Leaders vote to extend rent moratorium

Move by Santa Clara County and San Jose to push deadline to Aug. 31 hinges on Newsom’s actions

Although California is slowly beginning to reopen, Santa Clara County and the largest city in its jurisdiction are extending measures to protect tenants as regional public health orders continue to create financial hardships for thousands of residents.

The county Board of Supervisors voted unanimously at a special meeting Tuesday to extend its eviction moratorium until Aug. 31 under the assumption that Gov. Gavin Newsom will continue to extend emergency powers for it to do so.

Unless the governor extends counties’ authority to freeze evictions, the county won’t likely be able to continue providing all of its current protections, the board’s legal counsel James Williams said.

But the decision comes as both tenants and landlords in the county face the stark financial realities of the COVID-19 pandemic, a potentially calamitous situation that has led board members to act more swiftly than the state.

Job losses from the coronavirus alone have left many tenants thousands of dollars in debt to their landlords, a figure many will not be able to pay back in the current 120-day grace period that starts when the moratorium is lifted in Santa Clara County.

Michael Trujillo, an attorney at the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley, said during Tuesday’s meeting that the eviction moratorium should be extended to the “greatest extent possible.”

“This protection is the only thing keeping many families in their homes during this unprecedented pandemic because many cities have not taken up the invitation to pass their own moratoria,” Trujillo said. “Santa Clara County has been slower to reopen than other places in the state and tenants haven’t had a chance to earn an income to resume their regular rent payments on June 1.”

Voicing similar concerns, Anil Babbar of the California Apartment Association said he worked closely with the city of San José to determine how to ensure that both property owners get rent and tenants have the adequate time to repay.

Board member Joe Simitian, concerned about the effect that rent defaults could have on the county’s financial recovery, asked Williams to come back with a memo that would extend the payback period to one year and allow for quarterly rent payments.

“It’s instructive that we have both the landlord and tenant community who say that may be a more practical and realistic approach than having everything come due within 120 days,” Simitian said.

The board of supervisors’ decision comes a week after the San José City Council extended its moratorium — one of the first of any such regulation in the country — through the end of June and lengthened the deadline that residents must repay their missed rent bills by.

Under the San Jose’s newly

modified moratorium, San Jose renters will have six months — or until Jan. 31, 2021 — to pay back the first half of their owed rent and twelve months — or until June 30, 2021 — to pay the remainder of their unpaid rent accrued during the eviction moratorium. Those dates are subject to change if the council extends the moratorium beyond June 30.

The city’s eviction moratorium is part of a slew of ordinances city leaders have put in place since the beginning of the pandemic to help alleviate the burdens on tenants.

Last month, the council banned landlords from increasing rents until Dec. 31 on nearly 39,000 apartments and more than 10,000 rentcontrolled mobile homes that fall under the city’s rent stabilization program.

“Ensuring that residents have safe housing during this pandemic has been one of the highest priorities of the council since the beginning of this crisis,” Mayor Sam Liccardo said in a statement.

Under both the city and county moratoriums, a landlord cannot fine tenants or charge interest for late payments.

Additionally, San Jose attached

a new anti-harassment and anti-retaliation provision to the ordinance and extended the period of time tenants have to notify their landlord that they’ve been impacted by the pandemic from three to seven days.

“There are individuals out there who are lacking understanding and empathy,” San Jose Councilwoman Magdalena Carrasco said. “Putting these ordinances in place is critical in making sure we have stability and an ability to keep people sheltered.”

Due to backlash from landlords who say they are taking the brunt of the burden, the council will also consider reducing city fees for landlords during the upcoming budget process.

Santa Clara County board member Dave Cortese, also facing backlash from landlords, said there is evidence that efforts by landlords to collect payment “have continued apart from the eviction remedy itself.”

Cortese asked the county’s general counsel to come back with a report that would address how Santa Clara County could stem judicial requirements of payment.

“There is the ability for a landlord to hire counsel or to simply go for a straight breach-of-contract or breach-of-lease judgment,” Cortese said. “That puts tenants under a tremendous amount of pressure with the possibility of wage garnishment and other judicial remedies that would come out of that.

“I want to know what we can and cannot do in that regard.”