State Senator Patty Kuderer is the Chair of the Senate’s housing committee. She is a personal injury attorney as a profession. Over the years she’s held lots of “stakeholder” sessions in Olympia about eviction bans. Eviction lawyers tend to do very well after her sessions are finished.

We know what happens in housing stakeholder sessions in Olympia. Lobbyists go through the motions but the outcome is already determined. When legislation is passed politicians and eviction defense attorneys can say, “We included landlords in the process!” Worse, as Senator Kuderer did in 2019, they’ll change the rules, mandating a 14 day pay or vacate period for example, then call housing providers “shameful” for following the rules she wrote. 

The 14-day pay-or-vacate legislation, according Kuderer, was negotiated in “good faith” between lawmakers, tenant advocates and representatives for landlords and property management companies.

To see it used like this, Kuderer tells The News Tribune, is “shameful.”

“Technically, it doesn’t violate the law, but it certainly violated the spirit of the law and violated the goals we had discussed during many, many hours of discussions and negotiations,” Kuderer says. 

From the Tacoma News Tribune

Kuderer is either misinformed about her own proposals and what’s really going on with housing in the state or she’s not being honest. Maybe it’s a little of both. As I’ve pointed out, politicians have what I call a Sally Field Syndrome. It’s not in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM–5) but maybe it will make the version 6. Wanting to be liked sometimes trumps common sense.

Kuderer was back at it again this week, claiming having no evidence of elective non-payers taking advantage of reckless eviction bans.

So I wrote her a “strongly worded letter.” You can see why politicians love me. Maybe someday the lobbyists in Olympia will realize that their job isn’t to make politicians happy, to play the “good faith” game, but to represent housing providers; sometimes that means getting up and walking away from phony stakeholder argle bargle.

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Hello Senator Kuderer, 

Every day I hear from housing providers who are struggling with growing unpaid rent. They don’t want to evict anyone. They want and need help for their residents who can’t pay rent and they want support in getting those who can to pay for what they are getting, a place to live. 

I think it is important to correct the record and to point out some facts. You were quoted in a Crosscut story about eviction recently. Here are the relevant paragraphs: 

There’s also the question of how much the declaration would actually accomplish. State Sen. Patty Kuderer, D-Bellevue, said she can’t rule out that there might be tenants choosing not to pay, but said no one has brought her any hard evidence.

“The real problem here is lack of resources,” she said. “So I don’t know how a declaration is going to solve the problem of a lack of resources.”

Let’s start with the evidence.

Attached you will find a study we completed and shared widely including with the Governor’s office. The Puget Sound Business Journal reported our survey (attached) We also sent you a letter earlier this year pointing out the problem with elective non-payers, people who are using the eviction ban to hold back rent even when they can pay (attached). In that letter from April 8, we said, “eviction bans have given a rational basis for hard hit families to stop paying rent to prioritize other expenses.”

Our survey found hundreds of thousands of dollars of the $22 million of unpaid rent as of May of this year, could be attributed to people who had money but weren’t paying. 

Furthermore, the story you were quoted in features just such a person. The fact is that elective non-payers (ENPs) are becoming a much larger problem as this crisis wears on. 

A smaller survey completed in May found that delinquencies were growing and that elective non-payers were becoming a larger part of the problem (see the attached)

So you are simply wrong or misinformed about the problem of people who can pay but aren’t because of the Governor’s eviction ban as well as local bans. 

You say in the story, correctly, that resources are a problem. We agree. That is why we’ve urged again and again to make the $100 million dollars set aside by the Commerce Department available to a wider group of people who need the help. 

Currently that program is limiting the use of resources and not allowing housing providers to apply for the help on behalf of their residents. Based on our survey, we think that most of the problem could be solved with that money if it was being allocated efficiently. You can read our letter asking for this which I’ve attached. 

In that letter we wrote, 

Finally, it is important to emphasize that even a small overall non-payment rate can dramatically impact people who manage and own rental property. An effective doubling of a 4 percent vacancy rate, for example, month over month, can affect loan coverage and solvency. Addressing unpaid rent now will ensure many housing providers can continue to serve their customers.

If you truly want to lead on housing issues please listen to the people who know housing the best, housing providers in the state both rural and urban. Too often you’ve chosen to listen to lawyers who defend eviction cases instead of people who own, operate, and work hard each day to provide people and families places to live. This has resulted in bad policy. Changing the eviction ban now and allocating resources effectively will help thousands of residents and housing providers. 

Now you have a lot to consider. There is a real problem of non-payers who can pay (just read the story you’re quoted in if you don’t believe all the data attached), and this problem is solvable if providers could act against those individuals. As far as unpaid rent, there is enough money now to substantially reduce that problem if the Governor’s office would change its approach. 

We’re always glad to talk with you and discuss any of these issues and we’d appreciate your support in the weeks and months ahead. 

Roger–