The village of Oak Park is hosting a series of workshops on tenants’ rights law in collaboration with a local legal aid charity.
The first of three events is set for 6 p.m. Aug. 27 at Oak Park Village Hall, with follow-up workshops scheduled for Sept. 24 and Oct. 22, according to the village. Oak Park’s Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is running the events with the CARPLS organization, a decades-old nonprofit that provides legal assistance to low-income people in Illinois.
The events are free but space will be limited, according to the village. Residents can register for the event ahead of time via the village’s website.
One of CARPLS key areas of work is helping run Illinois’ state-funded eviction help hotline, which connects tenants and landlords with free legal aid, mediation services and other resources during an eviction.
“Mediation is an opportunity for landlords and tenants to resolve issues with the help of a knowledgeable and neutral person” the group said of that work. These services are funded via a partnership between the Illinois Department of Human Services and the Illinois Equal Justice Foundation.”
The Oak Park events will be focused on unpacking the details of the sprawling Residential Tenant Landlord Ordinance that Cook County ratified in January of 2021.
“The Residential Tenant Landlord Ordinance is designed to protect and promote public health, safety, and welfare, establish the rights and responsibilities of tenants and landlords, and encourage both parties to maintain and improve housing quality,” the village said of the county-wide ordinance. “The ordinance provides legal safeguards when either tenants or landlords fail to act in good faith.”
The first of the events will focus on how to use the Residential Tenant Landlord Ordinance for lease compliance, the second will focus on how to use the ordinance for code compliance and the final session will cover how tenants can obtain legal resources, according to the village.
The sessions follow recent consideration by village leadership to update Oak Park’s own local fair housing ordinances.
At its June 17 meeting, the village board heard from Oak Park Neighborhood Services Director Johnathon Burch during a study session covering updates to a series of village ordinances involving tenant and landlord relations, many of which focus on how rental staff must be trained on tenants’ rights issues. The session followed a report submitted to the village board last October by HOPE Fair Housing Center, which said its independent investigation had found that intake processes at several local housing providers discriminated against people receiving housing voucher assistance.
The discussion was an early step for the village as it looks toward formalizing a set of reforms to its residential rental licensing code, which it hopes will promote fairer tenant-landlord relations in the village, in line with its stated commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.
In addition to new requirements for training programs, the package that will go before the board also involves code changes updating on-the-books provisions related to such issues as landlord responsibilities in the eviction process, the village’s residential rental license revocation and suspension processes for negligent property managers, and rules on what information landlords are required to provide to tenants about community resources.