Durham City Council Passes Resolution in Support of Tenants’ Rights

After weeks of discussion, the Durham City Council unanimously passed a resolution in support of tenants’ rights this week. 

The resolution, which has no legal authority, encourages developers and property owners to work “in good faith” with tenants and tenant unions to negotiate “safe, quality, and democratic housing,” with an emphasis on projects that utilize public funding.

“If you are in the city of Durham, then the spirit of this resolution should apply to you,” Mayor Leonardo Williams said at the City Council’s Tuesday night meeting.

The resolution has evolved since it was first proposed at a City Council work session in August. Discussions originally centered on Willard Street and Ashton Place, two downtown affordable housing communities built with financial support from local government, along with their landlord DHIC and property management company Community Management Corporation (CMC). In March, residents of the apartments formed tenant unions, Willard Street United and Ashton Seniors in Action, to organize around living conditions, including mold, security failures, and more. The unions presented DHIC with a formal memorandum of agreement asking for collective bargaining, among other things, which DHIC was “not comfortable signing,” President and CEO Yolanda Winstead told the INDY in an interview following Tuesday’s meeting.

At the August 20 work session, Durham City Councilmember Nate Baker proposed a resolution in support of the Willard and Ashton tenants that specifically named the two unions, DHIC, CMC, and Self-Help, which helped fund the developments. But some council members pushed back on targeting specific developers, instead asking to expand the scope of the resolution to include all tenants. The revised resolution that was adopted on Tuesday removes the specific names, but includes a clause that puts an emphasis on projects supported by city funding. Some council members and residents asserted that developments utilizing public funding should be held to a higher standard.

“When we hold publicly funded housing providers accountable, we protect the integrity of our city’s investments,” said Ashton Place resident Valeria Ramos during public comment. “Every Durham resident deserves to know what their local tax dollars are being used to build.”

The City Council deliberated over tweaks to the resolution language before coming to a unanimous decision. Councilmember Shanetta Burris asked to include some directive for the city manager and staff to build a set of measures that would establish more accountability for management and living conditions in publicly funding housing, a point that was first raised during the August 20 work session.

“It’s important as we talk about the standards that were set and if we’re going to be investing, I think it is a certain standard that we should hold folks to in terms of living conditions for people who are residing in these communities.” Burris said during the meeting.

Affordable housing developments like Willard and Ashton come with an added layer of regulations. Projects that receive public funding through programs like the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) or the city’s Forever Home, Durham program are already subject to additional guidelines compared to market-rate developments. For example, they are required to accept housing choice vouchers from residents; market-rate housing is not. Changes to the lease agreements and rental rates are also overseen by the North Carolina Housing Finance Agency, so owners like DHIC have less flexibility to negotiate those terms with tenants.

“We’re actively working, even though we may not be out talking about it, to respond to their needs, really listening to their feedback, and implementing some improvements and things based on what we’ve heard, and admitting that quite honestly, some of the things we’ve been asked for, we just don’t have resources to do,” Winstead said. “And we’ve actually done some things and made some improvements despite not having the resources at the property level to do it. But that’s not sustainable. So we really try to be open about what we can and can’t do.”

DHIC and other affordable housing developers that are governed by those regulations won’t face any additional scrutiny from the council’s resolution, which is mostly symbolic. Still, council member Nate Baker, the original advocate for the resolution, said the moment was “historic” and that the resolution would set a new precedent for tenant democracy.

“Tenant democracy is not a luxury, it is a right that is denied to too many people,” Baker said. There are cities where many, many buildings, multifamily buildings are unionized, where tenant democracy is the norm. It’s not some exotic new thing that’s coming to town. And that’s the direction that we should be going in again.”

Following Tuesday’s vote, Willard and Ashton residents and union representatives, many of whom were sitting in the front row inside city hall, stood up and cheered, hugging one another and shaking hands with members of the City Council as they went on a break.

Outside City Hall, Cynthia Hoskins, an Ashton Place resident, was beaming as she called her friend, community organizer Regina Mays, who Hoskins said was with her four years ago when residents first began organizing around the issues they’ve brought forth.

“This is a blessing to any and everybody else that’s going through the same thing that I am going through in Durham,” Hoskins said. “We all just want to live in peace, safe and clean. I’m 77, and I wanted to live there to be 100.”

The tenants say that some of the issues persist, like maintenance delays and security concerns. One Ashton Place resident, Debra Davies, is currently suing DHIC and CMC after her son, Jason Pulliman, died of heart failure inside a laundry room in the building because of what Davies alleges was a malfunctioning door lock. Chants of “Justice for Jason” broke out outside City Hall in remembrance of Pulliam.

Union representatives also continue to ask for more regular meetings with DHIC and management to get clarity around things like lease agreements. After Tuesday’s vote, spirits were high though residents were cautiously optimistic about the future.

“This was an awesome win,” said Davies. “But we still got a lot of work to do.”

DHIC already hosts quarterly meetings residents in both buildings can attend. Winstead said the company is working to set up additional meetings specifically with the unions, and exploring ways to educate tenants on their rights’ and work with tenants to address issues at Willard Street and Ashton Place. 

“What you would imagine that comes to mind when you hear some of the comments that you heard last night is very different from what you see on the ground at these communities,” Winstead said. “They are great places to live, not without challenges, like all places. We’re being as responsive as we can, and we are looking forward to reengaging with some productive conversations now that the resolution has been passed.”

Yolanda Mitchell, a Willard Street resident who spoke during public comment and sang a brief reprieve of the classic O’Jays song “We’re All In This Thing Together,” said afterwards that as much as she likes to talk, she was “speechless” following the vote.

“It was worth all the fight, all the sleepless nights, some nights knocking on doors, because it turned out bigger than even what we expected,” Mitchell said. “I was singing to Miss Cynthia—I call her Spark because she was the spark that got this started—the song I was singing to her was ‘only takes a spark to get a fire going, soon, all those around will warm up to its glowing,’ and so that’s what is happening.”

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