national multiple family submetering and allocation billing program ...

clean and decent housing or the lack thereof.” Four of the respondents were involved with issues
related to separate utility billing for electric and gas, but not for water. 38
Three of the respondents reported having received an occasional phone call or complaint
about RUBS and submetering, but were not taking any action on the issue. 39 The Arlington
County Housing Information Center in Virginia reported receiving a variety of e-mail
communications from residents related to water billing. The representative explained that the
organization can only inform residents of their rights and refer them to their local representative.
The representative said, “I can’t give you any real numbers but I can safely say that we have
heard many many complaints about ratio billing…. Again, the response from tenants has been
overwhelmingly negative… Tenants at the more expensive buildings/complexes are usually the
ones who complain the loudest and tend to do so by e-mail.”
A representative from the Portland Tenants Union in Maine cited separate utility billing
as a “major issue for tenants.” While this organization is not taking any action at the present
time, they do distribute “documentation forms” to all Portland tenants. Through the forms, they
maintain a file of utility-billing complaints.
Only two organizations reported taking any action on the issues of separate utility billing
for water. A representative from the Cleveland Tenants Organization in Ohio reported a strong
aversion to separate utility billing, especially for RUBS. This group helped to successfully
organize tenants in Cleveland Heights against a property owner that was allocating water bills
with a ratio utility billing system. Now, RUBS is illegal in the City of Cleveland.
A representative from HOME Line in Minnesota reported about their experiences with
separate water billing. The representative explained that they regularly represent tenants whose
housing providers are violating laws associated with RUBS and said that their organization
receives phone calls inquiring about it on the HOME hotline. The representative testified in 2001
to the Minnesota legislature against RUBS. The testimony included results from a study that
found RUBS to slightly increase water use in 11 apartments that had been recently converted in
Minnesota. Despite the testimony, RUBS remains legal in Minnesota. Since then, the
representative reported that RUBS has become very popular with corporate owners of large
Organization (NY), Washington Low Income Housing Network (WA), and Brandywine Tenants Association
(Washington D.C.).
38 The organizations were Florida Housing Coalition (FL), New Jersey Tenants Organization (NJ), Greater Syracuse
Tenant Network, and Vermont Tenants Inc (VT).
238