‘That’s not protection, that’s displacement’: RHAWA director warns Tacoma’s tenant measure will gut mom-and-pop landlords

The Tacoma Democratic Socialists of America are back with a new ballot measure, and Government Affairs Director for the Rental Housing Association of Washington (RHAWA) Kevin Schilling said it will make the city’s housing crisis worse, not better.

Schilling sounded the alarm on the “Safe Homes for All” initiative heading to Tacoma’s November ballot. The measure would create a city-run enforcement apparatus that allows investigations, subpoenas, and lawsuits against landlords based on a single tenant complaint.

“Providers leave the market, demand doesn’t decrease, supply does,” Schilling said on “The John Curley Show” on KIRO Newsradio. “Fewer units, same number of renters, higher rents. That’s not protection, that’s displacement.”

‘This is the goal of socialism’

The new measure follows Tacoma’s 2023 tenant protections initiative, which passed by just 370 votes. That law produced only one enforcement action, which the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) took as proof it wasn’t working and reason to push further.

“This is the goal of socialism,” Schilling said. ” Of, ‘I want to ensure that even though I don’t own this property, you, the property owner, don’t get to do what you want with it.'”

“Property is theft,” Curley added.

Schilling said the DSA is driving the effort, not organic public demand.

“This is the Democratic Socialists of America pushing an initiative forward for people to decide,” Schilling said. “So in that sense, yes, the voters get to decide on this measure because the Democratic Socialists of America got a ballot measure on the ballot for people to decide. Fair and square. But oftentimes in this region, we see that a lot of the energy is really only on the left to do these things.”

A database and five times the rent

Under the measure, a single tenant complaint triggers a city investigation with subpoena power and the authority to discover every property a landlord owns — inside and outside the city of Tacoma. Tenants and their attorneys could sue for up to five times the monthly rent over what Schilling described as vaguely defined violations.

“In practice, this would allow any tenant’s attorney to dig through any part of a landlord’s business to find one mistake to try to make it difficult for them to operate in this market and eventually drive them out,” Schilling said.

Curley said the language of the measure is “very, very mushy and open” as to what constitutes a violation.

Tacoma’s city manager has estimated the program could cost up to $10 million, according to The News Tribune, on top of a $40 million deficit.

“Let’s just put another program in place that adds another $10 million onto the deficit, and it’ll be OK,” Schilling said. “Meanwhile, we have no new businesses because the state of Washington’s saying we have zero job growth over the next couple of years.”

Mom-and-pop landlords will be the casualties

Curley noted that 78% of landlords are considering selling and argued the measure pushes toward a model where government becomes the housing provider.

“If you believe that housing is a right, then owning a home and renting it out to somebody, somewhere that becomes immoral,” Curley said. “So if you want housing to be a right, then government takes over.”

Schilling acknowledged bad landlords exist and should be held accountable, but said the courts and code enforcement already handle that. The real damage, he said, falls on the small operators.

“The more and more you make it difficult for a local housing provider to operate, the more they’re going to get out of it, and the more corporate private equity guys are going to come in,” Schilling said.

“That’s just what you don’t want,” Curley said. “You don’t want them because they don’t care about you.”

Schilling agreed. A local mom-and-pop landlord will let a tenant slide on a bad month. A corporate owner won’t.

“When you have all these policies coming into place that are local and state, that are restricting housing supply and growth of construction, you’re not going to have naturally decreasing rents,” he said. “This is economics 101.”

The turnout problem

Schilling said the 2023 measure passed in part because moderate voters sat out, and President Donald Trump’s political shadow pushed turnout leftward in the region.

“A lunch-pail Democrat going to work every day, your concerns are not what the DSA is telling you your concerns should be,” Schilling said. “Your concerns are, my gas is too expensive, my rent is too expensive, my kids are going to school, what the hell are they learning in school?”

KIRO producer Joe Wallace asked if the ballot language is confusing. Schilling said it is by design.

“DSA measures make it confusing purposefully because they want you to think it’s about one thing, and then it turns out to be about something else,” Schilling said.

The measure will appear on the Nov. 3, 2026 ballot in Tacoma under the name “Safe Homes for All.”

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

Follow @https://twitter.com/jcurleyshow