To Montana Legislators Fern, Hamilton, Gillette, Galloway, Yakanich, Buckly, Stafman, Dooling, Kortum, Malone, Essman, O’Brien, Fitzpatric, Hertz, Springer, Nikilakakos, Pope, Boldman, Caferro, L.Smith, McKay, Zephyr, Nicol and Hayman:
I am writing to thank you for your bills addressing housing and/or homelessness in the latest legislative session. From emergency shelters for homeless, to seasonal housing for guest workers, to short- or long-term housing for all, reading your bills and discussion assures me there is bipartisan commitment to finding solutions. Though few passed, each details ways and means private and public property can be released or created in order to restore balance of supply and demand of inventory and hasten an end to our housing crisis.
Some proposals favor tenants, and others landlords. The failure of HB 233, which would have required that unsuccessful applicants be refunded their rental application fees, clearly served the latter — and set me to researching this issue. What I found suggests that the complicating effect of property management is underestimated and demands more examination.
