State faces ‘tsunami of displaced people’ with evictions
As crews work to clear the remnants of Isaias, Connecticut is facing another emergency.
Later this month, a statewide eviction moratorium will lift, and landlords can send what’s called a notice to quit to renters who are in arrears. If the renter does not pay within a few days of receiving that notice, the landlord can start the eviction process.
Rough estimates say that at best, tens of thousands of Connecticut renters will be affected — most of whom have lost income to furloughs, layoffs, or they’ve had their hours cut.
Early in the pandemic, recognizing that shutting down the state and the state’s businesses would cut into state residents’ ability to work and pay rent, Gov. Ned Lamont imposed an eviction moratorium — and then extended it.
Postponing the rent was the right thing to do, but now the rent is due. If people weren’t working and couldn’t pay in April, how can they be expected to pay for May, June, July and onward?
A federal eviction moratorium ended in July.
Much-needed unemployment benefits are gone, as well. The COVID-19 Eviction Defense Project, based in Colorado, has estimated (with the Aspen Institute) that 29 million Americans risk eviction if something isn’t done beyond postponing when the rent’s due.
So in ultra-expensive Connecticut, we are looking at a tsunami of displaced people. That would be bad under any circumstances, but this is during a pandemic, not a time for families to double-up with loved ones. The safest place — and the best way to alleviate the spread of the coronavirus — is at home, but what does that mean in the face of multiple evictions?
But in discussions with the state, concerns about potential spikes in infection “does not seem to move them,” said Erin Kemple. executive director of the Connecticut Fair Housing Center.
Let’s do some math. According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, Connecticut is the country’s 10th most expensive state for housing. The average fair-market rent for a two-bedroom apartment (also from the same source) in the Bridgeport area is $1,346. To pay no more than a third of a household’s income for housing (which the government recommends as the cutoff ), that means the wage-earners must bring home nearly $54,000 a year. The Bridgeport
area’s household median income is about $10,000 less than that, and that’s when a household actually has money coming in.
When families are dealing with job loss and reduced hours as they try to educate their young, placing the onus on renters is short-sighted. How much more sense does it make to put the responsibility on landlords to show what income they’ve lost, and then have them apply for aid.
Or, more to the point, put the onus on banks who stand to lose mortgage payments from those landlords who aren’t collecting rent. Let banks call the state and wait on hold and then scramble to fight over limited funds. Banks have both the time and staff to do that.
In fact, Kemple said her organization suggested early on that the state Department of Housing institute a landlord-based relief program, not our current tenant-based one. Landlords who have not made arrangements — say, received forbearances from their mortgage companies — would take precedence. (A recent survey from the governor’s office of 428 landlords said the majority — 250 — had not sought a forbearance.)
Eviction is traumatic. It displaces children who have faced and are facing uncertainties and disruptions in their education. Eviction can also place a family more deeply into housing insecurity. An eviction haunts a renter.
“We’ve seen as a nation the trickle-down theory fail us,” said Kerry Ellington, community organizer at New Haven Legal Assistance Association, one of the proponents of the Cancel Rent CT movement. “That theory will always fail the masses. We’ve needed a more aggressive policy to keep people in their homes, for people to stay inside.”
Early on, another organization that is part of the Cancel Rent coalition, Junta for Progressive Action, started a GoFundMe account and raised some $40,000 to help renters, said Bruni Pizarro, Junta executive director.
But is that Junta’s job? “At the end of the day, it’s because systems weren’t working for marginalized people, and they had to create their own institutions,” said Pizarro, who grew up in a rent-controlled apartment in New York. “I don’t want to be here, talking about this. I would rather focus higher level, but now we have to go back to taking care of people’s basic needs.”
When evictions begin — and they definitely will — the renters who will be most affected will be people of color, said Ellington. And Ellington said tenants who seek legal counsel will find reduced staff at their local legal assistance programs.
Where does that leave them? Losing their homes as punishment for being poor. That’s bad public policy. In fact, that’s cruel public policy. If we don’t want to talk about the mortality of putting homes out of the financial reach of state residents, do we really want to go back to the bad old days, and start talking about building more shelters?