Pa. Dems propose bill to give time to apply for rental help
A group of Democratic lawmakers in Pennsylvania has introduced legislation aimed at preventing evictions and foreclosures while officials work to distribute federal relief funds to those in need.
The bill, which was introduced in the Pennsylvania Senate on Monday, would require landlords to apply for relief through the Emergency Rental Assistance Program, or ERAP, before filing to evict tenants for nonpayment of rent. The emergency relief program was set up this spring to help tenants catch up on rent payments and to help landlords get caught up on what they were owed, but the distribution of funds has taken time to ramp up.
Allegheny County was allocated $80 million for the most recent round of federal funding and had distributed $26.4 million as of Aug. 24.
The county has received more than 13,900 applications for rental assistance, according to data from the Allegheny County Department of Human Services.
About 34% of applicants — or a little more than 4,700 households — have received payment.
Nationally, of the $46.5 billion allocated for the rental aid program, about $5.1 billion — almost 11% — of federal funds had been distributed by July, according to the Treasury Department.
“We know the necessary funding is available to alleviate the economic stresses the pandemic has put on homeowners, landlords and tenants alike, and through this legislation, we can ensure that people stay housed without it coming at the expense of landlords and mortgage companies,” said Sen. Jay Costa, D-Allegheny, one of the sponsors of the bill.
“Knowing that evicting people from their homes is detrimental to our public health and can interfere with efforts to slow the ongoing pandemic, we need an all-hands-on-deck approach to address this matter,” he said.
Mr. Costa is co-sponsoring the bill with three lawmakers from Philadelphia: Sens. Nikil Saval, Vincent Hughes and Art Haywood.
Under the proposed legislation, courts with jurisdiction over the eviction process would also be required to grant a continuance of 60 days. In other words, the judge would be expected to give time for a decision to be made on the tenant’s rental assistance application.
For homeowners, the bill would require mortgage
servicers to inform borrowers of financial programs available to prevent foreclosure. Mortgage servicers would also have to record the language preference of the person facing foreclosure and provide necessary translation and interpretation services.
“The eviction and foreclosure moratoria were never designed to permanently prevent the forced removal of people from their homes — these measures simply determined who would be evicted now and who would be evicted later on,” Mr. Saval said. “If we act swiftly, we can prevent poverty- based evictions and foreclosures.”
Under federal guidelines, evictions based on failure to pay rent are banned through Oct. 3.
A federal ban on evictions temporarily lapsed at the beginning of this month before the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reinstated a new moratorium.
The new CDC regulation is tied to the level of health risk in an area. A county that has high or substantial transmission rates for the COVID-19 virus or variants falls under the ban’s protection. If an area dips below that threshold for 14 consecutive days, the ban would lift.
A group of landlords from Alabama and Georgia have challenged the policy in court, arguing it exceeds the CDC’s authority.