CHAUNCEY, Ohio — Chauncey Village Council has taken up a suite of housing ordinances recently, and council member Evelyn Nagy plans to keep the momentum going by introducing two proposed laws at the council’s January meeting that would enhance protections for tenants.
The two proposals Nagy plans to introduce include a ban on source of income discrimination and a “pay to stay” ordinance, she said. Both laws have been adopted by several municipalities across the state. Athens City Council passed similar legislation in June 2021 and September 2022.
Pay to stay is intended to prevent evictions due to unpaid rent, in situations where the tenant is able to pay after the due date but before an official, court-ordered eviction. The ban on source of income discrimination aims to enhance rights for tenants who pay rent with government vouchers.
“It is not uncommon for families in Chauncey or anywhere else to be kind of one paycheck away from eviction,” Nagy said. “I’ve seen a lot of people become unhoused and really struggle with finding a place once that happens. If there’s anything that we can do … that might be helpful to people to stay housed, that’s where I would really like to bring our attention and our focus and our energy, because it’s worth it. It’s important for the community.”
Chauncey has 874 residents, 32% of whom live below the poverty line, according to census data.
Tenant advocacy group United Athens County Tenants backed pay to stay and the source of income discrimination ban in Athens, and the group has worked with Nagy on bringing the proposals to Chauncey.
UACT and Southeast Ohio Legal Services managing attorney Lucy Schwallie spoke at the December village council meeting about the impact the possible legislation would have in Chauncey.
Nagy said she invited UACT and SEOLS to present after her initial attempt to pass pay to stay legislation prompted vocal opposition from some homeowners at the council’s November meeting.
Pay to stay
Nagy first tried to pass pay to stay legislation this fall within an ordinance that created a permit process for new rentals in the village. However, after a heated discussion in November, Nagy said she withdrew pay to stay from the rental permit ordinance, which then passed on its final reading in December.
She withdrew pay to stay from that ordinance so the rental permit process would be created, and so UACT and SEOLS would have a chance to address council and community member questions.
“Pay to stay has become an important tool to help tenants avoid the problems associated with an eviction — that’s loss of belongings, family disruption, difficulty finding another place to live with an eviction on the renter’s record and potential homelessness,” Schwallie explained at the December council meeting.
“I’ve represented tenants in the past who have failed to pay their rent timely … for a variety of reasons,” Schwallie said. “In many of these situations, they’ve been able to procure the past due rent, either through employment, borrowing from family or friends, emergency assistance programs. … Unfortunately, if those clients of mine lived in Chauncey, currently they cannot prevent their eviction by paying that past due rent.”
Chauncey Village Council member Karla Dellinger, who said she is a landlord with “a couple of rentals,” expressed concerns about pay to stay legislation at the December meeting.
“If somebody is a day late — OK, that’s fine,” Dellinger said. “I am one of the people who will work with you. By the time I get to evict you, like, it is creating a hardship on me. Like, it is very, very stressful for me as a landlord to even pursue this.”
Referring to past instances in which she evicted tenants, Dellinger said, “I don’t care if they would have paid everything over. I would not have wanted to start the process all over again, because I could see that happening.”
Council member Connaught Cullen echoed Dellinger’s concerns. “If somebody would go two, three, four months without paying me — that’s really kind of putting me in a real bind.”
Athens County Auditor records show that Dellinger owns three properties in Chauncey. Records show only one property in Cullen’s name.
UACT member Katherine King said the council could include a provision in its legislation limiting the number of times a tenant could use pay to stay within a particular period.
Schwallie noted that “nothing in a pay to stay ordinance would require renters to stay in a place for months on end without paying.”
UACT member Damon Krane stressed that pay to stay legislation does not give tenants an incentive to pay rent late. Tenants struggling to pay rent will still want to avoid late fees and the stress associated with an eviction process, he said.
“The best thing for the tenant is to always pay their rent on time, if they can come up with it,” Krane said. “They have to come up with it eventually under pay to stay, plus late fees. So, you know, it really is a safety net.”
Shwallie said many landlords do not work with tenants in the way Dellinger said she does. She said she has encountered situations in which a tenant was evicted for late payment as a pretense — for example, after a tenant requested repairs the landlord didn’t want to make.
“I do think this would be incredibly impactful in a place like Chauncey,” Schwallie said.
Nagy told the Independent she was disappointed villagers who attended the November meeting to voice concerns about pay to stay were not at the December meeting.
Nagy said she didn’t think those who voiced concerns at November’s meeting were representative of the village as a whole, as they were all homeowners and “their experience is different because they’re not kind of caught up in this housing crisis that we’re in right now.”
Source of income discrimination ban
A ban on source of income discrimination would prohibit landlords from refusing to rent to prospective tenants based solely upon the tenant’s source of their income — including use of government vouchers, such as those issued by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Nagy told the Independent she frequently hears stories from people unable to find housing in the village because they can’t find a landlord who will accept housing vouchers. She said she thinks a ban on source of income discrimination “might make a difference” by “removing some of those barriers for families that are trying to find housing.”
Tenants using HUD vouchers are often explicitly denied access to rental housing, Schwallie said at the December village council meeting. She shared multiple advertisements for Chauncey rentals that said the landlords would not accept HUD vouchers.
Although a source of income discrimination ban would not require landlords to rent to someone using a voucher, it bars landlords from denying a tenant on that basis alone, she explained.
Not all rental properties pass inspections required to accept HUD vouchers, and some rentals are too expensive for tenants to use vouchers, Shwallie said, but it is also common for landlords to deny tenants who use HUD vouchers as a form of discrimination.
Cullen said she was confused about why a landlord would deny a tenant who pays rent with a voucher, because it is “guaranteed income.” Schwallie said it is often a pretext for landlords to avoid renting to “a certain type of person.”
King said there is a “stigma” toward recipients of housing vouchers.
“This discrimination disproportionately affects renters of color, women and people with disabilities,” Schwallie said. “As a result, source of income discrimination contributes to the perpetuation of neighborhoods with concentrated poverty.”
The discussion on the proposed source of income discrimination ban did not prompt any vocal opposition from village council members, but did draw questions about enforcement.
Landlords are already legally barred from denying housing accommodations to prospective renters on the basis of race, religion, sex and other protected classes. A ban on source of income discrimination adds source of income to this list of protected classes within a municipality.
Schwallie said the city of Athens didn’t create any new enforcement mechanism for its ban on source of income discrimination, relying on municipal enforcement under the fair housing act.
However, Athens previously elected not to enforce its ban on source of income discrimination when a violation was apparent in rental advertising and the landlord told The Athens Messenger, “I just don’t want to do HUD.”
Krane encouraged the village of Chauncey to create multiple enforcement avenues for its ban, including direct enforcement by the village and allowing tenants to pursue legal action against landlords in violation.
King said, “Even in places where there’s not really strict enforcement … it does still have a positive effect in terms of reducing discrimination.”
Other housing issues
Housing has been a frequent topic for Chauncey’s village government recently. The village established a zoning code in summer 2022 and hired a zoning code officer earlier this year.
At its December meeting, the village council passed a zoning code amendment and an ordinance related to short- and long-term rental registration. Short-term rentals include Airbnbs.
Nagy said the number of short-term rentals in the village has increased, and that large rental companies are buying up property in the village and charging rates many local people cannot afford. Nagy described these issues as part of a broader housing crisis, but also speculated whether development initiatives in the village have contributed to housing woes.
The village has seen massive investments flow into the development of the Baileys Trail System over the past several years. Nagy said she is concerned with problems associated with economic development in the Hocking Hills — such as an uptick in homelessness — manifesting in Chauncey.
“I kind of struggle with really working hard to work with Chauncey reaching its full potential — and doing that might raise property values and the rents,” Nagy said. “How do we make Chauncey this amazing place to live and then also, make sure that Chauncey is a place where folks can live affordably, where their entire income isn’t going to rent?”
The next village council is scheduled for Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2024. Council meetings are held at the Chauncey Village Hall, 42 Converse St.
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