Legislators must help with eviction crisis
One of the most dangerous aspects of the ongoing pandemic is the glaring housing divide in Santa Cruz County and California.
And this goes beyond the visibly and invisibly homeless who live on the streets and in encampments. But another housing crisis could put even more local residents in danger of becoming homeless.
Consider the median housing price in Santa Cruz County and the state.
According to the online real estate site Zillow, the typical value of a home in Santa Cruz County was approximately $900,000 as of Oct. 31. Zillow says that prices rose 7.3% over the previous 12 months – and are expected to rise another 8.7% over the next year. Some of these homes, often bought by people outside the county, will become rentals, at high prices unaffordable to most working county residents.
Then consider the cost of renting a one-bedroom apartment. Researchers, using U.S. Census reports on how the coronavirus is affecting households, report that the number of Californians behind on rent and at risk of eviction topped 1 million in November.
Rents for one bedroom apartments across the state average about $1,500. But in pricey, housing-limited Santa Cruz, the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment according to online sites was $2,248 as of Dec. 7 – up 7% over the year before. The median rent for a studio apartment in Santa Cruz increased by 36% to $1,848. UC Santa Cruz’s Community Rentals report lower figures. For November, UCSC’s rental site shows nine one-bedroom apartments available at an average price of $1,946.67; studios were more available, with 21 available at an average price of $1,484.
Even with fluctuating figures, the bottom line is that prices are high and availability remains severely limited. To afford an average-cost one bedroom apartment in California, a person working for the state minimum wage of $13 would have to work 90 hours each week.
How are renters who can make their payments during the pandemic doing it? Getting further in debt. Census figures estimated that more than 3 million California renters turned to credit cards or loans to make their monthly rent, while approximately 2 million borrowed from friends or family.
There are some protections. In September, legislators passed a bill extending a pandemic-related eviction moratorium through Jan. 31, requiring tenants to make at least 25% of their rent payments before that date to avoid eviction in 2022.
But this is not free money. For one thing, starting Feb. 1, eviction rules go back to normal — meaning that if you miss your Feb. 1 rent you can be evicted, even if you lose your job because of COVID-19 (and good luck getting through to California’s notoriously hard-to-reach unemployment office if that happens). If you can’t come up with that 25% of missed rent between September and January? You can also be evicted.
Moreover, the moratorium doesn’t mean you won’t have to pay back the full rental costs – you will, most likely on a repayment plan worked out with landlords.
Make no mistake, the rental crisis also is landing hard on landlords, especially people who own just one or two rentals. But although renters comprise about 45% of state residents (and more than 50% in Santa Cruz County) they usually have a much tougher time than the real estate industry and groups representing apartment owners in getting protections through the Legislature.
As the virus continues to surge throughout the nation and much of the state, we urge legislators to extend the current Jan. 31 eviction moratorium, through at least April.
The real solution remains elusive, however: Having the state or federal government pay landlords for missed rent, so they can meet their mortgage bills and other obligations, and thus provide some rent forgiveness for tenants.
But any such aid is dependent on Congress, working with the incoming Biden administration, on new stimulus legislation which would provide states more resources.
This must happen, and soon, to avert a looming eviction crisis and even more Californians made homeless.