This story is part of The Salt Lake Tribune’s ongoing commitment to identify solutions to Utah’s biggest challenges through the work of the Innovation Lab.
A new consumer protection portal launched by Salt Lake City will give “special attention to housing-related issues and concerns,” Mayor Erin Mendenhall announced on X, formerly known as Twitter, earlier last week.
Renters can submit a complaint or ask for help here.
The city will then get in touch to provide referrals if needed, said Erik Fronberg, housing and consumer protection analyst.
[Subscribe to our newsletter here]
“We’d be able to connect them with the city’s building inspectors to go out,” Fronberg said, “or if it was a retaliatory eviction, we at the city would reach out to them to give them resources related to legal aid.”
If a renter’s heat goes out, they ask their landlord for a repair and then get an eviction notice on their door, “we would want to help those renters understand that they have rights and protections,” Fronberg explained.
The city works closely with groups like Utah Legal Services. Fronberg noted that a lot more eviction proceedings are going forward in the third district court, which covers Salt Lake, Summit and Tooele counties, than compared to last year.
That’s true across Utah. Landlords across the state filed more than 2,600 eviction cases in the first four months of 2023, up from 40% from the same time period in 2022.
“A lot of people don’t realize that they have rights as tenants, especially in Utah, where it’s a very landlord friendly state and property rights are a big priority,” Fronberg said. The focus of the portal will be to give tenants a better sense of what those rights are.
The city will also track trends as people submit complaints to see if certain areas might require better regulation.
Those who aren’t comfortable submitting a complaint online can go to the Salt Lake City and County building to room 445.
All complaints will be responded to within five business days.
Follow @sofiaAJeremias