Evictions on the rise months after federal moratorium ends

BOSTON » Soon after losing his trucking job amid the pandemic, Freddie Davis got another blow: His landlord in Miami was almost doubling the rent on his Miami apartment.

Davis girded for what he feared would come next. In September he was evicted — just over a month after a federal eviction moratorium ended. He’s now languishing in a hotel, aided by a nonprofit that helps homeless people.

The 51-year-old desperately wants to find a new apartment. But it’s proving impossible on his $1,000-amonth disability check.

“We live in America, and the thing is, people like me, we got to go to the street if we don’t have no other place to go because we can’t afford rent,” said Davis, who lost a leg to diabetes, suffers congestive heart failure and is recovering from multiple wounds on his other leg and foot. “I really can’t do nothing.”

The federal ban, along with a mix of state and federal moratoriums, is credited with keeping Davis and millions of others in their homes during the pandemic and preventing the spread of the coronavirus.

There was a brief lull in evictions after the ban ended. But housing advocates say they’re on the rise in many parts of the country —- though numbers remain below pre-pandemic levels due to the infusion of federal rental assistance and other pandemic-related assistance like expanded child tax credit payments that are also set to end.

Part of the increase is due to courts catching up on the backlog of eviction cases.

But advocates say the upsurge also shows the limits of federal emergency rental assistance in places where distribution remains slow and tenant protections are weak. Rising housing prices in many markets also are playing a role.

According to the latest data from the Eviction Lab at Princeton University, evictions have been rising in most of the 31 cities and six states where it collects data. Evictions in September increased 10.4% from August. October numbers were 38% above August levels and 25% higher than in September.

REBECCA BLACKWELL — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Freddie Davis, whose landlord raised his rent by 60 percent in the same month he lost his job as a truck driver, waits for a friend to arrive to help him move his remaining belongings to a storage unit, after receiving a final eviction notice at his one-bedroom apartment in Miami.