Members of the Dayton Tenant Union demonstrated outside of City Hall on Monday, calling for a local renter to get seat on a city of Dayton housing steering committee.
The steering committee is examining housing inequities and other issues. It’s connected to the city’s recent commitment of more than $1 million to address a lack of affordable housing.
The group has met several times since it started in November 2023.
Last week a city attorney Todd Kinskey emailed ABLE Law, inviting one of its staff members or lawyers to join the committee. ABLE often represents tenants in evictions or other housing disputes.
"We want to add a housing professional and preferably a lawyer from ABLE that understands the broad array of tenant issues that are plaguing our community," Kinskey says in the email.
The ABLE attorney declined to join, directing the city to invite a tenant.
Dayton Tenant Union member and community organizer Destiny Brown said many in her group believe the city is freezing them out.
"The city's response has ultimately identified an entire group of people as not professionals, as unqualified to have any say on the decisions or the policies that would impact them," Brown said.
WYSO reached out to City Manager Shelley Dickstein for a comment. By email, a city spokesperson replied, “Unfortunately we are going to turn down the request to interview.”
The city attorney also says in the email that Dickstein directed her staff to look into adding a tenant to the committee. The email also says tenants could be added to a sub-group.
Renter Viridis Green says she and other tenants have first-hand experience with inequitable housing and unlawful evictions. Thus, they are in a perfect position to guide the city in developing stronger policies to level the playing field for renters and landlords.
"We're being confronted with these situations daily and we've got solutions. We just need our voices to be heard in that," Green said.
Monday afternoon, Green met with Dickstein. She said the city manager was "trying to verify if there are other tenant unions out there or other tenant voices," Green said. "So, at the end of the day, we need a tenant voice to have some meaning in this decision making process."
Wednesday evening, members of the Dayton’s Tenant Union, ABLE and several other community groups plan to speak about the makeup of the city's housing steering committee during the city’s commission meeting.
