A volunteer study group presentation to the Community Vitality and Safety Committee on Oct. 9, 2025, summarized preliminary survey and listening-session work assessing Measure 1, the Landlord Fairness Code enacted by Tacoma voters in December 2023. The groups co-convener, Michael Mirra, and Professor Michael Crowe of Evergreen State College told the committee they will deliver two survey reports by the end of October and a separate report summarizing listening sessions afterward, and they asked the committee not to take policy action until those reports are reviewed.

The committees review matters because the study groups early findings touch on rents, evictions and landlord practices in Tacomas rental market. Mirra told the committee: "We ask the council not to take any action until it has a chance to consider what those reports say." Professor Crowe warned that some outcomes take longer to detect: "Some of the outcomes are harder to measure than others and some take longer to have an impact on the housing market than others do."

Key preliminary findings from the two survey waves, as reported to the committee:
- Tenant survey: The project ran two waves of an online tenant survey over the summer; initial wave returned 77 responses and the combined total after a second wave reached about 160 responses. A majority of respondents reported some rent increases since December 2023, but Crowe said those increases are "not out of line" with regional rent changes reported for the Western United States. Tenants reported more late rental payments in 2024 compared with prior periods, but the study group said eviction experience was underrepresented in the tenant responses.

- Landlord survey: The landlord survey drew 166 responses. Most landlord respondents identified as property owners or managers; approximately half described themselves as large for-profit firms and roughly 40% as small individual owners, with about 10% nonprofit or government landlords (including the Tacoma Housing Authority). Landlords reported a rise in lease terminations and eviction actions in 2024 versus 2023 and told the study group they feel less effective at managing tenant disruptions. Many landlords also reported plans to own fewer residential rental properties in Tacoma over the next five years. The report noted landlords had tightened some screening practices (for example, more frequent criminal-background or rental-history checks) while tenants did not report corresponding increases in problems with application processes for the items tenants most often cite, such as fees and security deposits.

Crowe said the landlord responses include written comments: "About 130 [landlord respondents] took the time to write comments, which indicates there's a lot of passion and interest in the Landlord Fairness Code." He cautioned that the survey methods were not a random probability sample, and that the projects biggest methodological challenges were representativeness and data gaps after the group lost an initial University of Washington researcher. The work group adjusted by conducting a second tenant-wave to improve demographic balance; Crowe said the first wave overrepresented white respondents and underrepresented other groups compared with the 2020 Census.

On causation, Crowe and Mirra were careful: landlords were more likely to say the code contributed to increased evictions, and statistical tests on the landlord responses showed year-over-year increases in lease terminations and eviction filings were statistically significant at conventional levels in the sample. But both presenters said the survey data do not by themselves prove a causal link between Measure 1 and market outcomes. Crowe said professional survey researchers now struggle to obtain representative samples without larger budgets and random-sample methods, and the group had no dedicated budget for this work.

Planned next steps and data strategies: The presenters said they will deliver two survey reports (tenant and landlord) by the end of October 2025 and a third report that synthesizes listening-session transcripts afterwards. The group is completing listening sessions with tenants and landlords; the timeline given to the committee included both statements that listening sessions would conclude "by the end of next week" and that sessions would continue "into November," and the presenters attributed the difference to continuing scheduling. For longer-term tracking, Crowe described developing methods to monitor eviction filings using Pierce County Superior Court records and changes in property ownership via Pierce County tax-assessor records; he is also exploring business-license records as an additional city-level indicator.

Committee members pressed for more representative sampling and more detailed cross-tabs in the final reports. Vice Chair Scott said the citys large renter population argues for more outreach to improve representativeness; Crowe explained that representativeness, not raw sample size alone, determines whether survey results can be generalized. Council Member Walker asked whether tenants knew about the Landlord Fairness Code; Crowe replied that tenant familiarity varied across respondents and that the survey included an explanatory link to the ordinance.

Process and scheduling reported to the committee: Chair (unnamed in the transcript) said the committee will receive the study groups materials together and asked staff and members to hold further policy deliberation until the reports are available. The committee has an October 23 meeting scheduled for a presentation of stakeholder outreach and an Oct. 30 special meeting to further discuss the Landlord Fairness Code initiative; Mirra confirmed the study group will deliver its two survey reports by Oct. 31, 2025. The committee formally adjourned at the end of its meeting by voice vote.

Limitations and caveats: Presenters and committee members repeatedly noted limits on what the current data can show. The study group did not have a budget; the initial researcher left for health reasons; the surveys were distributed via work-group listservs and flyers rather than by random sampling; and some outcomes (for example, homelessness or long-term ownership turnover) require multi-year tracking. Presenters said they will redact personal identifiers from open-ended survey responses included in the reports and promised fuller methodological detail in the written reports.

What to watch: The committee and staff said they will wait to consider policy changes until the study groups two survey reports and the listening-session summary are submitted. The committee recorded the upcoming schedule (Oct. 23 stakeholder outreach overview; Oct. 30 special meeting on the Landlord Fairness Code), and the study group noted potential longer-term tracking through court and tax-assessor records.