August 01, 2024
Thom Carroll/for PhillyVoice
The Landlord-Tenant Office in Philadelphia will no longer conduct evictions in the city, ending a controversial practice that relied on for-profit subcontractors. Moving forward, the Philadelphia Sheriff's Office will enforce evictions.
Philadelphia's system of using private contractors to carry out evictions is coming to an end amid struggles to maintain insurance and mounting calls for reform of the decades-old practice. Two people were shot by eviction officers last year, raising questions about tenant safety and how to overhaul the city's unusual methods.
After an eviction is ordered by municipal court, most lockouts in Philadelphia are executed by the Landlord-Tenant Office, which hires private security contractors on behalf of landlords. Philadelphia is the only county in Pennsylvania to use this system for most of its eviction cases.
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Philadelphia Landlord-Tenant Officer Maria Shuter, a private attorney appointed to the role in 2017, sent a letter to landlords on Monday indicating that she would be ceasing eviction operations because her office was unable to obtain new insurance required by a recently passed law. The office's current insurance policy expires in several weeks.
City Councilmember Katherine Gilmore-Richardson, who has helped spearhead the city's eviction reforms, received a call from municipal court on Tuesday confirming that the Landlord-Tenant Office will cease operations, her spokesperson Kathleen Melville said. It's expected that the office will stop accepting new court-ordered evictions on Aug. 12 and will conduct its last evictions by the end of September.
Moving forward, the Philadelphia Sheriff's Office will take over eviction-related actions in the city. The independent agency is primarily responsible for transporting inmates and providing security for city courts, but also has handled a smaller number of evictions compared to the Landlord-Tenant Office. Municipal Court Judge T. Francis Shields wrote a notice on Wednesday explaining the timeline of the transition.
The sheriff's office has been mired in scandal for years, including the fraud conviction of longtime former Sheriff John Green in 2019. He was indicted for taking bribes to steer millions of dollars of business to the sheriff's office. More recently, current Sheriff Rochelle Bilal has been criticized for her office's alleged mishandling of about 200 guns that went missing. Earlier this year, the sheriff's office removed a series of AI-generated news headlines from its website under a section meant to highlight Bilal's accomplishments.
A sheriff's office spokesperson said Wednesday the agency would accept the added responsibility of managing evictions in Philadelphia.
"The Philadelphia Sheriff's Office will continue to ensure that all eviction proceedings are carried out with fairness and compassion, recognizing the impact on individuals and families in our city," spokesperson Teresa Lundy said. "We are actively working to enhance oversight, improve procedures, and collaborate with all stakeholders to address the housing challenges facing Philadelphia."
Lundy did not immediately say whether the sheriff's office will request additional resources from the city or address how it will manage staff to account for the higher volume of evictions.
The court-appointed role of Landlord-Tenant Officer is not expected to be held by Shuter moving forward. Melville said it will be up to the court to decide whether to appoint someone new.
"That person would need to secure insurance as stipulated by the law," Melville said. "I have not heard of any plans to appoint a new LTO."
The push to reform Philadelphia's eviction system was spurred by a pair of shootings. During an attempted lockout at a North Philly apartment complex in March last year, 36-year-old Angel Davis was shot in the head in an altercation with an eviction officer, police said. Four months later, at a Kensington apartment building, 33-year-old Latese Bethea was shot in the leg by an eviction officer. And less than a month after that, an eviction officer fired shots at a tenant's dog in North Philly but missed.
The shootings prompted a pause on evictions in the city. Both of the women who were injured later filed lawsuits against the Landlord-Tenant Office and other parties.
In recent months, the city passed a law requiring annual training and licensing for private eviction officers to remain in good standing. Officers involved in violent incidents during an eviction in the prior year wouldn't be able to renew their licenses. The new regulations also require that officers hold liability insurance of $2 million per incident and $4 million per year.
When evictions resumed last summer, new protocols also required at least two deputies to be present, including one trained as a Pennsylvania Constable brought in from another county. Philadelphia does not have constables – which are law enforcement officers that are elected to municipal positions – because the city abolished them in 1970 to create the Landlord-Tenant Office. Constables must undergo training to carry a gun.
The law recently passed by the city, named for Angel Davis, aimed to increase accountability by addressing gaps in the private eviction system. Armed, private contractors previously had not been required get licenses to enforce evictions and were not mandated to identify themselves to tenants.
State lawmakers also have set their sights on improving the way evictions are done in Philadelphia. The city's House delegation welcomed the news that the Landlord-Tenant Office would no longer enforce evictions.
"Every other municipality in the state has a publicly run and publicly accountable eviction process," said state Rep. Rick Krajewski (D-Philadelphia). "The Landlord-Tenant Officer in Philadelphia has been uniquely unaccountable in Pennsylvania and demonstrated a pattern of corruption and violence."
In March, Krajewski was among the state lawmakers to introduce legislation aimed at overhauling Philadelphia's eviction system. A proposal passed by the House would create an oversight board to ensure compliance with eviction regulations and to prevent surprise evictions that leave tenants without proper notice about when they'll take place. One report from Community Legal Services of Philadelphia found that as many as 20,000 illegal evictions happen in the city each year without following court-based protocols.
City Councilmember Jamie Gauthier (D-3rd) also had been pushing for change after Davis and Bethea were shot last year. She said the Landlord-Tenant Office did not uphold its duties to the city.
"If a for-profit entity cannot meet the safety regulations implemented by City Council and the Mayor, they should not conduct evictions," Gauthier wrote on X, formerly Twitter, after it was announced the Landlord-Tenant Office would cease operations."
HAPCO Philadelphia, an association representing rental and investment property owners in the city, could not immediately be reached for comment about how the pending changes to the eviction system will affect landlords in the city.
State Rep. Morgan Cephas (D-Philadelphia), who chairs Philadelphia's House Delegation, said she and her colleagues will continue to push for a state law that creates stronger eviction protocols. She said the bill that passed the House is supported by City Council, the sheriff's office and housing advocates in Pennsylvania.
"Whoever carries out evictions in our city must be transparent in their operations, work alongside social service and behavioral health professionals, be overseen by a community review board and put an end to dangerous, 'surprise' evictions," Cephas said. "Our delegation is committed to seeing it through."
Philadelphia has been engaged in a broader effort to protect the rights of tenants in recent years. In May, City Council approved legislation to make the city's eviction diversion program permanent. It was originally created during the COVID-19 pandemic to keep people housed by steering tenants and landlords to mediation sessions, direct negotiations and financial assistance programs before an eviction takes place.
