End of moratorium leaves vulnerable facing eviction
Regina Garcia Cano and Michael Casey
BALTIMORE — Kelyn Yanez used to clean homes during the day and wait tables at night in the Houston area, but the mother of three lost both jobs in March because of the pandemic and is facing eviction.
The Honduran immigrant got help from a local church to pay part of July’s rent but was still hundreds of dollars short and is awaiting a notice to vacate the apartment where she lives with her children.
“Right now, I have nothing,” said Yanez, who contracted the virus in June and had to quarantine with her 4-year-old daughter. The apartment owners “don’t care if you’re sick, if you’re not well. Nobody cares here. They told me that I had to have the money.”
Yanez, who lives in the U.S. illegally, is among some 23 million people nationwide at risk of being evicted, according to The Aspen Institute, as moratoriums enacted because of the coronavirus expire and courts reopen. Around 30 state moratoriums have expired since May, according to The Eviction Lab at Princeton University.
Experts predict the problem will only get worse in the coming weeks, with 30 million unemployed and uncertainty whether Congress will extend the extra $600 in weekly unemployment benefits that expired Friday.
The federal eviction moratorium that protects more than 12 million renters living in federally subsidized apartments or units with federally backed mortgages expired July 25. If it's not extended, landlords can initiate eviction proceedings in 30 days.
“It's going to be a mess,” said Bill Faith, executive director of Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio.
Faith noted that the Census Bureau Household Pulse Survey found last week that more than 23% of Ohioans questioned said they weren't able to make last month's rent or mortgage payment or had little or no confidence they could pay next month's.
Nationally, the figure was 26.5% among adults 18 years or older.
“I've never seen this many people poised to lose their housing in such a short period of time," Faith said. "This is a huge disaster that is beginning to unfold.”
Housing advocates fear parts of the country could soon look like Milwaukee, which saw a 21% spike in eviction filings in June after the moratorium was lifted in May.
“We are sort of a harbinger of what is to come in other places,” said Colleen Foley, the executive director of the Legal Aid Society of Milwaukee.
After a two-month hiatus, Franklin County Municipal Court began hearing eviction and traffic cases on June 1 at the Greater Columbus Convention Center.
Amanda Wood was among some 60 people on the docket Friday for eviction hearings at the convention center. Wood, 23, lost her job at a claims management company in early April. The following day, the mother of a 6-month-old found out she was pregnant again. Now, she is two months behind in her rent and can’t figure out a way to make ends meet.
Wood managed to find a part-time job at Fedex, loading vans at night. But her pregnancy and inability to find stable child care has left her with inconsistent paychecks.
“The whole process has been really difficult and scary,” said Wood, who was hoping to set up a payment schedule after meeting with a lawyer Friday. “Not knowing if you’re going to have somewhere to live, when you’re pregnant and have a baby, is hard.”
Though the number of eviction filings in Ohio and elsewhere have risen since March and April, they are still below those in past years. In July, 643 eviction requests were filed in Franklin County through July 28, about onethird the number filed last July.
Dimitri Hatzifotinos, a lawyer with Willis Law Firm in Columbus, said he expects that number to jump in August and September as the federal moratorium expires, but to remain below previous years’ levels.
“There will be a backlog of evictions to be filed in August because landlords haven’t been able to file those for five months, but I don’t expect there to be more evictions than average,” said Hatzifotinos, who represents the Columbus Apartment Association and the managers of more than 100,000 apartments.
Experts credit the slower pace to the federal eviction moratorium, as well as states and municipalities that used tens of millions of dollars in federal stimulus funding for rental assistance. Several states, including Massachusetts and Arizona, have also extended their eviction moratorium into the fall.
In Ohio, State Representatives David Leland (D-columbus) and Juanita Brent (D-cleveland) introduced the Eviction Crisis Response Act bill this week, which would devote $270 million to immediate rental assistance.
Negotiations between Congress and the White House over further assistance are ongoing. A $3 trillion coronavirus relief bill passed in May by Democrats in the House would provide about $175 billion to pay rents and mortgages. But the $1 trillion counter from Senate Republicans only has several billion in rental assistance.
“An eviction moratorium without rental assistance is still a recipe for disaster,” said Graham Bowman, staff attorney with the Ohio Poverty Law Center. “We need the basic economics of the housing market to continue to work. The way you do that is you need broad-based rental assistance available to families who have lost employment during this crisis.
“The scale of this problem is enormous, so it needs a federal response.”