Dear editor,
Much is being made of the loss of fortune and funds concerning the Tenants Union ["Mid-July fundraising deadline looms for nonprofit," June 24-30]. Indeed, it has led Real Change to solicit money [in a July 6 e-mail blast] to save the union.
At the risk of sounding heretical to the faith that allows some to believe that slumlords can be defeated without the aide of attorneys, allow me to submit that losing the Tenants Union won't be noticed by most of us who are stuck, by fate and the economy, as renters.
In the times when I had issues with various landlords over the past 18 years, calls to the Tenants Union usually resulted in some specious advice -- if I could get through at all. The most useful information I ever gleaned, was at one phone volunteer's suggestion, off the website for the union.
Unfortunately, the information on that site was reduced, in recent years, to the extent that most of the needed information was in one of those little booklets on the rights of rental housing users and providers, that most police stations have.
In late 2006, when I had a particularly odious landlord and his wife, threatening eviction, I was fortunate enough to retain the services of attorney (and one time U.S. Senate candidate) Hong Tran, pro bono. I'd met her at the King County Labor Day picnic and she offered to help. When I brought up the Tenants Union she advised me not to use them or solicit their advice.
"They're not lawyers," was her terse reply.
Without Hong's help running interference with the attorney that my landlord and his wife had retained, I might have ended up on the street. As it was, working together, I gained just enough time to find another apartment and reluctantly moved after 16 years at the same address.
My feeling is that if I had not followed Hong's advice, and called the Tenant's Union, I might have ended up homeless. Dealing with troublesome landlords usually requires working with an attorney and knowing how to game the system. Sadly, the Tenants Union has never been able to figure that one out. When it's gone, my hunch is most people won't even know, or care.
Terry Parkhurst
Seattle