Renters' Opinions Wanted in Pottstown

I would imagine most of the 1-out-of-every-3 Pennsylvanians who rent their home want a few basic things:  

A safe dwelling where all the systems work; A landlord who is responsive to basic repairs and maintenance, who does not increase the rent exorbitantly from one year to the next. 

Pretty basic and fair, right? These things were obviously important to me for the 18 years that I rented apartments – from Spring City to Ardmore. 

Landlords, understandably, want tenants who pay on time, don’t create disturbances, and respect the property that they are renting. 

If you’ve been following recent legal developments in Pottstown, I can understand if you are confused at this point. As a 50 percent rental community, the Borough of Pottstown has an apartment inspection program that requires borough staff to check on health and safety matters at least every other year. 

Yet a libertarian legal group, the Institute for Justice, is not backing down from a lawsuit that challenges the ability of borough staff to enter rental units to complete these inspections against the wishes of tenants. The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court sided with the Institute for Justice in December, saying that the PA Constitution provides stronger guarantees of privacy than the U.S. Constitution. 

At their March 9 meeting, Pottstown Borough Council voted to take the first step to allow third-party inspectors (rather than borough code enforcement officers) to conduct inspections. That did not allay the concerns of the Institute for Justice, which said: “Changing the job title of the person conducting the search doesn’t suddenly make it acceptable.”   

I’ll pause here to state the obvious: Inspections are important. We have all heard of – or have personally experienced – absentee landlords who don’t repair leaking roofs or broken pipes. To remedy this situation, the city of Philadelphia is considering two bills to strengthen protections for renters, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer: 

• The first bill would protect tenants who complain about housing conditions from retaliation by rental property owners and affirm tenants’ rights to a safe and sanitary home. 

• The second bill seeks to hold landlords accountable for repairs by authorizing the Department of Licenses and Inspections to create a program to proactively inspect rental units instead of relying upon complaints to trigger inspections. It is worth noting that most smaller municipalities rely upon this complaint-based system. 

In Harrisburg, Gov. Josh Shapiro’s Housing Action Plan speaks to this issue as well. One policy strategy includes obligating landlords to provide tenants with six months’ rent in relocation assistance if a property is condemned or deemed unfit for human habitation due to code violations. 

Bringing this back to the local level, the Pottstown Housing Coalition (of which Montco 30% Project is a member) invites tenants in our borough to attend an upcoming listening session. We want to learn more about your experience – the good and bad – as a renter in Pottstown. 

We hope to see you there!