Seems like everything is a rip-off these days... But not civil legal aid. If you see a person or ad impersonating Maryland Legal Aid or Maryland Volunteer Lawyers Service and offering services for a fee, please report it! www.msba.org/site/site/co...

“Judges are required to stay proceedings if the tenant... appears in court and proves that they are a federal, state or local employee who is involuntarily furloughed due to a government shutdown.” www.baltimoresun.com/2025/10/23/f... By @baltimoresun.bsky.social’s @danbelson.bsky.social

Ending the 30-day eviction notice in fed-regulated properties "is a part of a larger push from corporate landlords who have lobbied the Trump administration to reduce eviction protections for tenants." It's a public-private partnership for war on the poor.

Maryland legislators are already cranking up new proposals for 2026 to "stop squatters" -- such as a "peace order" style process to evict people on a moment's notice and worry about due process later.

"ALEC-aligned legislators... used the anti-squatter push in Texas to unsuccessfully advance a broad-based attack on the rights of tenants, and in Maryland, to successfully push back against Good Cause Eviction reforms." Maryland has some explaining to do... www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

Our housing movement can learn a lot from the worker cooperative movement. And you could say fairly that they are one movement. We have to work outside the silos.

Maryland law now requires rescheduling of evictions during extreme (aka excessive) heat warnings. But Wednesday's scorcher is a heat advisory, meaning the heat index will reach only 105-109F instead of the requisite 110F. Is it really progress that we're putting folks out at 105F?

Texas housing policy & wide empty spaces may result in more housing production for the mid-class but it falls just as short as blue states in affordable housing for those most impacted by the housing crisis who are left unprotected by Texas’ weak social safety net & landlord-tenant laws.

Read the 2025 Out of Reach report for Maryland. nlihc.org/sites/defaul...

Antoine Lovell at Morgan State U: Maryland "needs an audacious, justice-based housing agenda that prioritizes that all individuals, no matter income levels, have a safe and secure place they can call home. Squatting is not an epidemic. Inequity is the epidemic." 🔨

'Big Beautiful' $45B for detention centers could instead finance an estimated 163,600 new affordable apartments through the Low Income Housing Tax Credit. It could prevent imminent eviction for between 9.8M and 16.6M households. It could prevent around 59M utility shutoffs.

‪ The budget for ICE (not including all other parts of DHS) is now $55B. 'Big Beautiful' funding for detention centers alone is $45B. How much for the housing crisis? The entire proposed FY26 HUD budget is $38B. $0 to prevent evictions. $0 for community dev block grant.

This story gives terrible advice based on a 2.3% YOY dip in 1BR rents. Worse, the talking point of "see, rents are falling on their own" pops up in serious policy conversations. Reality is this: from 2020 to 05/2025 median rents rose 29% (43% for single-family homes) while renters' wages rose 23%.

Happy Fourth of July youtu.be/LVuCZMLeWko?...

In April the Maryland General Assembly passed SB46 to expedite the eviction process for suspected squatters... The Sun reports: "Observers say the legislation... might still take at least seven weeks to reach a point where law enforcement can serve an eviction." That's misleading. Here's why 🧵 1/7

Sponsored podcast: Learn how tenant screening protections can break down barriers for renters and protect fair access to housing for the most vulnerable. nextcity.org/podcast/unlo...

@nlihc.org‬ has the analysis of the Administration's federal housing budget. It sounds the alarm. 🚨 nlihc.org/sites/defaul... The headline is a 43% ($26.72 billion) funding cut for HUD rental assistance programs. The details are nerve-racking:

Sunday reading list ... 5 articles from my bsky follows: 1. The Trump Administration Wants to Create an ‘Office of Remigration’ www.wired.com/story/trump-... 2. Why Are Black Neighborhoods Underwater? Science Points to the Wealthy. capitalbnews.org/richest-10-p...

Maryland has no statewide voter-driven ballot iniatives at all. Imagine if Democrats allowed that. We'd already have Good Cause Eviction throughout the state without having to concede to Bill Ferguson's goal of banning rent stablization.

For the bottom 60% of U.S. households, a "minimal quality of life" is out of reach, based on a Minimum Quality of Life index. PACs, donors, and yes, the Democrst local Central Committee structure have a lot to do with the political antipathy toward this 60%. www.cbsnews.com/news/cost-of...

Reminiscent of the a Maryland Senate's decision not to protect tenants' personal possessions during evictions-- a Connecticut organizer sums up the policy debate: “Wealthy people’s property is always sacred, but poor people’s property doesn’t mean a thing.” www.propublica.org/article/conn...

I'm frequently encouraged to read new fiction, but I just walked through @greedyreads.bsky.social in #Baltimore and have to say, that's a tough sell. Look at all this nonfiction on display--

New Study 🔔: More than 7M Americans face eviction each year. But if they go to court, most do it alone, without a lawyer. Our researchers studied the initiatives that are trying to change this reality, known as Right to Counsel programs or RTC. evictionlab.org/disrupting-t...

Robert Reich cites this amazing statistical finding: "[N]onviolent protests 'have never failed to bring about change' when they involve at least 3.5 percent of the public." www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/carr...

@emilyabenfer.bsky.social Can't wait to read this!

"[B]ecause of the racialized nature of landlord-tenant relations, the summary eviction process perpetuates a race-based power imbalance and is structurally racist. This Article explains why the time has come to dispense with the use of the shortcut summary eviction process."

50% say they want the Dems to become more progressive, including 69% of very liberal Democrats, 62% of progressive Democrats, and 56% of Democrats living in urban areas. Only 18% say they want a more moderate party. People are seeing the corporate-controlled centrists for what they really are.

Here are the 6 things I'm watching for on the final day of Maryland's 2025 legislative session. Of course, I'm looking at housing bills... #MDGA25 #SineDie 🧵

“This is the beginning of the end of the housing business... the beginning of a better society, without landlordism and this parasitical system that devours our salaries and our resources.” We need this energy in the US! www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

I'm going to keep saying this -- it's not rent stabilization or tenant protections that are preventing development of affordable housing in Maryland. Notably, Anne Arundel County has no rent stabilization whatsoever and does eviction proceedings faster than any other metro jurisdiction in the state.

"Multiple polls show that more than three quarters of Americans surveyed consider adequate housing to be a human right... most of the people expressing support of housing as a human right also support expanded government programs to make that right a reality."

And... the very empathetic, deliberative members of Senate JPR are lowering this to just 4 days' notice of the eviction date. AND prohibiting counties from increasing that number above 14 days. It's almost though the companies doing evictions are more important than the people facing eviction. 🤷🏽‍♂️

Whoa whoa whoa - I was told repeatedly during Maryland's soon-ending legislative session that Austin built it's way into an affordable, stable housing mecca where renters don't need rights+protections....

Ms. Hunt's eviction story is a heartbreaking example of why the MD Senate must pass the Tenant Possessions Recovery Act NOW! No one should lose their home AND all of their belongings on the same day. 46 other states agree – MD must catch up! Take action: actionnetwork.org/letters/pass...

This is happening now. SB 856 passed in the Senate and now goes before the House starting today. The bill requires the state to set uniform standards for mold inspection and remediation by July 2027. It also requires landlords to remediate mold within 45 days of an inspection.

Timely reminder: "Where Marx saw capitalists making off with the surplus, [Henry] George saw all the surplus—that from workers and capitalists—ultimately making its way back to land... [in] high rents and land prices that were ultimately paid to landowners, real-estate developers, and landlords."

"Center for Migration Studies estimates that 54 percent of foreign-born construction workers are undocumented. Deportations then could cause the US to lose between 1.7M and 1.8M undocumented construction workers." www.urban.org/urban-wire/m...

"I hate to see my neighbors have to leave this great community because of these outrageous rent increases," Chris Madden, the leader of the Huntington Tenant Association, said. "For seniors, especially, it’s very hard because they’re on a fixed income and moving is very difficult."

A teacher writes about children facing eviction: "Uncertainty at home causes stress which over time and, if untreated, is a seriously adverse childhood experience.... Ensuring that families can only be evicted from their homes for a “good cause” will help students feel calm and learn."

This week, the Senate Pres scuttled the good cause eviction bill by adding "rent control" preemption. He said MD needs to attract investors to build housing. But recession economies do not build affordable rental housing. They make rent stabilization and good cause eviction even more necessary.

This session of the Maryland General Assembly has crystallized the cooptation of YIMBY politics by an industry whose profitability requires renters' economic instability and legal second-class status. The message: Affordable housing is good, and renters' rights just get in the way.

A new bill threatens to repeal bare minimum renter protections. Tell Congress to protect the 30-day eviction notice standard & oppose the so-called “Respect State Housing Laws Act.”

@rentersunitemd.bsky.social TFW the Maryland Senate amended the Good Cause Eviction bill to preempt local protections against rent hikes on vacant units.

As the MD Senate weighs using Good Cause Eviction to weaken local rent caps, researchers say: "If legislators accept this disingenuous compromise, then they’ll be serving medicine to a broken rental system (with good cause), while inflicting tenants with a new wound (higher rent prices)."

"Renters cannot afford to wait years for the trickle-down benefits of a housing surplus while facing immediate threats of eviction." centermaryland.org/2025/good-ca...

The United States has a shortage of more than 7 million affordable rental homes for low-income people. The country is also experiencing record homelessness. DOGE’s cuts to HUD are now set to exacerbate these dueling crises. Read @juliannemcshane.bsky.social's report:

185,000 Maryland households are directly supported by #HUD programs (2023). You can look up your state here: www.urban.org/data-tools/f...

With all the talk about renter protections making Maryland unattractive to investors, here's a refreshing call to action on what really matters. By @emilyabenfer.bsky.social www.baltimoresun.com/2025/03/06/g...

"Katrina Hare [is] an elderly, disabled woman who was denied housing despite having a Housing Choice Voucher that would have covered all but $126 of her rent. The landlord, David Brown Enterprises, rejected her application because she didn't meet a $47,700 annual income requirement."