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Stephanie Wiechmann
A Muncie property management group that oversees hundreds of rentals in the city, recently made statewide news when tenants shared their living conditions like mold, standing sewage and leaking roofs. Tenants say rents and mandatory fees are high, while emergency maintenance requests go unanswered for weeks or longer. City Councilman Brandon Garrett worked as a building inspector for a decade. He says he's seen deplorable conditions in Muncie rentals, but that.

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Brandon Garrett
That's all the teeth we have, as the city is, is to tag and to fine.

00;00;28;11 - 00;00;52;18
Stephanie Wiechmann
Tagging ongoing problems is the job of Muncie's Unsafe Building Hearing Authority, which discusses 80 to 100 such homes each month. Indiana state lawmakers passed a bill in 2020 that restricts local governments from enacting measures to increase renter rights and penalize landlords. Governor Eric Holcomb vetoed the bill, but lawmakers overrode that veto in 2021. Muncie Democratic Representative Sue Errington agrees the state should give more local control.

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Sue Errington
Remedies need to be looked at where you're the government that is closest to the problem, and yet that's not what state government has done.

00;01;03;04 - 00;01;15;17
Stephanie Wiechmann
The council's unanimous resolution asks the state to protect the rights of tenants and give some power back to local government. The council now wants more cities to adopt similar resolutions. In Muncie, Stephanie Wiechmann, IPR news.