We, the undersigned residents of Winston-Salem, call on City Council to strengthen Chapter 10 of the City's Code of Ordinances to better protect tenants living in unsafe and substandard housing.

Other North Carolina cities have recently enacted such reforms. Durham passed an ordinance in October 2025 prohibiting landlords from collecting rent on housing found to be immediately dangerous to health and safety, giving tenants a meaningful legal defense when landlords fail to maintain habitable conditions. Greensboro has since passed comprehensive revisions to its own housing code, raising civil penalties, lowering the threshold for proactive inspections, requiring mold remediation, creating a 72-hour deadline for emergency repairs, and authorizing the city to make repairs directly when landlords do not. Pittsboro and Charlotte have similar requirements written into their housing codes. These cities have demonstrated that meaningful reform is both legally sound and achievable under North Carolina law.

Winston-Salem should join them. We ask Council to enact the following amendments to Chapter 10:

1. Prohibit landlords from collecting rent on unsafe or unfit units (New section of Ch. 10) Landlords should not be able to collect rent on a unit found to pose an immediate danger to health or safety. This new section should make doing so a civil violation, with any rent collected subject to recovery by the tenant.

2. Increase civil penalties for housing code violations (Sec. 10-210) Current penalties are too low to change landlord behavior. Council should raise the base fine for first violations, increase daily penalties for continued non-compliance, and establish a higher penalty tier for repeat violations at the same unit within 12 months.

3. Lower the threshold for declaring units unfit for human habitation (Sec. 10-193) The code should define "immediately dangerous" conditions clearly and enforce them, including unsafe structural elements, lack of potable water, no functioning heat in cold months, inoperable sanitation, and significant pest infestation.

4. Establish timelines for mold assessment and remediation (Sec. 10-197) Council should require landlords to assess visible mold within a set period after notification and complete remediation, including the underlying moisture source, within a fixed deadline, using a qualified professional if necessary.

5. Require dangerous conditions to be repaired within 72 hours (Sec. 10-197) When a code officer finds an immediately dangerous condition, the landlord should have 72 hours to fix it.

6. Authorize the City to make emergency repairs when landlords fail to act (Sec. 10-203) If a landlord misses the repair deadline, the City should have explicit authority to make the repair directly and recover the cost as a lien on the property.

7. Require registration of units with chronic code violations (New section of Ch. 10) Properties with two or more substantiated violations within a rolling 12-month period should be required to register with the City, triggering proactive inspections and public disclosure.

Winston-Salem tenants deserve housing that is safe, maintained, and legally required to stay that way. The tools to accomplish this exist. Other cities have used them. We ask this Council to act.