Tenants in Minnesota have more legal protections under new laws in effect this month
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Minnesota lawmakers passed several laws that strengthen tenant rights last session.
As of Jan. 1, landlords in Minnesota are now prohibited from retaliating against residents who want to establish a tenant rights association. Other new laws protect tenant survivors of domestic violence, clarify a renter’s right to emergency services and prohibit rental discrimination based on public assistance.
In total about 20 new measures intended to protect renters passed through the state Legislature last year. The changes come after more than a dozen new renters’ rights laws passed in the 2023 legislative session. The series of changes is the most significant in years. Before 2023, many tenant-landlord laws hadn’t been updated since the 1980s.
Juan Luis Rivera-Reyes, the coalition organizer for Equity in Place, a housing advocacy group, joined MPR News host Nina Moini to talk about some of these new laws.
Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.
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Audio transcript
In total, about 20 new measures intended to protect renters passed through the legislature last year. The new change comes after more than a dozen new renters' rights laws passed in 2023, the most significant series of changes before 2023. Many tenant landlord laws hadn't been updated since the 1980s. Joining us now to talk about some of these new laws is Juan Luis Rivera-Reyes with The Alliance. Juan Luis is the coalition organizer for Equity in Place, a housing advocacy group. Thank you for being here, Juan Luis.
JUAN LUIS RIVERA-REYES: Hi. Thank you for having me.
NINA MOINI: We were just talking about some of our homeless population with Council Member Chavez. Housing has so many moving and difficult parts. I'm curious to note what you do in your work and how it feels to have these changes come to fruition for tenants.
JUAN LUIS RIVERA-REYES: Yeah, thank you for that question. Yeah, I think my specific role within the larger work of the housing ecosystem, I really see myself as a builder of bridges amongst housing advocates and organizations who are really looking to carve out a role in changing the systems and the imbalances that are present for renters all across our state.
I think it's critical for us to continue to move the needle and challenge ourselves in what ways we can continue to move our housing ecosystem from being reactionary to being as preventative as we can, especially from the last session that you had.
NINA MOINI: Let's break down some of those things that I was listing off. One of the biggest changes to the tenant landlord laws this session you were a big supporter of, the idea of a tenant rights association law. What is a tenant rights association? And why is that right to organize so important?
JUAN LUIS RIVERA-REYES: Yeah. A tenant association essentially is a formal group of tenants that live in the same property or, in some cases, even the same property management portfolio that are really coming together to advocate for common issues in the property. So a lot of it is public safety. Some properties don't have their buildings properly secure. Some entrances aren't properly secured. That's an issue for folks to come to organize.
Sometimes the main heater is out in some buildings. And it's drastically cold. So folks are able to come together and really organize to have a conversation with their property management or the ownership group of their rental housing and really, hopefully come to an agreement on resolutions to remedy some of the issues that folks are facing that are really deeply impacting their common use of their rental properties, in addition to some of the more personal, specific issues that folks might experience in their individual dwellings themselves.
NINA MOINI: Sort of a strength in numbers. And then they won't face, hopefully, any retaliation. Another law we mentioned--
JUAN LUIS RIVERA-REYES: Exactly.
NINA MOINI: --this year allows domestic violence survivors to break their lease when they need to get out. What had heard about the need for this particular law? And how are you hoping that we'll help people in those situations?
JUAN LUIS RIVERA-REYES: Yeah. I think this is a great law that really moves us from that reactionary to prevention area of really removing barriers for folks that are victims of violence and being able to terminate their leases, especially if the violence occurred in a home where they were renting. The last thing we want as a society is for folks to be retraumatized and re-exposed to previous violences.
So this bill is really critical in removing some of the current barriers that were present for folks in doing that formal termination of their lease and then also provided some more protections and requirements of the landlords or property managers to ensure the safety and anonymity of the victims themselves.
NINA MOINI: And another one we talked about is a new law where landlords have to accept a taxpayer identification number in place of a Social Security number on rental applications. And it bans discrimination against those people who use the ITINs. What is this for? Who is this law specifically for? And what do you hope the impact will be?
JUAN LUIS RIVERA-REYES: Yeah. This is one of those deeply personal. I come from a mixed status family myself. And what the ITIN law essentially does is it allows folks who have an individual taxpayer identification number with the federal government to utilize that in lieu of a Social Security number as they are applying for rental applications.
And there was another bill accompanying that, that extended that to utility applications as well. Especially as we've seen rent combining the rental payment and the utility payments into one, it's critical for folks to be able to have the flexibility to utilize this government-issued number as a way to provide additional identification for landlords as they require folks to go through their rental application screening process.
But essentially, all it really does is just another area for folks to be able to identify and utilize these tools that the federal government has in place for folks that are paying taxes in different degrees to be able to move from what I'd classify as this shadow realm within our society of forcing folks to live in suboptimal housing conditions because the options that are available to them that don't require a Social Security number on their application screenings, it's quite limited. And many of those properties are not in the best conditions, nor are conditions where kids, especially younger kids, should be living in. So this is really critical in bringing those folks out of the shadows and really opening up the housing market to all folks.
NINA MOINI: Sure. So these laws are on the books now. When you were at the capital, lobbying and rallying for these laws, did you receive a lot of landlord pushback? Or were there supportive landlords? What about their voice in this process?
JUAN LUIS RIVERA-REYES: Yeah. I think it was a mix of both. We had a lot of great conversations, specifically around the right to organize with some landlords on where there's some commonality of the desires of creating safe and stable environments amongst tenants and landlords.
In relation to the ITIN, we had a property manager who, I believe, operates in Southern Minnesota predominantly, who really came out to bat as a great example for the ecosystem moving in a direction that expands their portfolio of who they can rent to. And he was really critical in providing some clarity on really what are the back end infrastructure that's even needed to open up space for the ITIN number to be used instead of Social Security.
And it really was just-- we found that it was just a matter of a click of a button on most of the traditional screening application platforms. So he was really critical in opening that this isn't a radical idea, as much of the industry has already moved towards this direction.
NINA MOINI: OK. Before I let you go, Juan Luis, a lot of people may not even know that these changes have happened. They may not know their rights as tenants. What are you doing as an organization to educate people and make sure they know about these changes and their rights more generally?
JUAN LUIS RIVERA-REYES: Yeah. I think this is the part where leaning on the communities that we have built deeply trusting relationships is really where we are able to bank on those, as now is our time to go back into the same communities we have been advocating for, for decades with, and really educating them and using this snowflake model as a way of-- as we educate more and more folks, they will start to share what they are learning with more and more folks so that they can connect with other renters who might not be as deeply connected to an organization or an entity that might be able to share this information with them.
And we're thinking about this deeply, as we want this information to be shared more broadly with our renters in greater Minnesota, where there's not as much presence of nonprofit organizations or advocacy groups, where a lot of it really does come down to word of mouth and folks having really targeted advertising in these specific areas. So we are doing our best to map out where our relationships are currently and starting from there.
NINA MOINI: Wonderful. Juan Luis, I really appreciate your time today in filling us in on all these new changes.
JUAN LUIS RIVERA-REYES: Yes. Thank you for having me.
NINA MOINI: Thank you.
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