NLIHC’s State and Local Innovation (SLI) project will soon launch the next component of its State and Local Tenant Protection Series: A Primer on Renters’ Rights with a webinar series focused on state and local tenant protections. The first webinar, taking place on November 20, will give attendees the opportunity to learn more about efforts undertaken at the federal, state, and local levels to address excessive, hidden, and arbitrary rental fees, known commonly as rental “junk fees.” Registrants will hear from a broad range of speakers, including tenant advocates, members of national housing organizations, and legal service providers, about specific campaigns, resources, and efforts to advocate for laws limiting rental junk fees. The webinar will take place from 2 to 3:30 PM ET and will be co-hosted with the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC), the Housing Policy Clinic at the University of Texas at Austin’s Law School, and Building and Strengthening Tenant Action (BASTA). Register for the webinar here.
Agenda:
- Welcome
- Setting the Foundation: Sarah Gallagher and Nada Hussein, National Low Income Housing Coalition
- Texas Snapshot: Tackling Junk Fees in Austin, Heather K. Way, University of Texas at Austin Law School, Housing Policy Clinic; and Shoshana Krieger, Building and Strengthening Tenant Action
- Local Spotlight: Efforts to Enact Limits on Junk Fees in the State of Connecticut: Sarah White, Connecticut Fair Housing Center
- Federal Efforts to Protect Renters against Junk Fees: Steve Sharpe and Ariel Nelson, National Consumer Law Center
- Q&A
The new webinar series is designed to complement a slate of resources released by NLIHC’s SLI initiative on the same topics. In August 2024, NLIHC’s SLI initiative released a toolkit on protections against excessive rental fees, which includes an overview of such protections, the common components of laws that limit junk fees, information about state and local jurisdictions that have adopted such protections for renters, and suggestions about provisions that should be considered when enacting or advocating for such protections. The toolkit was the first toolkit released as part of the State and Local Innovation Tenant Protection Series, which also includes additional toolkits on “just cause” eviction standards, rent stabilization laws, and laws that strengthen code enforcement procedures and habitability standards. The toolkits are meant to provide foundational information about the core components of select policy interventions that can keep tenants stably housed – and free from the threat of eviction – and to help spark dialogue around the critical importance of state and local tenant protections. Alongside the toolkits, the SLI team has also released a series of tenant case studies focused on state and local campaigns to enact the same four tenant protections, with NLIHC highlighting state-level efforts to enact junk fees laws in the State of Connecticut and Rhode Island.
Learn more about laws limiting excessive rental fees here.
Register for the webinar here.
Learn more about NLIHC’s SLI project at: https://nlihc.org/state-and-local-innovation