COUNTY EXTENDS MORATORIUM ON EVICTIONS UNTIL END OF JUNE

San Diego County supervisors Tuesday unanimously approved extending the county’s moratorium on evictions of residential and commercial renters in the unincorporated areas.

The moratorium, which expired Sunday, will now last through the end of June. It comes as the region is economically reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic and dealing with a record rate of unemployment, which exceeded 30 percent late last month.

In order to avoid eviction, residents and commercial renters must provide documentation to demonstrate that their economic hardship is directly linked to the pandemic. Even then, the affected renters will be required to pay back any rent owed at a later date.

More than 486,000 residents live in the unincorporated areas of San

Diego County.

Even as parts of the economy are beginning to reopen, there’s a long road ahead to full recovery, and people still need help, said Supervisor Greg Cox, who co-authored the proposal with Supervisor Nathan Fletcher.

“There are many folks still out of work, being forced to decide between rent and food,” Cox said, “and having to deal with how they

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will get through the next month, the next week or the next day has got to be a very difficult decision. This extension will give residential and commercial renters more time to get back on their feet.”

The decision means San Diego County joins several

other counties taking advantage of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Friday executive order, which opened the door for counties and cities to extend eviction moratoriums through July 28.

Los Angeles County has already extended its moratorium through June 30, as has the city of San Diego.

Similar to the approach the county took when adopting

the initial moratorium at the end of March, the county supervisors did not commit to extending the moratorium into the future.

The moratoriums have been met with some pushback from landlords and property owners across the state, who argue the moratoriums have passed economic strain onto them.

Although none of those

landlords addressed the board Tuesday, it was clear that the issue was on the minds of some of the supervisors.

Supervisors encouraged residents to still pay their rent in a timely manner if they are able and, Cox said, “this is not an effort to provide free rent and is really an encouragement for the tenants and landlords to work

together on a repayment plan.”

Supervisor Kristin Gaspar also said it’s important to tread carefully with the moratorium, because it puts landlords in a challenging situation covering costs without revenue and it potentially sets renters up for having to pay a huge backlog of several months’ rent all at once.

“I think ignoring one

population in favor of another is not necessarily the best thing to do at this point,” she said.

Gaspar also proposed that county staff explore the potential for creating a rental assistance program to go along with the moratorium, a proposal which supervisors unanimously approved.