I'm stunned ~ I can understand concern for the surrounding neighbors, but NOT at the expense of DV victims ~ ~ Sooz

Police tell victims: Call 911 and you’ll get evicted under ‘nuisance’ laws
By David Ferguson
Saturday, August 17, 2013 11:49 EDT

In Pennsylvania and other states, police can force landlords to evict tenants who officers consider to be a nuisance. According to the New York Times, under so-called “nuisance property” laws, individuals like domestic violence victim Lakisha Briggs of Norristown, PA can be told by police that if they call 911 one more time, they’ll be forced out of their homes.

The nuisance ordinances are intended to protect residential neighborhoods from rowdy, disruptive households, but in cases like Briggs’, they can leave victims of violence in an impossible situation, needing to call for help, but knowing it could cost them their home. Under the laws, officials can bring pressure to bear on landlords to evict a tenant if they’ve been called to a rental property more than three times in a four month period.

Briggs, 34, said that her violent, volatile ex-boyfriend showed up at her house at the beginning of summer 2012, fresh out of jail from their last fight, demanding to move in.

“If I called the police to get him out of my house, I’d get evicted,” she told the Times. “If I physically tried to remove him, somebody would call 911 and I’d be evicted.”

The nuisance laws are growing in popularity around the country. They are ostensibly enacted to enable landlords to weed out drug dealers and other disruptive tenants from rental properties and create “crime-free neighborhoods.” Unfortunately, they often end up placing victims of domestic violence and other crimes at the mercy of their abusers.

Harvard University sociologist Matthew Desmond said to the Times, “These laws threaten citizens’ fundamental right to call on the police for help.”

Desmond authored a report entitled “Unpolicing the Urban Poor: Consequences of Third-Party Policing for Inner-City Women” that examined years of citations issued to landlords in Milwaukee, WI. More than a third of the cases, he found, involved domestic violence.

He also found that the laws disproportionately targeted rental properties located in poor, mostly-African American neighborhoods.

In Norristown, Briggs was forced out of fear of eviction to allow her ex-partner Wilbert Bennet to move into her house. Weeks later, another altercation took place in which Bennet beat her and cut her with a broken ashtray, leaving her with puncture wounds and a 4-inch gash in her neck. Before she lost consciousness, she begged a neighbor not to call the police because she knew she’d lose her home.

The neighbor called anyway and Briggs was airlifted to Philadelphia for emergency treatment. Bennet is in prison for the assault, but police served Briggs’ landlord with a notice that they’d lose their rental license of Briggs wasn’t evicted within 10 days.

Briggs, with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), has filed a federal suit against Norristown city officials. The city has backed down on the eviction order, but Briggs said she plans to move anyway to a place that Bennet can’t find when he is released from prison.

Norristown officials claim that Briggs failed to take out protection orders against Bennet as police instructed, and that in the 10 times police were called to her residence from January to May of 2012, they never saw evidence that she was physically injured. They claim that concern for the health and safety of Briggs’ neighbors was what prompted them to order her landlord to kick her out.

The lawsuit “fails to take into consideration the health, safety and welfare of all neighbors who live in proximity to a disorderly house,” they said.

ACLU lawyer Sandra S. Park told the Times that “nuisance property” laws are “fundamentally flawed.”

“The problem with these ordinances is that they turn victims of crime who are pleading for emergency assistance into ‘nuisances’ in the eyes of the city,” she said. “They limit people’s ability to seek help from police and punish victims for criminal activity committed against them.”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/08/17/police-tell-victims-call-911-and-youll-get-evicted-under-nuisance-laws/

We've had this discussion before and you all know how I feel. As a landlord. I won't get into it again.

And we wonder why everything is getting all fu$%ed up.

The police can't force a landlord to evict anyone. It would go to court. And in a domestic violence situation, the judge would agree with the tenant that the tenant had the legitimate right to call the police for help.

I don't know about laws elsewhere, but here the court would agree with the landlord. Tenants have certain obligations outlined in their lease which include disturbances/noise and agreeing to keep the place in good condition. (No fist holes in walls or broken-in doors).
How would you feel if it was your property and there was violence all the time? How would you feel if it was your next door neighbor and you had small children who saw/heard it? What if one day it involved gun fire?

We can all be sympathetic bleeding hearts until it affects us personally. That woman wouldn't press charges after at least 10 calls!! Her right to protection from eviction ends at the landlords rights for a reasonable tenant and the neighbors rights to a safe, quiet neighborhood.

Would it surprise you to know that in a condo complex here, the board can evict an owner for seriously/continually violating condo by-laws?

edited to add: I know I said I wasn't going to post on this, lol, but being a landlord I have a different perspective.

I wouldn't be a landlord for all the tea in China.

lol oskar, you are already, aren't you?

I wouldn't do it if we didn't work together. In the past, at the apartments we managed, he could run interference with aggresive tenants. We don't much deal with that here. I do prefer condo management. Much easier. Clear cut with by-laws and such. Apartments were subject to the management company managers decisions. They sometimes made decisions that were harmful to us as resident managers, because it was all about the bottom line. Keeping the place full, no matter the issues.

Actually, the laws favor the tenants, not the landlords. In any event, if someone phoned the police because an ex showed up at their front door uninvented and that ex has a history of domestic violence, no judge in the world would find that call to be unwarranted. No person would ever be evicted for phoning the police because they fear for their safety. I absolutely guarantee it. Don't believe the propaganda.

There's a big difference between between a tenant being a "nuisance" because they have loud parties or loud arguments, and one who calls the police because they fear for their safety. The second is not a nuisance -- it's the police's job to protect and to serve.

I disagree with your "sureness", SciFi ~ after spending my entire working life at a major law firm, I can say without hesitation that judges will find in favor of the law, even if/when they don't like the law ~

I fully recognize and understand roseanne's points ~ the neighbors absolutely have to be protected ~

I just think there has to be a better way to avoid victimizing the victim [who generally has NO control over an abuser's acts, even with a protective order in place] again ~

Sooz

Scifi, laws vary state to state or province to province. I was speaking of the laws here in Alberta. We have our own landlord/tenant act. This woman was beaten and bleeding. It's a good bet that things were thrown, walls punched etc. I've seen it. Also, if there was beating, then there was yelling and/or screams (of pain perhaps) You have to be a landlord to understand.

The "propaganda" you mention is not what I listen to. I've done it, been involved in such evictions and I can guarantee you that if there are multiple police calls on top of violence that probably included yelling and screaming, they would be evicted.

You didn't answer my questions. What if it's your property? Do you want it destroyed? What if it's your next door neighbor? If you had kids, would you fear for their safety around that residence?

There is sooz, but it's up to HER, is it not? She must take any and all steps first. Move..to a shelter, a friends, a relatives....so that he can't find her. She MUST file for a TRO so that he can be arrested. After 10 times (that we know of and that when police were called) she still didn't file an order?
I agree that the victim has no control over the abuser, but she had control over her own actions........or inaction in this case.