Interview with a Housing Inspector

The following excerpts were taken from discussions between the old Ann Arbor Tenants Union and a former Ann Arbor City Housing Inspector.  Although the talks took place during the 1980s, the inspection process remains relatively unchanged since then. The excerpts shed some light on the politics involved in housing regulation and the need for close tenant scrutiny of the inspection process.

The first building codes, established about a hundred years ago in New York City, were designed to protect insurance companies from big losses in major disasters. The goal was not to protect tenants or to prevent slums. The goal was to have minimally safe slums. Fire was the big concern. Housing codes should be about people and quality of life issues. Whether minimum bedroom space is sixty square feet or ninety doesn't really affect safety. It does affect the mental and physical health of the people that live in the room. Space, lighting, noise levels and other quality factors all have direct effects on the well being of people. Living in a cellar is tiring and depressing for definite physical reasons.

Inspectors need training in housing codes and how to apply them. The training should have a people and quality of life orientation. We need to be trained in how to deal with the public. Most inspectors need to be re-oriented towards serving the community, not just protecting the bureaucracy. Bureaucrats are overworked and try to do as little as possible. The more they do, the more they have to do. If an inspector goes out and looks at a rental unit and says 'OK,' then that unit is done. If the inspector cites problems, then there are costs and time spent recording that and informing people, re-inspecting, arguing with the landlord, and potentially it drags out a long time. It's easier to say 'OK'.

The positive rewards are in doing as little as possible. The city manager and the council like smaller budgets, smaller staffs, and fewer calls from complaining landlords. Code enforcement often means negative reinforcement. A tenant might make a complaint about one or two problems and the inspector will come out and only look at those complaints, even if it means walking around other obvious problems. The inspector seems incompetent, but that's policy.

There is a feeling that the landlords are the good guys and the tenants are the problem, which is wrong because we're supposed to serve the community. Tenant complaints make some inspectors feel sorry for the landlord. The roof might be leaking on the tenant's bed, but the inspector will pity the landlord because now there is an extra expense. Inspectors who identify with landlords ask: 'How can we ticket the poor guy?' How? It's our job and it's the tenant's home. But that is a choice of priorities. There is an obvious difference in the amount of wealth and position in the community of people who own rental units and the tenants who live in them.

Correcting a tendency to favor landlords is difficult. You get a situation where inspector number one goes out and inspects a building once or twice and says it's all right. Then, if inspector number two goes out and finds a long list of code violations, people start to look stupid. Why didn't the first inspector catch the problem? What about the supervisor? Is there something flawed in the system that perpetuates problems?

Rather than deal with the pressure that falls on inspector number two to go along with things, it's easier to not make waves. The city -management - defines what policy issues are. You can't grieve bad city policy any more than auto workers can address unsafe cars through grievance procedures. It's the management.

Tenant unions can have a real positive effect on bureaucracy. The public has to monitor government. Go and re-inspect the last 100 units the city did. Check out the units. Talk to the tenants. How well did the city do its job? Monitoring is critical. It can take a lot of time and energy, but it is important for someone to go into city hall and turn the lights on. Politicians affect things and they can react to your monitoring in different ways. They aren't going to be the ones who lead this.