Raise the private property rights warning flags, U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet is on the prowl for a federal government takeover solution to the issue of evictions.
You know, that process that happens when you don’t pay your rent and the property owner declines to let you live there, or destroy the property, for free?
Bennet penned a heart-wrenching, Thanksgiving Day editorial for the Denver Post about the need for federal intervention in these simple transactions of “I give you money, you let me live here.”
Here’s the gist of the national emergency Bennet describes:
This month, I met with Coloradans who had been pushed to the edge — crane operators, nurses, and truck drivers. Several had college and even advanced degrees. Some described how an obscure lease violation or a landlord’s sudden decision to redevelop the property forced them from their homes.
Others described how an illness, family emergency, or accident led to one late payment; a late payment led to an eviction; an eviction led to a lost job; and within months, they plunged into a cruel cycle of poverty.
Call us cynical, because we are, but we have trouble believing there is a national crisis of renters forced from their homes because the rent is a couple weeks late, getting fired for it, and plunging into poverty.
As for obscure lease violations — read the lease! If it says no pets, don’t be surprised if you’re asked to leave. If it says no smoking, don’t smoke. If you break the rules, you can’t live there. Fairly simple.
Just because someone is highly educated, doesn’t automatically mean they are responsible bill payers.
And as for Bennet’s complaint that renters are spending up to 30 percent of their income on housing, homeowners spend 28 percent of their income on mortgages.
If the landowner decides to redevelop the property, are we just going to give renters squating rights?
Bennet’s heart might be in the right political corner, but his solutions are radical and expensive.
He wants to reduce “preventable” evictions, with lawyers.
Even more alarming, Bennet wants to create a national database of information reported by local and state governments on evictions. Such an invasion of privacy stands in stark contrast to Bennet’s desire to “keep the black mark of eviction off their record.”
Bennet’s reasoning and overboard solutions are foolhardy, and guess what the results would be? Higher housing costs and increased tax spending.
Tenant and landlord rights are a state issue, and are not something Bennet should be meddling in as he searches for a national problem on which to run for president.