Wisconsin Legislature to Tenants: You're on Your Own

During the last legislative session two devastating housing laws were passed and signed by the Governor: SB 107 and SB 466. The first law, SB 107, banned communities and counties from passing laws that protect tenants. These laws included protections on security deposits, the popular photo ordnance, apartment showing times, and minimum income requirements. SB 466, which passed on March 16th, further removed state protections from tenants, such as protections during move-out and limited legal remedies. 

Essentially, tenants on campus will need to begin taking a proactive role to protect their rights when it comes to housing practices. On the city side, we've made a number of improvements. First, the number of building inspectors increase during the last budget cycle in the City of Madison, and soon will include a bilingual inspector. Second, alders are now receiving monthly reports on building inspections, leading to increased awareness over problems in the district. Third, the new building inspector website is now live, and light years better than the previous site. I am also working with the city to make reporting issues from smart phones easier and hopefully an application will be ready by Fall of 2012. However, we need to do more to protect renters, encourage fair marketing practices on campus, and make sure apartments are safe for tenants. 

In the coming months student tenants will need to learn of these legal changes and what remedies are still available if their rights are violated. This needs to be an on-going conversation with the City, City partners like the Tenant Resource Center, ASM, the University, property managers, and especially first-time renters.  

Today at 5:30 PM in the Fifth Quarter Room at Union South there will be an open forum on housing rights. This will be an open panel discussion and I encourage interested parties to attend.