Tacoma Protected Tenants From Eviction. Now Tenants Can’t Find Housing In November 2023. Voters pass a feel-good measure. No evictions from Nov 1 to April 1. No evictions during the school year if a student or teacher lives in the unit. Six months later, reality shows up. Delinquency at the Tacoma Housing Authority jumps from 15% to 38%. People go a year or more without paying rent. Before the ban, eviction worked as a they always have… Landlords filed. Tenants paid something. Payment plans happened. Most people stayed housed. After the ban, balances stacked up for months. By the time eviction became legal again, the numbers were unfixable. “The debts are so high they can’t resolve them,” the housing authority said. Evictions still happened. Just later. And worse. The housing authority burned through $400,000 in reserves covering losses. That money used to house people on the waitlist. Even nonprofits couldn’t make the math work. This month, the city carved out exemptions for public housing, nonprofits, and small landlords with fewer than five units. More than 75% of local rental owners have sold or plan to sell at least one unit. The first to leave were the small landlords. The ones willing to rent to weaker credit and lower income. The ones left tightened screening. Over 80% now require more. So the people this policy aimed to help face fewer units and higher barriers. Less supply. Stricter rules. Same stories. No one called the policy a failure. But the housing authority serving the poorest renters needed an escape hatch to survive. If subsidized housing can’t operate under these rules, private landlords never stood a chance. Tacoma tried compassion without consequences. They got fewer landlords, tighter screening, and a public housing system burning reserves instead of serving people. The affordability crisis isn’t a fairness problem. It’s most often a simple supply problem. Every exit makes it worse. https://lnkd.in/e7AiHqEM