Columbus changes city code to hold landlords accountable

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- The City of Columbus is holding problem landlords accountable.

Columbus City Council on Monday amended its code to provide more protections for tenants of problem property owners. Now, a former tenant of one of the problem properties that inspired this code change is speaking out.

Syretta Carr was forced to move out of Latitude Five25 on Christmas in 2022. She had no heat, the elevators were not working and she was on the sixth floor. Others in the building were dealing with flooding from frozen pipes that had burst.

Carr says she’s very thankful for the help she received during this time and now, she’s glad to see this added layer of protection.

"It just kind of made you feel like you were drowning," Carr said.

That’s how Carr describes her last few days living in Latitude Five25, a building now standing empty and condemned for unsafe living conditions.

"I just kind of isolated myself. I didn't want to be around anyone because I was trying to figure out what my next steps were. So those final days were very horrifying," Carr said.

Carr says the city helped her get into a hotel and she was able to find another apartment.

With rising rents, she couldn’t stay and had to leave the state to live with family. Still, she is thankful Columbus is continuing its work to help others in her situation.

"I feel that that shows even more care, that they realize that there's a problem and there's a problem citywide and that we need to figure out the steps necessary to take if it happens again so that we can assist these tenants," Carr said.

Columbus City Council changed its housing and safety code so property owners are responsible for relocation and housing costs if tenants are forced to leave due to safety concerns that the landlord did not fix.

If it’s temporary, the property owners have to pay for up to three months of housing. If the move is for good they have to give tenants three times fair market rent. If they don’t, the city will pay and then sue the landlords.

"It does happen regularly in smaller, you know, single-person units or one unit in an apartment complex throughout the year," Senior Managing Attorney Of the Housing Team At Legal Aid Of Southeast And Central Ohio Melissa Benson said. "We do see some of those calls. It's not in that same volume of hundreds of people, but one or two families needing to leave a place because it's not safe for them to stay there anymore."

Legal Aid says this code amendment will be a game changer for many families: it will give those who are struggling a safe way out and eliminate the fear of retribution from landlords or of not finding another place to live.

"I'm hopeful that this will encourage people to call code more often and earlier on because a lot of these issues can also be resolved if they're addressed earlier without getting to that later point and know that they will not be homeless," Benson said.

This started as a pilot program. The city’s Department of Development said that in each situation so far the landlord has worked with the city to fix the issue and support their tenants.

"Our large-scale apartment complexes and a point in time vacate is always an anomaly," Columbus Department of Development Deputy Director Hannah Jones said. "When we're developing a protocol, when we first started looking at the data, we anticipated about 40 units per year. That was based on historical data, but we've seen upwards of 60. But again, I would emphasize that those are units, not apartment complexes, not buildings."

The process starts when code enforcement gets involved in a property. Then if the landlord does not fix the issue and it’s bad enough for the tenants to have to leave a social worker from the city will get involved to help the family with any issue that may come up.

"We hope that this is seen as one more cost that a landlord doesn't want to take on over and above just caring for the property. We would rather that they invest that money in repairs than having to invest in relocation and in the very long run having to invest in the lawyer fees," Jones said.