent could not be drastically increased between tenants. The ballot initiative would support small landlords, not big corporations, by exempting owner-occupied buildings with four or fewer units. And it would encourage housing production and economic growth by applying rent limits to new construction only after a building’s first 10 years.