Saint Paul committee reviews history, legal risks and next steps for tenant-protections work

Members of the Oregon Policy Committee of the Saint Paul City Council received a briefing on the city's safe-housing and tenant-protections work, including the legal history that led the council to rescind an earlier ordinance and the interaction between that work and the city's rent-stabilization law.

Faith Dietz, Fair Housing Coordinator in the City of Saint Paul Office of Financial Empowerment, told the committee the effort began with broad community engagement across the city's seven wards and aimed to reduce displacement, increase access and "affirmatively further fair housing." Dietz said the city's work grew from data showing a majority-renter population and continued reports of evictions and maintenance complaints.

Megan Hafner, an assistant city attorney, described the federal lawsuit against the first tenant-protections ordinance and the court's reasoning in granting a preliminary injunction. "The court found that [the ordinance's] just-cause notice provision . . . was unconstitutional" in effect, Hafner said, and that a screening provision in the ordinance also…