Learn about renters’ rights through free workshop Thursday in Cedar Rapids

CEDAR RAPIDS — Renters can learn about their rights as tenants through a free workshop being held Thursday featuring local experts.

The workshop will be held at Beems Auditorium in the downtown Cedar Rapids Public Library, 450 Fifth Ave. SE, according to a news release. The Renter Rights and Responsibilities Workshop begins at 5 p.m. with a 45-minute presentation by Iowa Legal Aid followed by a question-and-answer period. The workshop will end by 7 p.m.

The workshop is free to all area residents. It is sponsored by the Oak Hill Jackson Neighborhood Association.

“Oak Hill Jackson has an exceptionally high percentage of residents who are renting the home they live in, whether that be an apartment or single-family home,” said Dorothy de Souza Guedes, president of Oak Hill Jackson Neighborhood Association.

The neighborhood’s homeownership rate is only 24.1 percent compared to 74.5 percent for all of Linn County, de Souza Guedes said.

“As advocates for the neighborhood’s residents, it’s important for the association to do what we can to make sure renters know how to protect themselves from bad landlords but also how to be good tenants,” de Souza Guedes said.

Topics will include a summary of landlord and tenant law, how to ask a landlord to make repairs, evictions, the multi-county Coordinated Entry System for residents experiencing homelessness or a housing crisis, Section 8 and other forms of rental assistance, renter’s insurance and housing discrimination.

Presenters include:

Housing cases accounted for 43 percent of all cases filed with the Cedar Rapids Civil Rights Commission in 2023. This shows tenants need more information about their rights as renters, de Souza Guedes said.

“And an informed renter should make a better tenant,” de Souza Guedes said. She encouraged landlords to share workshop information with tenants.

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