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SDCI outlines rental complaints triage, inspection and tenant assistance programs

Seattle City Council Housing, Arts and Civil Rights Committee · March 12, 2026
AI-Generated Content: All content on this page was generated by AI to highlight key points from the meeting. For complete details and context, we recommend watching the full video. so we can fix them.

Summary

SDCI presented its landlord-tenant and rental-inspection work, reporting roughly 5,000 rental complaints in 2025, a triage system with a 1-day median response for high-priority cases and a 28-day average for other calls, 289 enforcement cases in 2025, and ongoing EDRA and TREO relocation assistance programs.

Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections officials told the committee that the department's landlord-tenant and rental-inspection teams handle a wide range of tenant protections and code compliance work and that 2025 demand has stabilized to a level the department can manage.

Jeff Tallent, SDCI code compliance director, said the department saw "over 5,000 rental complaints made and about the same number of rental complaints addressed" in 2025, and described a triage system that prioritizes emergency conditions, evictions/lockouts and significant rent increases. For high-priority calls the median response time was one day; other calls averaged about 28 days. Tallent said SDCI recorded 289 enforcement cases in 2025 but resolved many issues through lower-level enforcement and outreach.

Maureen Roat, SDCI's rental programs manager, described the department's teams: a…

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