Pittman expands eviction prevention program
Pledged to use over $190K to help pandemic-affected
Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman announced Thursday a slate of measures to help residents avoid eviction, including hiring former legal aid attorney Lisa Sarro to assist with the already established prevention program.
While rent court proceedings wrapped up inside, Pittman stood in front of Maryland District Court in Annapolis and pledged to use more than $190,000 toward keeping county residents in their homes during the pandemic. He criticized the federal and state government for doing too little to prevent the economic unraveling people nowface because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Federal, state and even county government has subscribed for too long to trickle-down economic theories that don’t generate even a trickle for the people on the ground,” Pittman said. “Rather than investing in the foundation of our economy, the people people who do the work, we have invested in the people who own the stock with subsidies, tax cuts and, even in this pandemic, billions of dollars of aid.”
Thecounty received about$101million in assistance from the federal government via the CARES Act, and spent about $44 million thus far. About $108,000 of the grants announced Thursday come from that assistance. The rest comes from general fund allocations.
The county’s eviction prevention program, established in April, provides aid to residents who makes less than 60% of the area median income and have had income loss stemming from the coronavirus pandemic. Eligible residents can apply online or by calling 410-222-7600.
The grants will help bulk up the program by introducing Sarro as general counsel with Arundel Community Development Services, the county’s nonprofit community resources arm, and partnerships with other area agencies that help residents keep their homes.
Eviction prevention caseworkers have been counseling tenants who are having trouble paying rent and referring them to additional resources to help out with other health and financial roadblocks. Sarro will help the counselors to vet clients for potential legal defenses in their rent cases, negotiate with landlords and learn the legal system.
With Maryland Legal Aid, Sarro represented low-income and elderly clients for more than 20 years. The pro-bono firm fired her in July, after she and other attorneys raised concerns about staff safety once offices opened.
The county will also contract with Community Legal Services, another probono lawfirm currently providing free legal representation in Prince George’s County, to provide similar help in Anne Arundel County. Unlike Maryland Legal Aid, Community Legal Services does not check immigration status and can provide assistance to undocumented immigrants.
Jessica Quincosa, executive director of
Community Legal Services, said her firm has one attorney on staff, but with the county grant, will tap into a group of established volunteers in Prince George’s County to take on cases in Anne Arundel County for a stipend.
The county also granted money to the Fair Housing Action Center of Maryland for additional tenant intake line support staff and to the county bureau ofMaryland Legal Aid bureau to provide additional legal assistance for low-income county residents.
The Maryland court system reopened hearings in failure to pay rent cases at the end of August. A nationwide moratorium on evictions for those housed under federal housing programs expired in July, but the Centers For Disease Control issued another moratorium, this time through the end of the year and for all renters, citing the health risk associated with mass evictions during a pandemic.
The CDC guidance provides that any renter making $99,000 a year or less can sign a declaration if they’ve been unable to pay rent due to the pandemic and give that declaration to a landlord to prevent an eviction. But in Maryland, the guidance does not prevent a landlord from filing a failure to pay rent complaint, the first step in evicting a tenant.
“It just really postpones what might be the inevitable,” Sarro said. “What we’re hoping to do in these next three months is locate those folks who we can help with rental assistance and hopefully prevent their eviction Jan. 1.”
To use the declaration to prevent an eviction, tenants must show up in court, Sarro said.
If a tenant uses the declaration a defense in court, the judge will decide whether the CDC moratorium applies to that renter. If the judge determines the tenant has a legitimate defense, the court will figure out how much rent is due, but will not enter a judgment until after the moratorium is lifted on Jan. 1, 2021.
“What this means is people who get sued for failure to pay rent, even though this moratorium is in place, they must, must, must go to court to raise their defense,” Sarro said.
The attorneys also encouraged tenants to reach out in advance of their court date, if possible, to give themtime to identify issues and locate additional resources.