New federal eviction moratorium begins
The Trump administration announced a new federal eviction moratorium this week that is meant to keep renters housed through the end of the year and slow the spread of COVID-19.
The moratorium will go into effect Sept. 4 and last until Dec. 31, though it could be extended, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which was involved in ordering the moratorium.
The goal is to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 by limiting the number of individuals who lose housing and have to move in with friends or family, live in a congregate shelter or live on the streets.
The protections will apply to a broader range of people than the previous 120-day federal moratorium, which ended in July and mainly covered individuals living in federally subsidized housing.
To be protected by this moratorium, a renter must meet these five criteria:
• They used their “best efforts” to obtain government assistance for rent or housing costs.
• They don't expect to earn more than $99,000 in annual income. If that qualification doesn't work, a tenant is also eligible if they received a federal stimulus check earlier this year or if they didn't have to report any income for 2019 taxes.
• They are unable to pay full rent due to substantial loss of household income throughout the pandemic.
• They are trying to make timely partial rent payments.
• They would likely become homeless or have to live in a shared-living setting if they were evicted.
In Oklahoma County, more than 3,000 evictions have been filed since mid-March,
according to Open Justice Oklahoma, which has been tracking evictions.
Across the state, more than 108,000 people remained on unemployment assistance last month.
Rental and utility assistance is available, though. The state government, along with Oklahoma City and Oklahoma County governments, have dedicated millions of dollars to preventing evictions.
Though the moratorium buys more time for individuals to stay housed while finding jobs or receiving assistance, many worry it will ultimately only delay a high number of evictions come January.
“It is a relief, and it's not,” said Jerod Shadid, a city planner with Oklahoma City's homeless services division. “Now we have more time to figure out how to deal with this problem before January. ... But you're afraid of what is going to happen in January, and this means the cliff just keeps getting higher.”
Renters will still be responsible to pay all back rent once the moratorium ends, and the order puts the obligation on tenants to know if they are covered and then present that information to their landlord.
Greg Beben, a staff attorney with Legal Aid Services of Oklahoma, said this means the protections for tenants are “not automatically there.”
“If the tenant does nothing, the landlord is not under a strict obligation to abide by the moratorium,” Beben said. “So we are concerned about getting the word out but also excited that we could keep people in their homes for several months.”
The CDC website has a copy of a tenant declaration form which can be signed by a tenant stating that they qualify for the moratorium.
National housing advocacy groups have said the new eviction moratorium is a “halfmeasure” and must be followed up with another COVID-19 relief bill that would allow renters to continue to be housed and small landlords to continue to pay their bills.
For local landlords who have not received much financial assistance throughout the pandemic, paying mortgages as rental payments continue to be unstable will be difficult.
The new federal order comes roughly two weeks after federally backed landlords were able to begin filing evictions again since the last moratorium ended, and many landlords have not financially recovered, said Karey Landers, director of the Apartment Association of Central Oklahoma.
“The impact will be huge,” Landers said. “Most people in this industry are not independently wealthy, and they aren't able to cover these costs. And there, unfortunately, is not much relief for them.”
Landers said landlords understand why a moratorium is important, but many wish the federal government had also included additional rental assistance and landlord assistance rather than just pausing evictions.
“It is going to end up causing a bigger issue, I'm afraid,” she said.
It's likely the federal order will face litigation since it is an unusual action, but Beben said renters should begin to take steps to meet the five criteria so they can be covered by the moratorium's protections.
Many in Oklahoma's housing sector were taken by surprise, Shadid said, and did not learn about the moratorium until reading details from national news organizations.
“There are still a lot of questions,” he added.