Portland tenants union presses council on rent-control enforcement; council agrees to review data in public workshop

Members of the Portland Tenants Union told the Portland City Council on an evening in May that a volunteer audit of online rental listings found widespread noncompliance with the city's rental registration and rent-stabilization rules, and they asked the city to strengthen enforcement.

The tenant group said its March review of 240 rental listings on Craigslist and Zillow showed “more than 60% of listings were not in compliance with the ordinance in some way,” and that 52 units — roughly one in five listings they reviewed — appeared to be unregistered, putting tenants at risk of uninspected, unsafe housing.

The tenants union argued the city’s audit process is flawed and that landlords can erase prior rent histories when filing or amending registrations, shifting the burden onto tenants to prove illegal rent increases. Bradley Davis, a Portland resident who identified himself as a Portland Tenants Union organizer, described his own landlord-retaliation case and faulted the city audit process for failing to…