BY ED FELIEN
About 60 people showed up at a meeting Tuesday night, Nov. 10, at Matthews Park to discuss complaints against Minneapolis Housing Inspector Joe Jarvis. Residents and landlords say Jarvis has been over-zealous in applying city codes.
Susan Armitage wrote on the Seward Neighborhood Forum, “He is citing our property for six violations that were permitted with our addition and inspected by the city already. We now have 1000’s of dollars in repairs to do in 40 days. This inspection directly contradicts the inspection in 2006 or 2007, done after most of the work he is citing was done.”
Bill Gregor wrote: “When Joe came to our place earlier this year it was no big deal. We had not rented for a while and just paid the fee every year just in case. We use the space and were in the middle of some projects. When Joe came through, and I think he overstepped his authority, it became a big deal. To keep this short, we pulled our license so he would just go away.”
Wendy Adamson said, “I actually feel that the inspection process is valuable to rental owners. I sense that the problem here is with one over-zealous inspector (Mr. Jarvis) who needs some guidance from his supervisor. He is somewhat out of control. The process should be cooperative, and educational, not punitive and mean spirited.”
Tom Berthiaume wrote, “Joe inspected our owner-occupied duplex at the end of August. The list of repairs/updates that we received is incredibly extensive and our home has been very well cared for during the 15 years that we have owned it. It seems that every cosmetic flaw was cited and things that have been in place for decades suddenly became an issue (location of outlets, cracked stucco, cracked plaster near the basement landing, dryer venting, the size of handrails, and on and on). None of these issues are new and they have all passed prior inspections. As Wendy stated in her messages, other inspections were very collaborative in nature—this most certainly was not.”
Council Member Cam Gordon organized the meeting. In a statement to Southside Pride he said, “At this point I am convinced that this has less to do with a particular inspector and a lot more to do with the challenges we face supporting small rental property owners while also ensuring that the living conditions for the residents are safe and meet reasonable standards. Small-scale rental property operators provide a valuable service and much needed affordable housing in our communities. At the same time, rental property can pose challenges for both renters and neighbors.
“Sometimes negligent landlords put the health and safety of tenants or community members in jeopardy. In recent years we have worked hard as a city to improve our regulations and inspections to address serious concerns and complaints about some rental properties. As we have strengthened our ordinances, improved our capacity to inspect properties and developed a new tiered rental housing inspection system, perhaps we have not done as much as we could have to also support, communicate with and be of service to landlords, especially those who generally are doing a great job and are valued by their communities.
“I do not want landlords or tenants to see the city as something to be feared or avoided and I do not want us to lose good landlords who are providing safe and quality affordable rental housing. One thing that has been revealed here, is that many landlords mistrust the city and assume that the city is inflexible. This is not always the case. It is important for rental property owners to know that Housing Inspections is willing to have conversations about getting necessary repairs made on a timeline that works for owners.
“I am listening, and will continue to listen, to neighbors, landlords, tenants and city staff to learn from this and I am hopeful that the experience in Seward this year will point toward some ways to improve our practices, ordinances and policies in the future.
“Some of the landlords were frustrated by the meeting. They felt that they weren’t given enough time (40 minutes) to air their concerns. Cu Nguyen summed it up: “As with many of you, I have had a fair amount of inspections with different inspectors, not all great but NEVER CLOSE TO BEING AS RIDICULOUS AS THE ONES THIS YEAR. They negatively affect not only the landlords but also the tenants, as one speaker raised his voice during the meeting. My tenants also did not understand what the fuss was all about with re-inspections after inspections over tiny infractions. Pro-tenant or anti-landlord, I personally believe the city’s bureaucratic system fails us both.”
Code enforcement is necessary to protect homeowners and renters from conditions that could prove dangerous to individuals and the community: too lenient and the neighborhood could go to hell, too rigorous and the neighborhood could go to heaven but none of us could get in.
It seems we need compassionate code enforcement that understands community standards. We need to inspect rental units to make sure they’re safe. We don’t need enforcement to be so severe that we deprive poor and working people of a place to live.
