43-year housing saga ends with Joliet approval of inspection program for single-family rentals

A decision last week to add an estimated 5,000 single-family rental homes in Joliet to the city’s inspection program was historic in the eyes of Bernie Spieler and others who began pushing for it in the late 1970s.

“That’s why we were so pleased when this went through the other day,” said Spieler, who said she heard from others that were involved in the cause as far back as 1979 and happy to hear it eventually has come to pass.

Not everyone is happy.

Landlords, real estate professionals and even a couple of single-family home renters spoke out against the ordinance on Tuesday before it was approved in a 6-1 vote by the City Council.

Spieler, who lives in the same house in the St. Pat’s Neighborhood that she did 43 years ago when she led the neighborhood association, said the reason for adding single-family homes to the rental inspection program is the same as it was then only more so.

“In the beginning, there were more family owned homes here,” she said. “There’s more rentals in this area in the last 10 to 15 years.”

The trend was starting in the late 1970s, she said, and neighborhood advocates argued that single-family homes that were rented out should be inspected just like apartment buildings and other multi-family residences.

Single-family homes rented out now account for more than 10% of the city’s housing stock, according to the city’s estimate.

The city will have a more exact number once landlords register single-family homes as now required under the ordinance, said Gabe Friend, interim director of the city’s Neighborhood Services Division.

The estimate of 5,000 is based on water bills and information provided by the Chicago Metropolitan Area Planning Agency.

“It should be in that neighborhood,” Friend said.

The total number of Joliet residential units – including houses, apartments and other places where people live – is 48,000.

Of that, rental units total 15,000, which means single-family homes account for about a third of all rental residences.

Advocates for inspection of single-family homes argued that the city needs to get better control of the growing rental sector of the city.

Those advocates included Bernie’s daughter, Kathy Spieler, who told the council before its vote last week that the city should not wait for tenants to complain before inspecting a single-family rental.

“When you report your landlord, you risk losing your housing,” Kathy Spieler said, recounting her own past experience with a landlord while renting a house.

The city already inspects single-family houses but only after they are reported as problem properties, a system that landlords said should be continued and community leaders said is unreliable.

Before the council vote, City Manager James Capparelli dramatized the renter’s dilemma, showing a video of at least dozens of rats running wild in a Joliet rental house. Capparelli said the video was submitted by a tenant who was unable to get out of his lease despite the conditions in the house.

But the city heard from tenants wary of the program, which some suspect may be aimed at them as much as at landlords.

“You want to control what the landlords do, who the landlords rent to,” Tera Jones told the council.

Jones sided with landlords who argue that the additional fees that come with the inspection program will eventually show up in the cost of renting.

“If you impose fees on them, they’re going to pass them on to me,” Jones said. “And, I’m already struggling.”

Landlords of single-family homes like other residential landlords will now pay an annual $100 fee to register with the city.

Biut landlords argued that the real cost will come with inspections, potential re-inspections, and upgrades mandated by the city.

Initial inspections also cost $100. Re-inspections carry no fee if recommended changes are made. If not, there are charges for subsequent inspections.

The addition of single-family homes to the inspection program takes effect in January.