Lamont orders new protections for tenants
The same day Connecticut’s eviction moratorium expired, Gov. New Lamont ordered new protections for tenants, including requiring landlords to apply for federal relief money before evicting someone over non-payment of rent.
In an executive order issued Wednesday, the governor is also giving tenants 30 days, as opposed to three, to appeal an eviction notice for nonpayment of rent. Lamont’s order is in effect until July 20, which is when his pandemic-related emergency powers are set to expire.
The federal eviction ban is in place until the end of July. The Biden administration has directed states to require landlords to apply for rental assistance before filing an eviction notice over nonpayment of rent.
Housing advocates wrote to the governor, legislative leaders and judicial officials last month asking Lamont to extend the state’s ban to July 20, which would give people more time to apply for rental assistance, to prevent a “large wave of evictions and homelessness.”
“It would be a tragedy and a failure of public policy if hundreds or thousands of families were evicted for non-payment of rent at the very time that millions of federal dollars in rental assistance are available to make such evictions unnecessary,” they wrote.
More than $400 million in federal funding is available to help tenants and landlords pay for back rent through UniteCT, a program set up through the state Department of Housing.
As of Wednesday, more than $23 million and 3,000-plus cases had been approved. More than 10,700 fully submitted cases have been received, according to UniteCT’s website.
Both landlords and tenants have described the application process, which must be done online, as cumbersome. Recent changes were made to the program to incentivize more landlords to participate, including increasing the amount of money available to eligible applicants from $10,000 to up to $15,000.
“The program is now at a point at which it can overcome the obstacles that prevented greater participation,” the housing advocates, including Connecticut Fair Housing Center and the New Haven Legal Assistance Association, wrote in their June 18 letter. “In particular, it can provide assistance to fully compensate landlords for their lost rental income in most cases and can often pay three months or more of prospective rent.”
John Souza, president of Connecticut Coalition of Property Owners, said while the changes to the program have made it more beneficial for landlords to participate, the money is still not being distributed fast enough and tenants and landlords have to jump through a lot of hoops to apply. Souza, a registered landlord in the state, said a handful of his tenants have applied to the program and had their applications accepted.
“It’s just one more burden placed on the landlords,” Souza said of Lamont’s executive order.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development estimates that 6 million people are behind on rent, with more than 40% saying they believe they will be evicted from their homes in the next two months.
Connecticut’s ban limited the reasons a landlord could evict a tenant to include owing six or more months of rent and committing a “serious nuisance” such as physically harming another tenant or the landlord.