Landlords in an 11-county area in southwest Oklahoma habitually rent filthy apartments and houses to low-income people who can’t afford anything better, according to a Legal Aid attorney in the Lawton office.
In many cases, houses and apartments are plagued with insects or have no air conditioning, heat or water, attorney Cade McClure said.
When tenants fail to pay rent because of the poor conditions, they are evicted, he said. The evictions have increased dramatically since a federally-mandate moratorium was lifted. The moratorium ended when regulations surrounding the COVID-19 outbreak were eased.
“Landlords are unfairly letting people rent shacks that are in disrepair,” McClure said. “They must be inhabitable with heat, water, AC and free from insects. In many cases, they (landlords) are leasing to people on a month-to-month and when a tenant complains (about the conditions) the landlords move to evict them.”
In most cases, low-income tenants have no money to hire an attorney to represent them in small claims court. If the tenant fails to appear before the judge, the landlords win a judgement against the tenant.
During the height of the pandemic, Legal Aid received a federal grant from the CARES Act which allowed the attorneys to represent tenants in the cases against landlords. Since that funding has ended, McClure said Legal Aid has not been able to represent as many tenants.
When landlords file the eviction cases with the three national credit bureaus, “That really hurts tenants when they go to rent somewhere else,” McClure said. “It wasn’t their fault the landlords didn’t fix the problem but since they (tenants) didn’t pay (when the repairs were being made), the new place won’t rent to them.”
The area represented by the Lawton Legal Aid office includes Caddo, Comanche, Cotton, Grady, Greer, Harmon, Jackson, Jefferson, Kiowa, Stephens and Tillman counties.
Although Legal Aid cannot take political sides or endorse issues or candidates, McClure said he’s hopeful an antiretaliation protection bill will be considered and approved during the next legislative session. House Bill 2109 was authored by Rep. Daniel Pae (R-Lawton) and supported by state Sen. John Michael Montgomery (R-Lawton) this session.
The measure would prohibit landlords renting more than 10 units from retaliating against tenants after learning of tenant complaints or formal legal actions. The bill would not allow landlords to increase rent, decrease services, bring or threaten an action for possession or terminate a rental agreement as punishment for the tenant’s actions.
HB 2109 failed to get a hearing in the Senate.
McClure and Pae said they’ve heard “personal testimony” from people with real-life situations who have experienced retaliation from landlords. The personal stories have come from across the state in rural and urban areas, Pae said.
In some cases, tenants have been punished by landlords for reporting inoperable air-conditioners, mice infestations and broken stairs. The landlord’s punishment in some instances ranged from charging tenants exorbitant fees to harassment, Brown said.
“This bill would have a positive impact on people’s lives,” Pae said previously. “It’s not a radical proposition. In my view, it’s a balanced approach that we’ve taken.”
The bill would still allow the landlord to retain the right to recovery of the premises if the recovery was done in good faith. Part of the measure would require tenants to prove the landlord retaliated against them.