Protecting Tenants’ Rights During COVID: An Interview with Ary Smith
When COVID hit, it immediately affected people’s ability to keep their housing. Ary Smith—a former BGLJ submissions editor and current Staff Attorney at Legal Services of Northern California—responded with a tenant protection resolution that stopped punitive measures for late and non-payment. The Solano County Board of Supervisors passed it unanimously. I sat down with Ary to learn more. “We don’t classify poverty law as gender law, but it ends up that way” they explained. “It’s not Title IX, it’s not sex discrimination, but it ends up being because of the ways gender and sexuality map onto socioeconomic status.”
When did you first realize this resolution was necessary?
In March, a lot of people were out of work and we started mutual aid spreadsheets for April 1 rent. At some point in there, a bunch of tenant organizers in Oakland pressured the sheriff’s office—they’re responsible for locking people out when they’ve lost eviction proceedings—to stop carrying out evictions. The Sheriff’s office agreed. When that happened, organizers could push for a strong tenant ordinance. Cities did all kinds of things quickly and creatively. Oakland was one of the first.
I was watching Oakland and talking to community orgs in Solano who wanted to propose something. Common Ground—a coalition in Solano County—was doing all the heavy lifting with community organizing. They brought a lot of organizing and advocating experience and already had a lot of relationships with the Board of Supervisors.
How do you draft a resolution?
Well this is my first emergency resolution, so I don’t know how it compares to others that Common Ground has worked on. First, I watched Oakland. Second, I talked to Common Ground. They had a list of what they wanted to happen. Then we merged what Oakland was doing with Common Ground’s goals. Because people had already done so much, we got to focus on how strong the protections could be.
Did you get everything you wanted with the resolution?
Pretty much. We wanted a hotline tenants and landlords could call. But that’s not a legislative solution. That requires staffing and experts and training. It’s a budget line item we just couldn’t make happen through a resolution.
It sounds like a pretty painless process. Were you surprised?
I was prepared for it to be more contentious than it was. But every supervisor was hearing from their constituents that they were losing their jobs and they needed help. A lot of industries closed quickly and there was a sudden spike in unemployment. We also had a broad base of people involved in Common Ground contacting their supervisors. We had a lot of support from the Vallejo Housing Justice Coalition, the Bay Area Regional Health Inequities Initiative, and Fair Housing Napa Valley. Then there were unions, churches, legal aid attorneys, local tenants’ organizations, and food pantries.
Our argument—as legal aid attorneys—was that you see the pattern of what happens if someone can’t pay rent. They become homeless and stay in the county or they exit the county to stay with friends or live somewhere more affordable. We were facing this hundreds of thousands of times over. That hollows out a segment of society: people who go to church and participate in community orgs: people who are key to the community that the county can’t lose.
What part of the resolution are you most proud of?
What I’m most proud of is civil debt conversion. Back in March, when we were all confused about COVID, there were a bunch of weak ordinances popping up in cities that said “you have 30 days” or “when you’re evicted you’ll get another week.” Oakland, and a few others, thought about converting landlord debt to civil debt. I’m excited we got it into Solano in April. It speaks both to the moment and the supervisors.
What happens when landlord debt becomes civil debt?
Civil debt is stuff like your credit card bill or your car loan. You pay it on a schedule. When rent debt becomes civil debt, your landlord can go through civil procedures to get it, but they can’t kick you out. Eviction is a summary procedure so you get abbreviated timelines and lose procedural rights. A lot of rules for how civil lawsuits normally work don’t apply in eviction cases. Civil debt conversion keeps people in their homes and restores procedural rights.
Do you think civil debt conversion might stick around after the pandemic?
Civil debt conversion would be a tough sell under other times. We’re going to find out though because a lot of these laws are connected to the California state of emergency. The longer this goes on they might try to change this back, but we might get to test the waters on how long this can last. Obviously, we’re still in the emergency.