Petition to Protect & Strengthen Takoma Park’s Rent Stabilization

Mayor and Council of the City of Takoma Park

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ማመልከቻውን ለማንበብ እዚህ ጠቅ ያድርጉ

What's at stake...

Our historic rent stabilization law, which helps keep rents affordable, is now being reviewed by City Council. Unfortunately, the review process opens the door to weakening the law for renters.

  • Nearly half of Takoma Park households are renters. About half of these benefit from rent stabilization. (The other half live in units that are exempt from the law.)
  • Our law caps annual increases for rent-stabilized units at the rate of inflation (Consumer Price Index) - 2.4% this year. The County’s cap for the year is more than double at 5.7%.
  • Forty-seven percent of our renters are either “housing cost burdened”, spending over 30% of their income on housing, or “severely burdened”, spending 50% or more on housing.
  • Our law keeps rents affordable for many residents with low incomes. That creates stability and sustains the diversity and wellbeing of our whole community.
  • The Council’s review and possible revision of our law could either increase or reduce tenant rights and the availability of affordable rental housing for those with few options.
  • Weakening our rent stabilization law would be especially cruel while anti-immigrant violence and economic forces threaten Takoma Park renters, who are mainly people of color.

Please read the petition below and sign above!

Petition by
Joshua Blum
Residents of Takoma Park
Sponsored by
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Community Vision for Takoma
Takoma Park, MD

To: Mayor and Council of the City of Takoma Park
From: [Your Name]

We, residents of Takoma Park, celebrate the City’s Rent Stabilization Law as a major success story. This 46-year-old law has made possible and continues to sustain Takoma Park’s rich racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic diversity. As you consider revising the law, we urge you to commit to protect and strengthen it by:

1) prioritizing tenant rights and preserving affordable rental housing, especially for residents of very low to modest means, and

2) limiting allowable annual rent increases to no more than the rate of inflation.