Safe and Healthy Homes for All Act
HB1218, the Safe and Healthy Homes for All Act, requires the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development’s Office of Tenant and Landlord Affairs, working with the Attorney General, to develop a plan for identifying and addressing the state’s most serious rental housing health and safety problems. The bill focuses on “severe health and safety risk properties,” defined as multi-unit rental properties with 50 or more units that repeatedly fail to meet basic housing standards, remain in chronic code violation, or show repeated cycles of citations and non-remediation.
The required plan must create a process for identifying these properties and predatory landlord practices, establish ways for residents, tenant associations, and local agencies to refer properties, and outline interventions such as fines, injunctions, tenant escrow, corrective action plans, follow-up inspections, pest eradication, structural repairs, temporary relocation for unsafe units, and landlord remediation reporting. The Department must also coordinate with counties and municipalities, consider cost containment strategies, and recommend statutory changes to improve tenant relief and enforcement. The bill requires a public website listing of identified properties and sets reporting deadlines in 2027, after which the act sunsets.
The bill does not immediately rewrite landlord-tenant law, but it directs DHCD to build an enforcement and intervention framework and to recommend future statutory changes. It expands the role of the Office of Tenant and Landlord Affairs in relation to large, persistently noncompliant rental properties, and it creates new reporting and public disclosure obligations for the Department. The measure is limited to properties with 50 or more units and is temporary, expiring at the end of 2027 unless further action is taken.
The bill appears to have broad legislative support, passing both chambers with comfortable margins and ultimately being signed into law. The vote totals suggest general agreement with the goal of improving tenant health and safety and targeting the worst rental housing conditions. The absence of committee transcript material limits insight into detailed debate, but the favorable committee report and final passage indicate a largely positive reception.
The main points of potential contention are the scope and methods of enforcement. The bill targets large rental properties and authorizes a public list of problem properties, which may raise concerns among property owners and housing providers about reputational harm, regulatory burden, and due process. Other likely areas of debate include the use of fines, injunctions, tenant escrow, mandatory relocation, and whether the State should rely on county inspectors and local agencies versus building a larger state enforcement structure. The bill also invites input from renters, advocates, landlords, and housing associations, reflecting an effort to balance tenant protections with industry concerns.