Newsom: Major banks agree on a mortgage-waiver plan

‘Impacted’ California homeowners will get 90-day payment deferrals

Four of the nation’s five largest banks have agreed to defer homeowners’ mortgage payments for 90 days in California, where more than 1 million people have filed for unemployment benefits since efforts to contain the coronavirus began ramping up, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday.

The governor also announced a big jump in the number of tests for the deadly virus that have been conducted across the state, though results from tens of thousands of those tests are still pending,

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Bay Area tenants getting eviction protections, leniency on paying rent. Congress on verge of passing stimulus package. and he warned far more testing needs to be done.

Newsom urged residents to stick with the dramatic restrictions on daily life implemented over the past several weeks, which he said have allowed hospitals and the state to prepare for an expected surge of COVID-19 cases.

“We know it’s had an impact on bending that curve and buying us time,” Newsom said. “Let’s not let up.”

At his daily news briefing, Newsom said the 1 million new unemployment claims have been filed just since March 13.

He said Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, Citibank and J.P. Morgan Chase — along with more than 200 smaller state-chartered banks and credit unions — have all agreed to the 90day mortgage payment waivers for Californians “impacted by COVID-19.”

It was not immediately clear Wednesday afternoon how many homeowners might qualify for the waivers or what the eligibility rules for them would be. The governor’s of

fice did not say how to apply, and the banks’ websites do not yet offer details, though some mention the program and direct customers to call.

But Newsom said the waivers would not be capped by income and indicated more details will become available in the coming days. He also said the state wants to make the process consistent and easy for homeowners to navigate, unlike the complex relief programs that followed the 2008 financial crisis.

“We want to ease the document side of this,” Newsom said.

Bank of America was the only one of the five largest banks nationwide that Newsom said had not made the 90-day commitment. But Bank of America spokesman Bill Halldin took issue with that description, saying the bank is allowing customers to defer payments on a monthto-month basis “until the crisis is over.”

“That could go up to 90 days or well beyond 90 days,” Halldin said.

While the mortgage waiver plan could help struggling homeowners, Newsom and the state have not gone as far to help renters struggling in the virus’ economic fallout.

Newsom issued an executive order earlier this month giving cities and counties power to stop local evictions during the crisis but has stopped short of enacting a statewide eviction moratorium, as advocates have sought. Several Bay Area cities and counties have since barred evictions, but others around the state have not, creating a patchwork of local rules.

Asked again Wednesday about enacting a statewide moratorium, Newsom said the idea raises legal issues that are “more complicated than they appear.” Still, he left the door open to more action, saying, “If we don’t see things materialize and manifest in very short order, we reserve the right to look at a state overlay.”

Big testing increase

As of Wednesday morning, 66,800 coronavirus tests had been conducted across California, according to Newsom — more than double the number the state had reported just a day earlier, which was 27,650.

California saw a 21% increase from Tuesday to Wednesday in the number of people testing positive for the virus, which rose to 2,535. There have been 53 deaths as of Wednesday, up from 40 the day before.

As of Wednesday afternoon, there were 1,187 confirmed cases of the virus in the Bay Area and 27 deaths.

Santa Clara County reported its largest singleday increase in the number of positive results Wednesday, announcing 84 new cases, for a total of 459, and one death from COVID-19, bringing the toll there to 17. San Mateo County reported four new cases and four deaths, and San Francisco announced 26 cases.

One reason why the increase in statewide testing was not accompanied by a large increase in coronavirus cases: The results for some 48,600 tests were still pending as of Wednesday, according to the governor’s office.

“It’s one thing to do the diagnostics,” Newsom said, “its another to get word back. Tens of thousands of those tests are waiting for results to be finalized.”

The increased number of tests in California’s count has come as more labs testing for the virus have begun submitting their results to statewide counts, which earlier only tallied the results of testing from 22 state labs. Kaiser submitted some 12,000 new test results, Newsom said, and more have come from commercial labs such as the testing giant Quest Diagnostics, and academic ones such as Stanford.

State officials had indicated earlier in the week that they would release more detailed information Wednesday about test results and hospitalizations related to the illness across California. Instead, they said Wednesday that the data is still being vetted and would be released in the coming days.

California has moved to ramp up the slow pace of its testing for the virus, which has been one of the key problems hindering the United States’ response to the pandemic.

“We are getting those operations up and running,” Newsom said. “More is being done in that space, but 66,800 is not enough tests.”

‘Herculean effort’ to get supplies

Newsom also praised what he described as a “herculean effort” to build up the capacity of California hospitals and obtain tens of millions of pieces of protective equipment such as masks and face shields for frontline medical workers.

And he again pushed Californians to continue following the shelter-inplace orders that have kept millions home from schools and work in a bid to slow the spread of the virus.

“We can defeat this virus — but we can’t defeat it unless we commit to fulfilling our individual obligations and our collective responsibilities,” he said.

As Newsom spoke Wednesday afternoon, President Donald Trump continued his push to relax those restrictions in an attempt to bolster the flagging economy. Trump tweeted Wednesday that the news media is pushing to “keep our Country closed as long as possible in the hope that it will be detrimental to my election success,” while “the real people want to get back to work ASAP.”

Newsom again avoided directly criticizing Trump on Wednesday but made clear that California’s shelter-in-place order would not be changing anytime soon.

“You have to focus on economics by focusing on health first,” Newsom said.