News-Letter

These are hard times to be a renter in Baltimore. This is especially true in Charles Village, where the new developments are inflating rents and property values throughout the neighborhood. While this may be good for our long-struggling city, for student renters there is little to like. The rising rents have created a seller's market at the lower end of the spectrum, where students often have to look. Landlords have little incentive to offer well-maintained properties since just about any apartment will be rented. And, considering that many local landlords are absentee, they also feel little of the civic responsibility to keep their property from being an eyesore or a hazard.

What's worse, most Baltimore landlords also know that Baltimore city code is tilted heavily in their favor, and are more than happy to use that advantage. The per-capita eviction rate in the city is one of the highest in the nation, and much of that is due to the ease with which landlords can evict tenants. Landlords have the right to take a tenant to court just one day after rent is due, without any obligation to send a past-due notice to the errant renter. The legal process thereafter runs very quickly, giving the tenant as little as five days to prepare a defense. Renters often find themselves faced with a heavy financial burden.On the other hand, tenants trying to force landowners to make necessary improvements often face an uphill battle in the courts, and can count on little support from city building inspectors who are stretched thin in the midst of the current building boom.The result of all this is that student renters get squeezed. Rather than wait for an absentee landlord show up, we end up making necessary improvements to our apartments ourselves, paying for them out of pocket. As young adults with little credit history, we pay exorbitant security deposits which many landlords are loathe to return. And, worst of all, we accept living in dangerous conditions, prone to burglary, environmental poisons, and fire.Most students, alas, are particularly easy to swindle. We are often first-time renters, somewhat na95ve about the ins and outs of leases and blind to structural problems. Most of us know little about Baltimore when we first move here, and so have no idea what to expect from landlords, nor what our rights are as tenants.Another problem is the high turnover in our community: since most students move on after a few years in Baltimore, information about which landlords to avoid rarely gets passed on. For those landlords who make a habit of (and a good living by) exploiting student renters, every year brings a fresh crop of suckers unaware of their reputation.So what can we do to remedy this situation? As students, we can start by protecting ourselves. Educate yourself about your rights and landlords' responsibilities through such Web sites as http://www.baltimorehousing.org and http://www.bni-maryland.org (Baltimore Neighborhoods). Also, renter's insurance, which costs about $100 a year, can be invaluable. Students can also take the moral high ground by being model neighbors and tenants, so that long-term residents in Charles Village see problem properties as the fault of negligent owners, and not students.But the University also needs to step up its support of student renters. For graduate students, one crucial remedy will be to raise stipends, allowing students more flexibility in choosing housing. Stipends are, apparently, going up in many departments, but with rents and other living expenses skyrocketing, they still remain low.The Off-Campus Housing Office offers some good resources, but it is falling short of its full potential. Many students are not even aware that it exists. The office could also be more discriminating in which landlords and management companies they allow to list with them. For example, in my perusal of the Web site, I saw no indication of which landlords are registered with the city, showing that they have had their properties inspected and generally indicating conscientious behavior. A forum in which students could post their experiences with landlords, and rate them, would help newcomers make informed decisions about whom to trust and whom to approach cautiously.Finally, the University could look into providing particularly aggrieved student-renters with legal advice or even support both to assist students in need and to show predatory landlords that their behavior is unacceptable. As the most important corporate citizen in Baltimore, the University should show that it is committed to improving the quality of life in the city, while also helping to protect its students.

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