Letter to the editor: Open Communities responds to city memo on Just Cause

At long last, Evanston’s Housing and Community Development Committee will return to discussing proposed amendments to the city’s Residential Landlord Tenant Ordinance on Tuesday, April 16.

We urge the committee to promptly pass the 13 proposed updates. These include limiting late fees, providing a one-time right to pay and stay and increasing the required notice of non-renewal period from 30 to 90 days. These changes will provide tenants with greater transparency, stability and fairness. The proposals will also bring greater regional cohesion with the larger Cook County Residential Tenant Landlord Ordinance.

One of the reasons for delay given by staff and committee members over the past several months has been that a legal analysis by the city’s law department was needed to resolve supposedly thorny questions about “Just Cause,” a provision that would require landlords to provide a good reason for non-renewing or evicting a tenant. The packet for Tuesday’s meeting includes such an analysis (p. 49) by Kathryn Penrose Loan, the assistant city attorney. We respond to her five main points below.

1. “Just Cause Provisions Do Not Address Evictions”

In this section, Ms. Loan identifies the longstanding word quibbling around the term “just cause eviction.”

The point is linguistic rather than substantive; Open Communities and other advocates have been clear that the majority of contexts where the law would apply are lease non-renewals. However, the Eviction Act permits eviction for “holding over” – meaning that a landlord can end the relationship because the agreement, whether month-to-month or year-to-year, has ended (regardless of fault). This means that eviction is also technically relevant to the law.

2. “Just Cause” Non-Renewal and Rent Control

It is certainly true that Just Cause is best paired with rent control. It is odd, however, that Ms. Loan does not recognize the dozens of localities across the country that have Just Cause and no rent control; cities like Seattle and Philadelphia, and even whole states like New Jersey, New Hampshire and Washington, have some version of Just Cause and no rent control. Tenants still benefit.

As Ms. Loan states, without price ceilings, a landlord may get around Just Cause by raising the rent to out-of-reach levels. She goes on to say that “the proposed Just Cause provision provides that landlords will be responsible for paying a ‘Relocation Fee’ if the tenant does not agree to any proposed rent increase and decides to move out.”

This latter statement is inaccurate. The proposal that was presented to the Just Cause Task Force set a rent increase threshold of 15%, above which a tenant may choose to take relocation assistance and move. The provision does not tell housing providers what they can charge for rent but lays out the conditions for which landlords would have costs associated with the non-renewal of a lease when the tenant has done nothing wrong.

We believe such a threshold would survive a legal challenge. If perceived ambiguity makes committee members skiddish, then the baby should not be thrown out with the bathwater. The committee could discuss alternatives, such as including a clause that prohibits the landlord from offering terms as a pretext to constructively evict the tenant, or the rent increase threshold could simply be raised. We believe a percentage threshold would survive a challenge.

3. Just Cause and the Freedom to Contract and
4. Just Cause and Takings Clause/Due Process

The third and fourth points made by the assistant city attorney – that Just Cause may violate the “public policy” of “freedom to contract,” and that it may constitute “taking without compensation” under the U.S. Constitution – are rather fringe arguments. The arguments are not limited to Illinois state law and therefore would call into question Just Cause laws all around the country. In addition, well over a million residents live in federally subsidized housing across the nation, all subject to good cause requirements. Does the attorney suggest that all of these regulations are in violation with freedom to contract and takings clauses? We ask for any evidence that a Just Cause provision has been struck down on the basis of either claim.

5. Conclusion

The committee should continue to discuss Just Cause as a viable way to make our communities fairer; to jettison the proposal due to one legal opinion, without doing due diligence to explore other arguments, would be irresponsible. Our policymaking should also not be a zero-sum game where a proposal is viewed as either taken in whole or not at all. Compromises, such as an owner-occupied landlord exemption or altered relocation assistance terms, can be explored. But total dismissal would be wrong and undemocratic.

Being uprooted from one’s home happens at significant cost to the individual and the community. Recent commitments by the City of Evanston validate the call to supply resources to tenants being displaced without fault; the city has rightly agreed to supply relocation expenses and other supports to residents who have been told to vacate their apartments on Wesley Avenue. The Chicago Housing Authority announced a program to support voucher holders who have to move due to unsafe building conditions in 2023.

Open Communities also learned that some area landlords threatened to sue the city last year, should Just Cause pass. We encourage the City of Evanston to not cower to landlord threats and to examine the issue with rigor, empathy and common sense. Today’s rental housing market is unlike any we have seen in decades. We have a responsibility to promote housing stability wherever possible – the alternative may well be homelessness.

Cheryl Lawrence, JD, Open Communities CEO
Dominic Voz, Open Communities director of fair housing