City officials on Monday night maintained they never stopped enforcing Evanston’s controversial “brothel law,” despite reassurances in January the issue would not be pursued during the 2011-12 academic year.
The city also released a list of 52 residences currently under investigation for city code violations including, but not limited to, over-occupancy laws, as of Sept. 28. The index details exact addresses, building types and management contacts.
In response to a Daily article in Monday’s edition, both Evanston Mayor Elizabeth Tisdahl and director of community and economic development Steve Griffin issued statements clarifying the city’s over-occupancy enforcement strategy.
They both stressed the city has never evicted students, and the city will not revoke nor deny renting licenses for properties under investigation until July 1, 2012.
In her statement, Tisdahl recalled an off-campus student meeting Thursday in which she offered the property listings as a “helpful tool for off campus students as they start signing leases for housing for 2012.”
“In doing this, it is our intent to reinforce what we already do and that is to ensure the safety of all residents,” she concluded in the statement.
Dean of Students Burgwell Howard continued to echo that overarching intent in an email Monday night. He wrote the University’s main concern is ensuring safe housing for all students, whether they are on or off campus.
Howard also said University discussions with city officials about over-occupancy enforcement “have been ongoing for the past year, and will continue.”
After an unrelated rules committee meeting Monday night, Tisdahl reiterated her response to student outrage over the “brothel law,” which prohibits more than three unrelated residents living in the same space.
“First of all, we’re doing the same thing we’ve always done, which doesn’t result in being evicted,” she told The Daily. “Students that have realized they won’t be evicted have stopped worrying. Just quit worrying about being evicted.”
Griffin agreed the city has never intended to evict students, adding landlords face two options if their tenants are officially cited for over-occupancy. Those avenues are either paying the $100 per-unit-per-day fine after a 30-day grace period or seeking legal action against the city.
Griffin could not recall a recent case of the latter solution.
In explaining the city’s overall goal, he echoed Tisdahl’s opening sentence, which stated, “House inspections save lives.”
“We always have the focus be on the life safety issue,” Griffin said Monday night. “We’re just not, and have not ever, put up with that.”
While the city insists “brothel law” enforcement is strictly a safety issue, some landlords like Josh Braun, who has been doing business in Evanston for 15 years, have raised questions about publicizing a list of properties under investigation.
Two of Braun’s properties are included on the recently released list.
“I don’t think that anybody wins,” Braun said. “What’s the goal? What is the city truly trying to do?”
Weinberg junior Josh Noah also said he was confused about the city’s intentions.
“I think the law is old and antiquated and seems to be used by the city as a scare tactic to try to bully the University,” Noah said.
While coordinating his living arrangements, Noah took the “brothel law” into consideration before signing a rental contract.
“I’m currently living in an apartment with only two other people, so I’m fine,” he said. “But I was looking to live in a house with six guys, and we thought that this brothel law thing was becoming a problem so we decided not to take any chances.”
However, some students decided to take the risk.
“I thought the brothel law was dealt with last year,” said a student who wished to remain anonymous because his residence is on the list circulated by the city. “We were always under the impression that the law wouldn’t be enforced and it is pretty outrageous that the city is going ahead with it after saying that it wouldn’t be a problem.”
Communication junior Emily Spitzer’s house is also on the list of addresses that are under investigation, but she said she is not concerned about it.
“I guess it doesn’t really bother me that much,” Spitzer said. “Maybe it will sort of help people be more aware that they are under investigation. If landlords are aware which houses are being looked into, then they can take action.”
However, Spitzer insisted that students were facing tougher scrutiny from the city than non-student residents.
“There is definitely a degree of privacy that is awarded to Evanston families that isn’t given to us students,” she said. “I don’t think the city would ever release a list like this containing the addresses of family homes that are in violation of city codes.”
Another student, who wished to remain anonymous because his house was also listed as “under investigation,” said he was not overly concerned by the public list, but was still frustrated by the underlying situation.
“I feel like the whole concept of the brothel law is extremely annoying, but the list itself doesn’t bother me so much,” he said. “We’re blacklisted now, but at the same time we knew that from the beginning because of what’s been going on.”
Many students consider off-campus living an important part of the college experience.
Weinberg senior Alexandra Dobkin said it has “defined” her time at NU and regrets others may lose out on the opportunity due to strict enforcement by city officials.
“Living off campus was actually how I was able to build and strengthen my circle of friends, ,” Dobkin said.
Some tenants and landlords said the city’s announcement of properties under investigation may constitute a breach of privacy.
Griffin initially said he did not know whether property managers had been notified their names were attached to the residence listings. He later clarified all code violations are public record and the city was simply compiling widely available information.
Braun questioned the city’s legal authority to circulate such a targeted list. He said he knows for sure one of his properties has not been inspected for more than a year and is still on the list.
“They literally just committed libel,” Braun said of the implication some of his properties are unsafe. “It’s very, very frustrating that the city has done zero to reach out to landlords.”
He also cast doubt on the seemingly low number of Evanston residences released by the city. The 52 properties are mostly concentrated on the immediate west side of campus, where most off-campus students reside.
“What about the rest of the city?” Braun asked. “I am 100 percent positive this is not the only list of open investigations. There is no way there is only 52 open inspections in the city. There is no way.”
But Griffin described the residence listings as a simple matter of compliance with a University request, contradicting Tisdahl’s earlier statement that the city volunteered the property data.
“They requested it and we gave it to them,” Griffin said of forwarding the properties under investigation to University officials. “They’re all public record. We just made the public record available.”
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The following map represents the list of 52 properties that are under investigation for open building and/or overoccupancy in Evanston. Zoom out to view all the locations and zoom in closer to look at a street in more detail. Click and drag to navigate around the map. Click on a marker to find out the exact address of a particular unit. To get a complete list of the properties, see the article on the
sidebar.
View BROTHEL in a larger map
