Advocates say Keeping Renters Safe Act keeps all safe

Despite some small signs of normalcy that have come from increased vaccination rates and returning to modified public gatherings, the pandemic is still taking its toll, including in the area of housing. Although President Joe Biden attempted to extend a national eviction ban during the summer, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked that attempt, saying Congress was the branch authorized to institute this kind of ban. A group of Congress members responded last month with the introduction of the Keeping Renters Safe Act of 2021. The legislation would grant the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services with permanent authority to implement an eviction moratorium in the interest of public health.

Although the eviction protections under California’s COVID-19 Tenant Relief Act and the COVID-19 Rental Housing Recovery Act expired on Sept. 30, any landlord who wants to evict a tenant for failure to pay rent, is first required to apply for rental assistance before proceeding with an eviction.

Eric Tars is the legal director of the National Homelessness Law Center, the legal arm of a national movement to prevent and end homelessness through litigation, policy, advocacy, outreach, education and research. He’s also vice chair and treasurer of the U.S. Human Rights Network, and teaches domestic human rights advocacy and practice at Drexel Klein School of Law. He took some time to talk about this legislation, and how extending a national eviction moratorium can benefit renters and property owners. (This interview has been edited for length and clarity. For a longer version of this conversation, visit sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-lisa-deaderickstaff.html. )

Q:

These halts on evictions obviously keep people safely housed, which also minimizes the spread of COVID-19. How else are these moratoria helpful to renters?

A:

If you are potentially going to need an ICU bed in the coming months and you want to have that available, then we need to be taking the steps today to make sure that we’re keeping people out of them who don’t need to be there. That’s first and foremost. Then, there’s the educational impacts for children. If you’re a family with school-aged children, an eviction will disrupt their education. There’s a lot of research that shows that every move that a child makes can set them back anywhere from three to six months in school.

There’s the ability to have a stable home base. One of the basic human needs is for shelter, and if you don’t have shelter, all other priorities kind of fall below that. If you have somebody who is trying to rebuild their business, trying to get a job, trying to volunteer to help others, trying to do any other sort of activity that would help the recovery, instead what they have to do is go to court to fight an eviction and try to figure out the court system and where they’re going to stay the next night. That’s what’s going to be occupying all of their mental space, all of their time, and they won’t be able to get to those other, higher order things. It’s a traumatic experience and a tremendous mental health burden for individuals, for parents, and for children, and it will have lasting impacts for everyone.

Q:

What’s the response to landlords and property owners who object to eviction moratoria, arguing that they also have payments to make that rely on renters meeting their financial obligations?

A:

I think the response is that this is a pandemic where public health has to come first. There are other provisions in the relief packages that should allow landlords to have the flexibility to adjust their own mortgage or payment schedules and other relief streams (Paycheck Protection Program loans and other things that can help them through these challenging times). If they have a problem with the moratorium, then what they should be doing is helping their tenants get access to the aid so that it will remove the concern that they are running behind on rent.

Landlords are the institutional players here, they’ve got a lot of power in this situation. In some communities, they’re even negotiating directly with folks who are administering this funding. Rather than having everybody in the building filling out individual applications and placing that burden on them, the landlord can go directly to whoever is administering the funds in their communities and vouch for their tenants who are behind on rent because of the pandemic. That money can just go straight to the landlord, and that’s fine if that’s what’s going to keep everybody in their units, and it’ll be for the good of the community. Rather than fighting the need for the eviction moratorium, acknowledge that the need exists and use the tools available to address what they consider their immediate needs in a constructive way that’s not going to harm the health of others.

Q:

Are there any other ways to help renters and property owners remain safe and solvent as we continue to navigate the financial effects of this pandemic?

A:

I think the other way we can approach this is through different forms of Universal Basic Income. That also could have provided a buffer if we had that infrastructure in place. The child tax credits, advance payments the Treasury Department has been distributing, have kind of been an example of how that actually works, in practice. The fact that we’ve seen huge numbers of families helped to be lifted out of poverty, above the poverty line by the distribution, is just a demonstration of its effectiveness. Whether it’s officially appropriated as housing aid, or just other forms of financial assistance to families in need, if we had that infrastructure in place where we see that someone lost their job and made sure they got increased assistance payments, that could have very easily done the trick to keep many people in their homes, and keep their landlords solvent. The policy solutions are right there at our fingertips, but it’s just a matter of the political will to actually put them in place.