Here’s where Quincy’s primary candidates stand on the city’s housing issues

QUINCY — Six out of 10 primary candidates hoping to earn a spot on the ballot for the Apr. 1 municipal election appeared alongside one another Tuesday night to discuss Quincy’s housing issues at a forum sponsored by the Safe and Livable Housing Committee held at First Christian Church.

Both Republican primary mayoral candidates — Dan Brink and incumbent Mayor Mike Troup — attended the forum. Both Democratic primary aldermanic candidates for the Seventh Ward — Brennan Hills and incumbent Jack Holtschlag — also attended.

Laura McReynolds, a Republican running to represent the Fifth Ward on the Quincy City Council, was in attendance. Her opponent, incumbent Mike Rein, was not.

Republican Kenneth Hultz, the incumbent representative on the council for the Third Ward, was the only candidate in his race to appear at the forum. His three primary opponents — Tim Lohmeyer, Robert Eyler and Michael Adkins — were not in attendance.

Representatives from several housing advocacy organizations attended the forum and were given the opportunity to ask candidates questions:

• Q-RILE (an acronym for Quincy for Registration, Inspection and Licensing Enactment)
• the NAACP
• Quincy Builds
• and the Safe and Livable Housing Committee.

Nora Baldner moderated the event.

The first question identified a point of agreement for everyone in the room.

“Is safe housing a moral obligation of any city? Why or why not?” asked Rick Vogel with the Safe and Livable Housing Committee.

All candidates were in agreement that ensuring safe housing was a moral obligation a city has to its citizens. How to follow through on that obligation, though, was a bit more complicated.

“We can all say that we support safe housing and believe it’s a moral obligation, but doing what we can to ensure that is a reality in Quincy is really important,” Hills said.

Brink stated that the “number of ordinances and laws that we have on the books” supported the idea that the city was obligated to ensure safe housing to its citizens, and that it was important to review, follow and enforce those laws.

Martha Walden informed the panel about the organization she was there to represent, Q-RILE. The group was created in Feb. 2023, is non-partisan and is self-funded, Walden said. 

The group successfully secured enough signatures to place a referendum on the ballot for the Apr. 1 election that will ask voters if they approve or disapprove of the City of Quincy enacting an ordinance proposed by the group that would “require registration, regularly scheduled inspections and subsequent licensing” of residential rental properties in the city. Walden said the group’s research indicated that a comprehensive inspection ordinance was “the first step towards better housing in a municipality.” 

“Convince me that we are wrong, or let us know how you feel that it is truly best for the city,” Walden challenged.

“I don’t think I want to convince you that you’re wrong,” McReynolds said.

McReynolds said she wasn’t sure how to enforce what’s already on the books, but that improvement was needed. She also acknowledged the city has a “handful of violators who are not providing habitable living.”

“I helped get a lot of those signatures to get that (referendum) on the ballot, because I feel very passionate about this issue,” said Hills, also a member of Q-RILE.

Hills stated the need for a rental registration ordinance and reformed inspection process, as the process in place is initiated only when a minimum housing complaint form is filed with the city by tenants whose landlords are not making necessary repairs out of their own volition. 

An inspection is conducted by the city after a complaint is filed and, if code violations are observed, the landlord is supposed to make the repairs within 14 days. If the structure is deemed unfit for occupancy, the structure is placarded, and all residents are forced to leave the premises. 

“That’s why we had 44 complaints in 2023 which resulted in inspections, and cities with half our size or less did 2,500 to 3,000 inspections last year,” Hills said. “The difference is that they regularly inspect every single rental property on a two- to five-year basis to ensure they’re complying with city code. We wait until a tenant who may work two jobs, may have three to five kids, has the time to file that complaint, overcome their fears of being retaliated against or evicted and work with the city through an extremely long and grueling process.”

Brink was not supportive of such a program. Enforcement of existing laws should come first, he said. He also expressed concern for how the city would pay for an additional inspector and that the cost of inspections would get passed from landlord to tenant.

“That increases their cost drastically, and so I don’t think that we can actually afford to put that burden on the tenants or the landlords,” Brink said.

Hultz said he has no doubt some landlords are “bad,” but some tenants “act that way” too. He suggested there should be a list of responsibilities for the tenants.

A comprehensive checklist of code violations — and whose responsibility, the landlord or the tenant, it is to fix each one — is provided with the minimum housing complaint form.

Of the three mayoral administrations he’s dealt with since he’s been on the council, Holtschlag said Troup was the only one who brought the city’s housing issues to the table. 

A question from Marla Ferguson, a representative for both the NAACP and the Safe and Livable Housing Committee, sparked conversation on the deterioration of some of the city’s oldest residential properties, many of which are in the northwest part of the city.

Troup spoke of various programs that have been implemented in recent years, such as the small rental rehabilitation program (SRRP) which “aims to rehabilitate existing distressed rental dwelling units or develop new market-rate rental units through new construction or the conversion of existing buildings.”

Michael Joyce represented Quincy Builds, “a partnership between Safe and Livable Housing (Committee) and dedicated members of the community working to finance, construct and manage new low-income housing in Quincy with a mission of providing all Quincians an opportunity to participate in our city’s revitalization.”

Joyce asked the panel what role public-private partnerships could play in addressing the city’s housing crisis and how the city would create incentives for private developers “to include affordable housing for families at the lower end of the economic spectrum.”

Hills said that a portion of the funds set aside for the SRRP should be allocated for affordable housing specifically instead of solely for market-rate housing. Another suggestion Hills made pertained to limited time tax abatements on new, affordable starter homes.

Troup said before houses can be built, lots need to be acquired.

“The city auctions off lots all the time, and for affordable housing, we would have no problem selling or even donating a lot or two with the right plan,” he said.

Holtschlag and McReynolds agreed that educating the community on financial literacy was another important part of the puzzle.

“We need to educate our constituents on interest rates, how to balance a checkbook, how to balance your earnings. That’s where we lack,” Holtschlag said.

Hills commented that the Safe and Livable Housing Committee organizes tenant workshops, where interested tenants can learn how to open a bank account, how to clean their home and how to cook for themselves, among other things pertinent to an adult’s ability to live and thrive on their own. 

“The city is not playing a part in (the tenant workshops) right now. The city is just kind of watching other organizations do that,” he said.

Hultz said apartments often end up in “bad shape” because some tenants “don’t even know how to clean.” 

“I just don’t think they really understand what they really need to do for themselves — not necessarily for the landlord, but to do it for themselves,” he said.

Holtschlag commended the work of the Quincy Housing Authority and said that some tenants “burn their bridges with the housing authority” by leaving their units in such bad shape after they move out.

“We have units that have to sit empty for a year to air out,” he said. “We are so fortunate. Otherwise we’d have more of a crisis in the city of Quincy if we didn’t have as good of a housing authority as we have.”

McReynolds commented on the current rates for rental units, in other parts of the country and in Quincy.

“I couldn’t believe the rates (of rental properties in Quincy),” she said. “I don’t know how that’s affordable for a family, especially if that family is also paying daycare.”

The latest Comprehensive Housing Needs Assessment study, completed in 2023 by the Great River Economic Development Foundation (GREDF), found Quincy was lacking or severely lacking in:

• single-family housing
• condominiums/townhomes
• market rate rental housing
• affordable rate rental housing 
• and senior housing.

Hundreds of additional units are needed by 2033 to keep up with existing and future demand. Regarding affordable rate rental housing, the study said, “This lack of inventory has also pushed rents to higher levels than what the properties should be asking.” 

Lisa Wigoda, another member of the Safe and Livable Housing Committee, spoke more about the ordinance proposed by Q-RILE. It suggests inspections be performed every three years, and it wouldn’t require Quincians to pay higher taxes for the city to hire additional inspection department personnel.

“Landlords like myself are in business being landlords. It is our responsibility to pay the mere $3 a month, which would finance at least two new inspectors in the department and a part-time staff person,” Wigoda said.

Brink estimated that “95 percent of our landlords are good landlords,” a sentiment Hills shook his head at, and questioned the possibility of imposing the ordinance on the other 5 percent of landlords rather than all of them. He again emphasized the need for keeping monthly rent payments and water rates low.

Hills pointed out that a similar ordinance that was proposed when Troup was first elected suggested a cost of $2.90 per month for landlords, amounting to $35 per year. 

“To say that that is the extreme cost that we’re talking about that’s going to be passed on to tenants and it’s going to make things unsustainable is crazy, because the landlord could raise the rent $5 (to) cover that cost and make a profit,” Hills said. “That’s not a real problem, that’s a facade.”

He then explained the ordinance proposed by Q-RILE, available on their website, would operate under a grading system. Properties would be graded from Class A, a property with no building code violations and lowest priority for inspections that would have the lowest cost inspection fee, to Class F, for a property with significant code violations that “may not be occupied for rental” that would have the highest cost.

For landlords who unknowingly break the building code and receive a poor grading classification, a reinspection could be requested at any time.

Holtschlag reminded the panel that a registration program had already been proposed to the council.

“All we wanted was the landlord’s phone number for a directory and we couldn’t even get that passed through council,” he said.

He also noted that the inspection department is busy as it is and that they’d have to hire additional staff to keep up with their existing workload and a significantly increased workload to account for all of the additional inspections.

“You’re saying we’d have to hire somebody, so show of hands — anybody going to work for free?” he asked. No hands went up.

McReynolds said she spoke with landlords prior to the forum and there was a general consensus among them as to who the “bad landlords” were in town. 

“There’s got to be a way to reward the good landlords and penalize the bad,” she said.

Troupe said the majority of landlords in Quincy maintain their properties “well above the minimum housing standards.” He’s been working to address the “troubled landlords” over the course of his administration, a process that has been long and complicated as it has moved through the court system. Going after “troubled landlords” and eliminating their ability to collect rent on uninhabitable housing doesn’t address the issue that is created as a result — the tenants then have nowhere to go.

Carol Nichols with Quincy Builds asked the panel if they would support an ordinance that would impound the rent on properties with code violations that haven’t been fixed, then “turn the flow back on” once repairs have been made. Most panelists said more legal consultation would be required before indicating support.

“If it’s legal, it’s more than appropriate,” Brink said.

In closing, Hills returned to Holtschlag’s previous comment about needing to hire additional inspectors and reminded him that the proposed program would be self-funded, as mentioned by Wigoda earlier in the meeting.

“I would ask the Safe and Livable Housing Committee: Would any of you work for free? Because (they) have. So, yes,” Hills said. “And that’s kind of the problem — there are volunteers and organizations that have no real power doing things that elected officials and people with a salary should be doing.”