2021 Year in Review: Rentals and Housing

The Laramie Reporter looks back at 2021. This is the third entry in a four-part series.

The city of Laramie is reckoning with its housing crisis.

As the city government looks to alter its own laws to allow and encourage more affordable housing, a rising tide of awareness and frustration surrounding Laramie’s rental landscape has resurrected the possibility of rental regulations.

Max Bossarei and Jessica Stalder

In January, the Laramie Boomerang published the results of a four-month freelance investigation into the business practices and behavior of Maximus Bossarei. Bossarei is notorious among Laramie’s renting community for the alleged poor state of his rentals and the threatening tone he allegedly takes with tenants making maintenance requests. The investigation revealed another of the landlord’s habits: failing to be served.

Bossarei consistently kept damage and pet deposits beyond the timeframe outlined in leases and in the law; more than a dozen former tenants alleged, adding that he did so by citing damage that was not the fault of the tenant or failing to cite any reason at all. Several former tenants attempted to seek the return of their deposits in circuit court, taking the extraordinary and sometimes costly step of suing their former landlord.

Others attempted to sue Bossarei for allegedly “double-renting,” collecting rent from both a former and a current tenant of the same apartment for the same months.

The Albany County Sheriff’s Office repeatedly failed to serve Bossarei these civil summons, resulting in case after case being dismissed by the court. While these cases were dismissed without prejudice, tenants were not reimbursed for the service fee and most could not afford another $50 for a second or third service attempt.

By failing to be served, the investigation showed, Bossarei was able to keep more than $16,000 in contested deposits and payments. The story gained state and national attention.

Subsequent reporting highlighted the dismal conditions of Bossarei’s rentals and showed that Jessica Stalder, at the time a City Councilor, was Bossarei’s business partner. Stalder, who had voted to squash a rental regulations taskforce in 2019, denied working for Bossarei in a letter to the editor of the Laramie Boomerang.

But follow-up reporting uncovered documents signed by Stalder showing she repeatedly represented Bossarei’s rental company, as tenants had alleged. Stalder resigned from the council several months later, citing the demands of her job as executive director of the Hospice of Laramie and stating explicitly that the reporting on Bossarei had nothing to do with her decision to leave.

Bossarei was successfully served at least twice in 2021. In one case, he was ordered to pay a pair of former tenants $4,200 as compensation for furniture he removed from their unit and never returned.

Rental Regulations

Near the end of what was a difficult year for many of the city’s renters, and for the first time since they were axed in 2019, rental regulations are back on the table for Laramie.

An ordinance outlining health and safety requirements for rental units has now passed its second reading and could become part of city code in January.

The regulations require that rental units be structurally sound, weatherproofed and free of pests and mold. They further require that plumbing, heating and electrical work be performed by licensed professionals.

The ordinance would also force landlords to register each apartment and house they plan to rent out. This registration is, in part, designed to give the city some idea of how many landlords are operating in Laramie — a statistic city staff can only guess at currently.

Should the ordinance become law, the city manager’s office will run a complaint system that will be available to rental tenants. If a tenant believes their unit falls below the new standards outlined in the ordinance, and their landlord refuses to bring the unit into compliance, the tenant can file a complaint. The city manager would then inspect the unit and, upon finding it substandard, order the landlord to bring it into compliance. The city manager would also have the power to fine landlords for failing to make the ordered fixes.

So far, the regulations have won the support of several landlords who view the standards as necessary. The regulations have also won the support of rental tenants who add that the new rules do not go far enough to address the power imbalance between renter and landlord. Meanwhile, many landlords are still opposed, saying the upgrades necessary to come into compliance, or the price of hiring licensed contractors, will drive up rents.

The regulations must pass a third and final reading before they can be added to city code. The third reading is scheduled for Jan. 4.

Emergency Assistance

Half of Laramie’s population rents the home they live in. That’s the highest percentage of any community in Wyoming and is driven both by college students attending the University of Wyoming and the county’s disproportionately poor population.

But Laramie is not the only Wyoming community to suffer from housing shortages and rental problems. The National Low Income Housing Coalition estimates that there are 44 million renter households in the United States and that a quarter of them are extremely low income. The pandemic caused those households to fall behind on rent and utility payments to the tune of $60 million.

Wyoming has at least 44,000 renter households.

In 2020, Wyoming received $1.25 billion from the CARES Act and originally earmarked $15 million for emergency rental assistance. The Wyoming Community Development Authority was put in charge of the program and gave out just 10 percent of that figure, returning the rest to the state for reallocation.

Around the same time, Gov. Mark Gordon made another $15 million available to oil and gas companies to complete projects delayed by the pandemic.

Subsequent federal legislation made $180 million available to Wyoming for emergency rental assistance starting in 2021. This time, the program is run through the Department of Family Services. DFS has worked to eliminate some of the barriers that stood between applicants and awards during the CARES-backed rental assistance program, such as burdensome documentation requirements. The new program has still run into a number of roadblocks, such as landlords refusing to accept the payments, preferring instead to maintain the power of eviction.

In Albany County, Laramie Interfaith and Family Promise opened a rental assistance office to help residents hoping to apply.

The new DFS-run Emergency Rental Assistance Program is far more successful than the earlier CARES-backed program. As of mid-September, the program had awarded nearly $5 million, and as of Dec. 22, it has awarded $14.5 million on behalf of needy renters throughout Wyoming. The program is still accepting applications for assistance.

Affordable Housing

A minority of Laramie’s residents own the home they live in. Since June, the Laramie City Council has also started to explore ways of increasing and encouraging affordable housing development. The council uses the term “affordable housing” to refer to a wide range of housing options at nearly all income levels. The term does not necessarily mean “low-income housing” though it does encompass that.

To this end, the council has reduced the number of off-street parking spots required per residential unit, arguing that it would allow developers to build more units per lot, therefore making them smaller and cheaper. At the same meeting, the council rejected a separate proposal that would have rezoned some of the West Side neighborhood and allowed for some denser apartments and townhomes.

Just last week, the council advanced an ordinance allowing denser housing, again hoping to encourage smaller and cheaper housing on some city lots already zoned for multi-family housing. The measure is opposed by some residents of the West Side neighborhood, as well as some landlords. But it’s supported by developers who directly benefit, business groups that see the housing shortage as a barrier to economic growth, and organizations like Laramie Interfaith, which interacts daily with the people most severely impacted by the lack of low-income housing.