AUSTIN, Texas — Austin residents had the opportunity to learn about their tenants' rights Wednesday as the Ending Community Homelessness Coalition (ECHO) held a virtual event.
ECHO's Housing Support Coordinator, Daniel Armendariz, led the event. He provided an overview of tenants' rights as enshrined in the Texas Property Code. Tenant obligations under leases were also reviewed.
The meeting comes as the City of Austin seeks to improve protections for renters, starting with hosting community discussions. The City's Office of Civil Rights said it hopes the discussions will provide insight into how renters would be impacted by changes to improve their rights as tenants.
In February, the council approved two resolutions related to tenants' rights. Item 39 on the council's Feb. 3 agenda concerns renters' rights to assemble and Item 40 calls for landlords to provide a notice of proposed eviction to tenants before providing them a notice to vacate. That's done in an effort to allow renters more time to prevent being evicted.
Item 40 also calls for a rule requiring a longer period for tenants to respond in instances where the City is under certain kinds of disaster declarations.
According to one of the resolutions passed in February, a code amendment with renters' rights is expected to be considered in late July.
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