Mutual Housing California and the Sacramento Housing Alliance

1. Rental Housing Inspection Programs: Improving Health and Safety in our Homes Mutual Housing California and the Sacramento Housing Alliance

2. Home Health and Safety • California and local laws set forth standards for renters’ rights, requiring landlords to keep housing sufficiently safe and healthy for their tenants. • However, there is no consistent process for enforcing these standards across all the various jurisdictions in the state. • In many locales, it is up to the tenant to complain if they believe there are unsafe or unhealthy conditions in their home. This is called a reactive enforcement system.

3. Proactive Inspection • Problems with reactive enforcement: • Fear of retaliation/eviction • Lack of familiarity with or fear of public agencies • Language barriers • To address these issues, some jurisdictions have taken the lead by creating proactive enforcement programs, through which inspectors check on all local rental units over a specified period of time. • Before we get into that, let’s look at the scope of the issue locally.

4. Scope of issue: Sacramento County • [Tammy Derby is working on getting me numbers from 2012 to illustrate violations they find both through call investigations and their non-policy-dictated proactive inspections.]

5. Scope of issue: City of Sacramento • During its 2008-2009 fiscal year, the City of Sacramento conducted inspections at 2,943 rental housing units. • Inspectors found one or more violations in 69 percent of the units they inspected. • There were a total of 9,892 individual violations; often multiple violations in a unit. • What are the most common things they find? Let’s take a look.

6. Top Ten Violations in the City • Faulty electrical service • Missing smoke detectors

7. Top Ten continued • Lack of weather protection • Lack of GFCI protection

8. Top Ten continued • Faulty water heater installations • Lack of door viewer at front entry

9. Top ten continued • Faulty plumbing • Improper venting systems

10. Top ten continued • Inadequate heating • Hazardous wiring

11. Individual/Family/Community impact • Health • Asthma • Infection • Safety • Fires • Shocks • Community Character and Property Values

12. Proactive policies are working • The earlier-cited numbers from the City of Sacramento were for the first year of its proactive rental housing inspection policy. • For the 2011-12 fiscal year, the City inspected 6,847 rental units. • Only 30 percent had health and/or safety violations, down from 69 in 2008-09. • There were 9,223 violations found, less than in 2008-09 in over twice as many units inspected.

13. City RHIP overview • City adopted the program thanks in part to a strong advocacy effort among groups that represent diverse low-income renters • Key policy/program points: • All rentals inspected once every five years • Mandatory registration, $28/unit annual fee • 30 days to correct violations • Re-inspection fees if non-compliant • Self-certification for landlords who pass, with some audits even for those units

14. County of Sacramento • Self-certification system by owners • $12 per unit annual fee • Still basically a reactive system, with burden on renters. Inspectors do proactive checks, but it is not institutionalized in policy. • Some indication that the county may follow the city’s example and overhaul their program • Communities must be vigilant to make sure the County adopts a proactive policy

15. FAQs • FAQ’s [try to anticipate some q’s from community]- make brief

16. Next Steps: What Can You Do? • Full list of best policy/program practices available on request. • To report unsafe or unhealthy living conditions, call: • City of Sacramento: 311 • County of Sacramento: 916-876-9020 • Call or write your elected officials • To get involved with promoting best policy/program practice, contact Rachel Iskow of Mutual Housing California at rachel@mutualhousing.com