Evictions on the rise in state

And experts fear the worst is yet to come

‘ It’s very frightening. We definitely have seen an uptick and I feel like that’s just the beginning. It’s an ’ unprecedented time. Carla Miklos, executive director, Operation Hope

The number of evictions in Connecticut have started to climb from lows earlier in the pandemic and threaten to increase further following the end of a federal moratorium on evictions for nonpayment of rent, experts said.

Housing specialists fear this is just the beginning of a wave of renters losing their homes in the coming months and likely facing an uphill battle to find a new place to live. Homelessness service providers are getting more calls and bracing for an influx of people who need shelter.

“It’s very frightening,” said Carla Miklos, executive director at Operation Hope, a Fairfield-based homelessness service provider. “We definitely have seen an uptick and I feel like that’s just the beginning. It’s an unprecedented time.”

In late August, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s ban on certain evictions for nonpayment of rent.

Since then, eviction filings, which begin the eviction process in court, and eviction executions, which end the process and force people from their homes, have started to rise, data show.

In July, there were 395 eviction cases filed in Connecticut. Filings were up to 658 for September as of Wednesday and on pace to be one of the highest single-month totals since the pandemic began, according to data from the Connecticut Fair Housing Center.

In July, there were 286 eviction executions issued. In September, with just over a week left in the month, there were 252, according to the data. Attorneys say they’re getting more calls about executions.

An execution is issued after initial eviction hearings conclude. If the tenant hasn’t left by the date a judge sets, the landlord can request an execution. During that process, the state marshal typically gives tenants 24 hours to leave the unit before removing them from the premises and putting their personal belongings in city storage.

“You’re going to see an uptick in marshals coming in to put people out,” said Pamela Heller, a staff attorney with the Connecticut Fair Housing Center.

Many of the cases reaching the execution stage are old cases; the federal moratorium was the only thing keeping the tenant from being evicted, attorneys said.

The CDC issued that moratorium in September 2020 to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 by keeping people who had suffered financial losses due to the pandemic from having to go into congregate living conditions such as homeless shelters or moving in with friends and family.

Connecticut had a statewide moratorium from April 2020 to June 2021.

During much of the pandemic, a gubernatorial executive order required another hearing before the executions were issued. That has since expired, meaning tenants have less time to find another place to live or work things out with their landlords.

“There’s just not a lot of notice before the execution,” said Kelsey Bannon, a staff attorney on the housing unit at Greater Hartford Legal Aid. The organization provides legal services to people with low incomes.

For those who have an eviction filing on their record, finding new housing can be difficult -- even if the case was dismissed or they worked out a mediation with their landlord.

“The problem is a landlord can still see an eviction, regardless of whether it’s dismissed or not,” Heller said. “Once it’s filed, it can show up.”

In a housing case Tuesday, Judge John Cirello told a tenant that although a dismissal might be possible, credit companies that mine the data would still have the information. She asked the court to help her because the eviction record had thwarted her efforts to find a new place to live.

She’d paid off her debt and worked things out with her old landlord, the New Haven tenant explained, but she couldn’t find any other landlords who would take her.

“It’s kind of hard to put the toothpaste back in the tube,” Cirello said.

Over the past year, Connecticut United Way’s 211 program had received 294,362 requests for services related to housing and shelter, according to data available Friday afternoon. Of those, about 24% were about rent assistance.

There’s assistance available through the state’s UniteCT program. Tenants who earn up to 80% of the area median income can receive up to $15,000 in rent assistance and $1,500 in utility assistance. The program is funded with $235.9 million from the federal government.

The most common call to the 211 system regarding housing was for shelter needs.

At Operation Hope, staff are preparing for an influx of need caused by evictions.

“In the end what I’m really worried about is really kind of threefold: it’s the number of people who may be in need of assistance, the lack of affordable housing to begin with and the damage to their credit,” Miklos said.

Miklos said the nonprofit has gotten more calls from people who say they’re about to be homeless since the federal moratorium was lifted. She plans to hire additional staff and ramp up fundraising in the hopes of creating an additional eviction and foreclosure prevention fund at Operation Hope.

“We’re sort of preparing as we’re being hit with it,” she said.

She fears many people will be looking for a new place to live in a market that’s already over-saturated. Rents are rising nationwide, and many people may not be able to afford higher costs, she said.

Bannon said she’s seen an “incredible slow down in the ability to rent.” Many of her organization’s clients have looked for apartments for months.

Miklos added that people most affected have been senior citizens and people with low incomes who lost jobs during the pandemic. In her experience, most landlords want to work with tenants, but it’s difficult now that some have gone a year and a half without collecting rent, she said.

“These [tenants] are people that have been victimized by a pandemic and an economic system that hasn’t protected them,” she said. “And how do landlords recover? Will they stay in business, will they be able to keep their properties?”