The Lift the Ban Coalition held a town hall-style meeting Saturday at the Bloomington Public Library to inform and garner community support about efforts to change a state law concerning the skyrocketing cost of rent.
The coalition is a grassroots movement whose story members shared at the meeting — how their friends and neighbors are struggling to afford the price of rent. They formed the coalition in Chicago and now support legislation HB 4104 that would lift the ban on rent control.
“I think regardless of the community people live in, Bloomington or Normal, student or residential, everyone is being affected by rent increases,” said McLean County Board member Krystle Able, one of the presenters. “No matter where they live or who they rent from.”
Able represents District 4 that includes much of west Normal.
Able and the coalition presented their case to those attending the town hall. Many of their reasons include statistics of evictions, homelessness, rent increases and rent burden in the community. Able noted a 36% increase in the cost of rent in McLean County since 2019.
“That is a really large amount,” she said. “I think that is being commonly seen in our community, that everyone is being subject to these rent increases, and it is at such a high number, percentage wise, I don’t think we can really believe landlords anymore when they say they’re only raising rent because property taxes are going up.”
Able said she has a personal stake in the fight for rent control. She worked for an investment company in Bloomington-Normal 10 years ago.
“We were considered at that point in time, one of the most affordable places to live in town,” Able said. “I saw firsthand how the landlords, including myself as the assistant property manager, treated their tenants. We were raising rent regardless of vacancy, based on the rent other people were charging in town.”
Able said no one factor determined the manner and rate in which the company would increase rent — it was done “solely based on whether we could get away with it or not.”
Other speakers at the event shared similar stories — units that were not suitable to live in, and fighting against Realtors in their area. One couple said they moved to Bloomington-Normal from Texas because they considered it a safer and more progressive area, but now struggle to live here because of the high rent.
The most frequent common denominator of all the stories involved investment companies buying leases in mass and then suddenly and dramatically raising rent until most tenants cannot afford to live there, forcing them to be homeless or to double up with family and friends where they share a space. One example mentioned was the forced eviction of tenants on Tracy Drive, after their leases were purchased by Salvation Army to make room for homeless veterans.
Other speakers included Linda Foster, president of the Bloomington-Normal NAACP, and Roderick Wilson, a co-founder of Lift the Ban.
Wilson said the legislation the groups is pushing for is not an exact law on rent control, but it lifts a law currently banning the ability to control rent around the state — 1997’s Illinois Rent Control Preemption Act.
Able said further steps need to be taken to help control the prices of rent around the state and in McLean County.
“This is going to be a multi-step process,” she said. “This bill, HB 4104, does not create rent control. What it does is it gives municipalities, like Bloomington-Normal to pass a referendum, here where we live, that gives our local government the power to create rent control.”
She said every local level of government would have to work individually to pass measures and referendums to then help control rent and give renters more protections, namely through a local rent board that would be either elected or appointed. Able said she supports President Joe Biden’s plan to cap the year-to-year rent increase cost at 5%.
Under the bill, Able said the area would be able to craft its own vision of what rent control looks like. Residents can change it how they see fit.
“That can really look like anything we want it to look like, as long as we can get the ban lifted,” she said. “So, the sky is really the limit on what we can do for our tenants once that gets passed. We’ll just have to continue to keep pressure on our local municipalities to put tenants and renters first.”
She said she hopes increased pressure and attention will draw more elected officials to hearing the cause.
