San Marcos tenants may soon be permitted to organize and advocate for themselves about housing issues under a new proposed ordinance.
During its Aug. 5 meeting, the San Marcos City Council discussed an ordinance that, if approved, could grant tenants the right to organize. The ordinance, brought forward by the San Marcos Civics Club, would allow community organization and order to provide tenants a way to collectively advocate for themselves without fear of repercussions in San Marcos housing.
Maxfield Baker, founder of the San Marcos Civics Club, said one continuous issue people face is not knowing or understanding their rights as tenants, property managers or landlords.
“When people don’t know how to report a leaky pipe and they don’t do it in time and they think that they’re going to write off some part of their rent for this or something like that, that is just not how it works and it all breaks down,” Baker said.
According to the ordinance presentation, tenants were reported to have faced issues including substandard living conditions, harassment, intimidation by landlords or displacement.
Aside from tenant meetings, tenants would be allowed to share or post information on the organization’s activities, meet with non-tenants or other tenant organizations at the housing premises and invite potential tenants to help with organizing.
During the discussion meeting, Councilmember Amanda Rodriguez said over 70% of San Marcos residents are tenants.
“[Tenants] fit this model, given preemption on those things. We found an ordinance out of Austin that has shown to be both effective and within the legal parameters of municipality to enforce,” Rodriguez said.
In 2022, the city of Austin, with the help of various advocacy groups such as the Building and Strengthening Tenant Action (BASTA), first adopted the Tenant Right to Organize ordinance.
The ordinance is now being adopted by the city of San Marcos, but the language of the proposed ordinance may change as the city is planning on conducting revisions before it is brought back to the council.
“A person who violates a provision of this article is guilty of a separate offense for each day the violation of this article continues,” the Austin ordinance states. “Each offense is punishable by a fine not to exceed $2,000.”
Baker said the ordinance also prohibits landlord interference with a tenant’s organization and activities.
“One of the inflection points around tenants’ rights is whether they’re going to experience retaliation or harassment for reporting basic health and safety issues,” Baker said. “So a proactive rental inspection program would kind of be a middleman for that and help create a good list of landlords and properties that community members could reference.”
Landlord interference includes not allowing tenants usage of community spaces, threatening tenants for continued organizing and prohibiting tenants from passing out or posting information flyers about meetings or activities.
Baker said they are happy with the support the ordinance has shown, but they are focusing on their long-term strategy to pass the Tenants’ Right to Organize ordinance.
“[The Civics Club] is hoping to just go piece by piece, and we’re not trying to do some large reform and champagne and say hey, we did it,” Baker said. “We’re trying to really be mindful of harm reduction…especially around things like evictions and dealing with any changes to the eviction process,”
The ordinance is set to go up to the council for the first reading during its Sept. 16 meeting.
