St. Paul voters to consider rental repair protections in ballot measure

A proposal in St. Paul would let renters make certain fixes without waiting for their landlord to take action. Safe Homes Saint Paul collected thousands of signatures to place a question on the ballot. It asks whether residents support an ordinance to let tenants make repairs after a written notice to their landlord and deduct the amount to pay for it. The cost can t exceed $500 or half a month s rent. “We have rental horror stories,” said Cole Hanson, coordinator with Safe Homes Saint Paul. “And the same story, which is, I reached out to my landlord about this thing, a broken fixture or a broken faucet, and they don’t get back to me, or they don’t give me a timeline of when to expect a fix. And a fix may come, but it could be weeks or months. ” St. Paul is a majority renter city, which means a variety of households would be affected by the proposed law. “You have seniors who are renting, new families, old families who are renting, and they re all facing the same issue