A federal eviction moratorium issued by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is in effect from September 4, 2020 to March 31, 2021. The temporary moratorium on evictions extends vital protections to tens of millions of renters at risk of eviction for nonpayment of rent during the global pandemic. The federal eviction moratorium, does, however, have significant shortcomings that undermine its public health impacts. Congress should extend the federal eviction moratorium through the duration of the public emergency and address the moratorium’s shortcomings by improving and enforcing the order. Congress should also provide additional resources and protections to address the health and housing needs of America’s lowest-income resources and people experiencing homelessness. See NLIHC’s top priorities for the next COVID-19 relief bill.
This tracker links to news reports of the growing evictions crisis in various cities and states.
Visit our searchable database and map which allows some renters to identify if their home is covered by the CARES Act eviction moratoriums.
The application process for Alabama Housing Finance Authority's "Emergency Rental Assistance Alabama" (ERA Alabama) program began March 1. The Madison County Commissioners postponed the start of the Emergency Rental Assistance Program to make decisions as to who will be eligible for the assistance and who will distribute the funds. Commissioner Violet Edwards opposed the postponement saying, “On Monday, there were 800 people on the docket for eviction. People are still being evicted and we can offer them assistance right now.” While Alabama renters began applying for the statewide emergency rental assistance program on March 1, residents of Huntsville and Madison County have been unable to apply for their local rental assistance programs. ERA Alabama says that if local rent relief programs are not operating yet, ERA Alabama might accept their application. Updated: March 15 Governor Kay Ivey authorized the Alabama Housing Finance Authority (AHFA) to implement the state’s new $263 million COVID-19 emergency rental assistance program. AHFA expects to accept applications from landlords and tenants beginning March 1. Updated: February 26 Alabama had an estimated excess of 621 COVID-19 deaths after a statewide moratorium expired on May 31. Updated: December 11 According to the U.S. Census, 11.3% of adults in Alabama either missed last month’s housing payment or have little to no confidence that they can pay next month’s housing payment. Updated: December 3 According to the U.S. Census, 28.7% of the adult renters in Alabama have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. Updated: November 20 Mobile received $1.8 million in CARES Act funding, $1.5 million of which went to Legal Services of Alabama to help Mobilians who are in the process of being or have been evicted. Updated: October 30 According to the U.S. Census, 28.7% of the adult renters in Alabama have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment.
Holly Ray, a lawyer in North Alabama said there is a severe lack of guidance on the CDC eviction moratorium guidelines. Sarah Taggart, a lawyer who represents landlords in Alabama also complained about a lack of guidance and stated that interpretations vary among states, even courtrooms. “The long term answer for this is financial relief, the long term answer for this is money paid to landlords on behalf of their tenants," Ray said. Updated: September 25 Alabama is seeing an increase in eviction cases as Congress stalls and state and federal moratoriums on evictions expire. Legal Services of Alabama (LSA), which provides legal aid to low-income families, told Alabama Daily News that the month of June saw a 70% increase in eviction cases compared to June 2019. Updated: August 12 In the third week of July, 1 in 3 adults in Alabama reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, 215,128 renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment. 300, 000 Alabamians received the extra weekly payments of $600 through the CARES Act, which expired on July 25. Now many will see their weekly unemployment checks drop below $300.
| Jefferson, Mobile, Madison, and Montgomery Counties | These are the state’s top evicting counties, and each saw a 50% increase in eviction filings from May-June after the eviction moratorium expired on June 1. | July 22 |
Updated: July 29 According to a weekly survey by the Census, 1 in 5 adults in the state either missed their last housing payment or have little/no confidence of being able to make next month’s housing payment.
| Jefferson County | 8-10 evictions are being conducted per day in Jefferson County since the state moratorium was lifted on June 1st. County officials say they have 425 pending evictions. | June 6 |
More than 15,000 Alaskans pre-registered for the state’s rental assistance program. A total of $5.8 million is available to renters in Kodiak who are behind on rent. Updated: March 15 The Alaska Housing Finance Corporation will be distributing nearly $200 million in federal rent and utility assistance. Alaska Housing Rent Relief will help Alaskan renters and landlords cover up to 12 months of rent and utilities. Updated: February 26 Officials at one of the nation’s largest homeless shelters in Anchorage are optimistic that demand for services has stabilized, but the looming expiration of the eviction moratorium could derail progress. The shelter is serving about 400 people, plus another 200 or so who are staying at the newly-opened shelter at the Fairview Rec Center, or hotel rooms around town paid for by the city. Updated: December 18 The Brother Francis Shelter received a $752,000 grant to help families who are facing eviction due to temporary financial hardships. The shelter runs a Rapid Rehousing Program for people at risk of becoming homeless, which will likely increase in importance as the federal government’s temporary halt on evictions due to COVID-19 ends in December. Updated: December 3 According to the U.S. Census, 26.55% of the adult renters in Alaska have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. Updated: November 20 In Alaska, statewide evictions have increased, but remain below 45 cases per week. Some residents who do not receive rental assistance have racked up over $10,000 in debt from missed rent payments and late fees. Updated: September 18 Alaska unemployment headed in the wrong direction in July after two months of improvement , with the state recording about 2,000 more job losses in July than in June. The Anchorage Economic Development Corp. has predicted the city is likely to lose more than 11,000 jobs this year, largely because of the financial impact of the coronavirus. This could lead to large-scale home foreclosures and evictions. Updated: August 27 In the third week of July, 1 in 5 adults in Alaska reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, 29,798 renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment.
| Anchorage | To combat housing insecurity in Anchorage, city officials have been making plans to build new affordable housing by buying up various properties in the community. Much of the 30 hours of public comment on the measure, which occurred during the third week of July, was extremely negative. Many went so far as to recommend incarceration as a solution to the homelessness crisis. | July 27 |
Updated: July 29 Hundreds of households are at risk of eviction due to thousands owed in back rent due to COVID-19. According to a weekly survey by the Census, 1 in 4 adults in the state either missed their last housing payment or have little/no confidence of being able to make next month’s housing payment.
| Anchorage | The United Way of Anchorage has seen a 300% increase in calls to their 211 number, the majority of which concern rental assistance. As of May 22, they had distributed over $335,000 in COVID-19 assistance to 389 households through their rental assistance program AK Can Do, which existed before the pandemic. | May 22 |
Pima County and the City of Tucson have together been given a combined $31.5 million in federal funds to help people pay their rent. The money has not been distributed yet, because the county is looking at a possible evictions court to handle just evictions cases to help clean up the eviction backlog. Applications for rental assistance are low in Arizona’s rural counties and many residents are not aware of the program. According to the Maricopa County Evictions Dashboard, the eviction moratorium postponed more than 25,000 evictions. Arizona State University’s Knowledge Exchange for Resilience estimates that by April, 40,000 to 45,000 households could be at risk of eviction if the moratorium is not extended. According to the Eviction Lab, with 16,685 filings, Phoenix topped the list of cities across the country with the most eviction filings during the coronavirus pandemic. Rental breach filings, like those alleging tenants had a dog, there was a clogged toilet, or a fire detector was not properly installed, are skyrocketing from about 10 to 50 a month in Pima County. Updated: March 15 The Pima County Board of Supervisors has rescinded an expanded eviction moratorium enacted early this month. Since May, the number of eviction filings in Arizona has increased by 163%. In November, 3,174 eviction actions were filed according to the Maricopa County Justice Court. That is more than double the lowest reported month of May when 1,480 eviction actions were filed. Arizona’s 211 information hotline recently launched a web tool to help users understand that protection and to connect Arizonans with local resources for housing needs. On January 2, Kristin Lewis, received an eviction notice after her home health business fell apart. Since October, the mother of three had been going back and forth with her landlord and his attorney, trying to work out a way to stay in the Cave Creek house she had been renting on a monthly lease. Updated: February 26 Over 200,000 Arizonans are facing eviction and over 10,000 are already experiencing homelessness. At least 146 eviction hearings were scheduled in Pima County for the first week of 2021, and that number is expected to surge once the CDC eviction moratorium expires. Updated: February 5 The Arizona Interfaith Network called on Gov. Ducey and the state’s elected leaders to impose an eviction moratorium in Arizona. Updated: December 18 Maricopa County has stopped taking applications for its $30 million rental aid fund because the money is spent and about $11 million is left in other programs funded by CARES Act money to help Phoenix-area renters. The aid money is running out while Arizona renters owe at least $178 million to their landlords, and as many as 150,000 renters could be evicted next month. The DNA People's Legal Services is beginning to prepare Flagstaff residents for the expiration of the federal eviction moratorium. Pima County has about 100 evictions, and more are accumulating, that will be carried out immediately once the moratorium expires because the cases were heard within 45 days of the January 1 deadline. The Arizona Department of Housing has given $4.3 million in rental assistance as of late November to help 2,230 households across the state. In total, 30,432 households have submitted requests for rental assistance, with 6,763 households in review. The Private Equity Stakeholder Project has counted more than 20,000 new eviction cases filed since September by corporate landlords in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, Tennessee, and Texas alone. Updated: December 11 According to the U.S. Census, 10.4% of adults in Arizona either missed last month’s housing payment or have little to no confidence that they can pay next month’s housing payment. Landlords wrongfully acted to evict metro Phoenix renters in the course of the top of the COVID-19 pandemic, regardless of the CARES Act eviction moratorium. Over 900 evictions were filed against tenants who were protected by the federal CARES Act. Before COVID-19, a census tract reported by New America found that tracts within Glendale had some of the highest rates of eviction within Arizona from 2014 to 2018. Glendale is now at an all-time low with eviction rates, largely due to government support of $29 million in CARES Act funding the city received. Updated: December 3 According to the U.S. Census, 35.38% of the adult renters in Arizona have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. Arizona still has $400 million left to spend to help residents with rental assistance. Updated: November 20 Arizona’s state eviction moratorium expired on October 31. Another $7 million in aid has been allocated by the state to help renters and landlords. $5 million will go to Arizona's Rental Property Owner Preservation Fund and $2 million will be added to the Arizona Department of Housing’s Rental Eviction Prevention Fund. According to recent Census Pulse Data, the likelihood of eviction and foreclosures are highest in the following regions: District of Columbia, Indiana, Florida, Iowa, Texas, Wyoming, Massachusetts, New Mexico, North Dakota, and Arizona. Updated: November 13 One in five households statewide is experiencing severe economic strain, University of Arizona researchers report in their recent publication, Forecasting Homelessness in Arizona During the COVID-19 Crisis. In Pima County, 10,406 to 26,606 households are at risk of displacement in the coming months. So far, the number of people experiencing homelessness has increased by 58%, or nearly 800 people. Wildfire, a nonprofit organization helping renters get financial help, received $24 million in CARES Act funding. They are getting about 300 calls a day asking for assistance. From early September to October 17, despite the CDC eviction ban, almost 10,000 eviction actions have been filed in 23 counties in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, and Texas by large corporate landlords. Updated: October 30 In August, 33% of the calls to Arizona’s 2-1-1 service were regarding housing and shelter. Updated: October 8 Corporate landlords, including private equity firms, filed more than 1,500 eviction actions in large counties in Arizona, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, and Texas since the CDC announced it was imposing a moratorium, according to Private Equity Stakeholder Project, an advocacy group. Updated: September 25 A study by the New America Foundation found that Phoenix-area residents were more than twice as likely to lose a home due to eviction or foreclosure than the typical American resident before COVID-19. The pandemic will significantly increase home loss The census tract with the highest housing loss rate, 6.2 times the county average, is located in the Westridge Park neighborhood of South Phoenix where 44 percent of residents live below the poverty line. Census tracts with predominantly Black or Latinx households had higher rates of eviction, foreclosure, and combined housing loss than census tracts with predominantly white households. Updated: September 18 Arizona eviction rules changed on August 22, making it more difficult for renters to remain in their homes if they are facing eviction due to nonpayment of rent because of the pandemic. While Governor Doug Ducey extended the eviction moratorium until October 31 in a July executive order , renters must meet three additional requirements to remain in their homes. Updated: August 27 Arizona’s efforts to provide assistance to renters are lagging. Three weeks after Governor Ducey announced the extension of the eviction moratorium, the number of approved applications had risen to 1,380, but the total number of applications had also risen, to 20,313, an approval rate that was just under 6.8%. Statistics showed that 8,019 of the submitted applications as of Aug. 3, or 39.5%, were incomplete. Updated: August 12 In the third week of July, 1 in 4 adults in Arizona reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, over three hundred thousand renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment. On July 22, the governor extended the statewide eviction moratorium until October 31, but with new restrictions. For renters to remain protected, they must do the following before August 22: request a payment plan from their landlord, re-notify them of your hardship, show proof of ongoing hardship, and show they have completed an application for rental aid. Applying for rental assistance is a slow and burdensome process for many in Arizona, with about 40% of requests for aid made to the Arizona Department of Housing deemed “incomplete” and rejected. Some applications from April still haven’t been processed.
| Maricopa County | 5,000 new evictions were expected to have been filed in Maricopa County by the end of July if the statewide eviction moratorium hadn’t been extended to October 31. | July 16 |
Updated: July 29 The Aspen Institute estimates that 578,000 renters in Arizona could face eviction by the end of September. According to a weekly survey by the Census, 1 in 4 adults in the state either missed their last housing payment or have little/no confidence of being able to make next month’s housing payment.
| Pima County | 52 eviction cases in Tucson, Arizona are being processed per day, compared to normally 10 to 30 cases. Research from local lawyers found that almost 200 eviction cases went forward in Pima County after the passage of the CARES Act, even though the properties had federally backed mortgages. | July 14 |
| Phoenix | Some 22% of renters in Phoenix doubt they can make July’s rent. The state moratorium ends July 22. | June 26 |
At least 4,402 cases had been filed under Arkansas’ unlawful detainer statute since the start of the pandemic in March last year. Nearly 850 of those have been filed since Jan. 1, according to an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette analysis of court records. Rep. Jimmy Gazaway, R - Paragould, introduced HB 1563 which would require landlords to provide and maintain safe and habitable housing and create a simple eviction procedure guaranteeing a hearing to both the landlord and tenant. Arkansas is the only state in the nation lacking an implied warranty of habitability laws, meaning tenants have little recourse when it comes to housing issues that affect their health and safety. After Hadlee Golden left her job for medical reasons related to COVID-19 and her fiance, Tommy Potarf’s income was cut due to the historic winter weather, they fell behind on rent for their Fayetteville apartment. Their landlord threatened to evict them, but Golden and Potarf plan to invoke the CDC eviction moratorium. Updated: March 15 Northwest Arkansas overall is receiving more than $15 million in rental and bill relief money. Benton County received $8.3 million, with Washington County receiving $7.1 million. Since November, Tammy Hicks says she has had her hours at work cut drastically and January was the first month Hicks said she could not make rent. Arkansas Renters United helped her qualify for eviction protection and understand her rights during the moratorium. In Arkansas, more than 30% of households rent, according to the 2010 census. In 2020, more than 3,000 households faced eviction for non-payment of rent, according to a report by University of Arkansas Little Rock Professor Emeritus Lynn Foster. “Many Arkansas landlords continue to bring tenants to court for evictions over nonpayment of rent despite the CDC order,” Kendall Lewellen, managing attorney at the Center for Arkansas Legal Services, said. “It is my understanding … that evictions are still being filed in Arkansas in similar numbers to this time last year, even though there is a federal eviction moratorium and we are in the middle of a pandemic.” Approximately the same number of unlawful detainers were filed in November 2020 as in November 2019.
Updated: February 26 A U.S. Census Pulse Survey found more than 425,000 Arkansans are behind on rent. Roughly half said they have zero confidence they can pay next month's rent. Beau Cromartie, from the Southern Vision Alliance, noted the moratorium extension ends in just a few weeks during the coldest months of the year, and as COVID-19 cases continue to climb. When rental assistance disappears and eviction protections expire, the state could see an unprecedented spike in its transient and homeless population.
Updated: February 5 The Garland County Quorum Court will consider an ordinance appropriating $60,000 for rent, utility, and food assistance. The Quorum Court's Finance Committee has endorsed it. In Arkansas, of 119 total cases where CDC declarations were filed at some point, or the tenant said they had been delivered, in 70 cases (59%), typically where the declaration was filed early in the proceeding, the eviction proceedings halted and have not resumed. Updated: December 18 Landlords and property managers filed 1,339 of the most common type of evictions in Arkansas courts, unlawful detainer lawsuits, from September 1 to November 20 this year, according to state court online data examined by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. That is up by 53 cases from the same period last year. Updated: December 11 According to the U.S. Census, 32.3% of the adult renters in Arkansas have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. More than 1,100 unlawful detainer cases have been filed in Arkansas courts since September 4, the first day the CDC order was in effect. Unlawful detainer is the most common type of eviction in the state. In Arkansas, evictions dropped in October compared with both September and October last year. Arkansas Fresh Start was created through recent state legislative action and takes advantage of $10 million in federal grants to provide rental assistance to low-to-middle-income Arkansans. 2,100 Arkansans have applied to the program so far and the funding will be able to help up to 8,500 households. Updated: November 20 Between October 1-26, the Center for Arkansas Legal Services opened 97 landlord-tenant cases. During the same period last year, it opened 22 cases. Arkansas is the only state in the country that allows landlords to file criminal — rather than civil charges against tenants after they fall behind on rent. After Jazmon Allen fell behind on rent after losing her job due to COVID-19, a criminal complaint was filed against her and she was placed in jail. The states with the highest numbers of unpaid mortgages and rent are: Mississippi, Louisiana, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Arkansas, Connecticut, Missouri, and West Virginia. Updated: November 13 In September, there were 537 filings, compared with 451 in September 2019. Compared to August and September of 2019, eviction filings in Arkansas have doubled, according to court records. The top two counties with the most filings are Pulaski and Washington. Updated: October 30 According to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, landlords filed 476 unlawful detainer lawsuits against renters in September. Updated: October 8 Experts worry about Arkansas’s record when it comes to renters’ rights and access to rental assistance. Neil Sealy, executive director for Arkansas Renters United and Arkansas Community Organizations, said he worries about so-called "self-help" evictions occurring across the state, despite the CDC moratorium. These evictions occur when a landlord retakes possession of the property without going through a formal eviction process. Updated: September 18 More than 275 evictions were filed in Arkansas in July and 233 evictions in June. Only 40 tenants filed answers to the civil evictions filed in July. Arkansas’ Unlawful Detainer eviction law requires tenants to pay the court one month’s rent before a hearing is allowed, making it incredibly difficult for tenants to obtain a hearing. Only one Circuit Court Judge, Chip Welch, announced that, because of the pandemic, he will not issue a writ of possession unless there is a hearing first. Updated: August 27 As of July 25, landlords can file evictions, but cannot actually evict until August 25. More than 275 evictions were filed in Arkansas in July, in June, there were 233. Updated: August 12 In the third week of July, 26.7% of adults in Arkansas reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, over one hundred thousand renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment.
| Pulaski County | About 200 evictions have been filed in Pulaski County Circuit Court between March 27 and July 17. | July 20 |
Updated: July 29 Arkansas is the only state in the nation that makes failure to pay rent a criminal violation, and one of only eight states that made no action to suspend evictions during the pandemic. At least 100 unlawful detainer suits--precursors to evictions--were filled in the month of April, 177 were filed in May, and 287 in June. These numbers understate the true nature of the evictions crisis in Arkansas because they only encompass courts that post their filings to the state’s online search engine. According to a weekly survey by the Census, 1 in 4 adults in the state either missed their last housing payment or have little/no confidence of being able to make next month’s housing payment. Updated: July 16
Sacramento now has a $96 million fund to help struggling renters. The new program can be used to help fill rent gaps for 10,000 to 15,000 families in the county. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted to extend a local eviction moratorium through June 30. Orange County, excluding Santa Ana, Anaheim, and Irvine, has received more than 8,000 applications for rental assistance. Despite federal and state eviction moratoriums in place to prevent people from losing their homes during the pandemic, advocates say there are loopholes in the system causing many vulnerable people to slip through the cracks and be forced out. Patricia Mendoza, a single mother of two young children, has vowed that she will have to be "dragged out" of her home, after receiving notice by her landlord she is being forced out of her rental unit in Imperial Beach. "It's a living nightmare," Mendoza said. "I'm going to have to live in my van with my two children, and that's not fair. It's not fair for anybody's family." For the first time, Kelli Lloyd, a virtual law student and single mom to two school-age kids, owes about $10,000 in back rent for her Baldwin Hills area apartment. While she eventually found an outdoor classroom where her kids could attend Zoom school, allowing her to pick up part-time paralegal work for a lawyer in her building, she says it is not enough to cover the nearly $2,000 monthly rent on her two-bedroom, two-bath apartment. Updated: March 15 California Gov. Gavin Newsom and the state’s top two legislative leaders pledged to pay off 80% of most people’s unpaid rent that has piled up during the coronavirus pandemic — but only if landlords agree to forgive the other 20%. Tenant advocates are urging the Fresno City Council to adopt a “right to counsel” program for renters facing eviction. Evidence from cities with similar programs suggests a right to counsel is critical in keeping renters housed. The California Judicial Council predicts that as many as 240,000 evictions could be processed this year statewide, making right to counsel programs even more critical. San Jose lawmakers at the city and council level approved a “hybrid” plan to distribute millions of rent relief funds with local and state distribution strategies. The San Jose City Council voted unanimously to immediately halt rent increases for residents living in rent-controlled mobile homes and apartments through June 30. Renters must prove to their landlord they are facing hardship by submitting a declaration before the next scheduled annual rent increase. Approximately 43,000 Santa Clara County families are at risk of eviction, and more than 65% of clients in the county’s existing emergency relief programs are extremely low-income. More than 37,000 Santa Clara County households owe a combined $173.5 million in back rent. The Sacramento City Council on February 16 approved a $31.7 million rental assistance program. Edward Jaros lost his job on a Los Angeles movie set during the pandemic and has been unable to find work, leaving him owing about $21,000 in rent. Jaros applied for and received rental assistance, but his landlord still pressured him to pay back rent with interest. It was only after finding a pro bono lawyer that he learned he was temporarily protected from eviction. Updated: February 26 The L.A. County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to extend the county's eviction moratorium through February 28. In Marin County, about $3 million in rental assistance has been doled out to 1,470 recipients by the county since it adopted the program last March. The need is greater, with 2,430 applicants among landlords on a waiting list for the remaining $2.8 million. Marin County supervisors voted unanimously to enact a five-month eviction ban from February 1 through June 30. Landlords will be prohibited from evicting a tenant if the tenant provides a declaration of pandemic-related financial distress within 15 days of receiving notice demanding payment of rent. Anticipating a wave of evictions in the near future, the city of Pasadena committed nearly $120,000 to cover legal fees for residents facing eviction. Assemblyman David Chiu (D-San Francisco) introduced urgency legislation to extend eviction protections. Gov. Gavin Newsom extended the state’s eviction moratorium through June 30, 2021. Federal money will be used to pay off up to 80% of most tenants' unpaid rent. At least 527 individuals and families in nine Bay Area counties were evicted between March 19 and the end of December. A U.C. Berkeley researcher estimates roughly 2 million Californians, including children, belong to households that have fallen behind on rent and are at risk of losing their homes. California renters are $1.7 billion in debt to their landlords, according to an estimate by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. Elena Popp of the Eviction Defense Network has seen an uptick in cases of landlord harassment and illegal lockouts in recent months, as the pandemic grinds on. Oakland’s homelessness prevention program has helped nearly 5,000 households that were facing eviction, displacement, or potential life on the street. As of the end of 2020, Keep Oakland Housed had served 4,931 households, paying out more than $9 million in emergency financial assistance, and spending $2.5 million on legal aid.
Updated: February 5 San Francisco Assemblyman David Chiu introduced a measure that would prevent landlords from evicting renters financially harmed by the pandemic through December 31, 2021. Renters would have until the end of 2021 to come up with a quarter of the back rent they have accumulated. By the end of December, it’s estimated 239,619 California households will be behind in their rent, owing a total of $1.67 billion, according to a recent report by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. The state’s eviction moratorium expires February 1 and landlords can take tenants to court starting March 1. Caryn Hreha, a staff attorney at the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley, says the number of calls they’ve received for legal assistance for evictions has increased through the pandemic, especially among Latinx renters who made up 52 percent of all calls in the last quarter. After losing all three of her jobs, Aleida Ramirez, her 11-year-old daughter, and 21-year-old autistic nephew, used all of their savings to make rent payments on their Concord apartment. October was the first time in her life she missed a rent payment. Updated: December 18 The California COVID-19 Information App for Tenants & Landlords is a new tool, which helps both tenants and landlords understand their rights, and what protections or support they may have under California law. The city of Santa Monica extended its eviction moratorium through January 31. According to a September study, 3.4 percent of San Diego renters did not pay rent in September. That is up from 1.2 percent from the same time in 2019. Updated: December 11 According to the U.S. Census, 28.77% of the adult renters in California have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. California renters will owe their landlords a total of nearly $1.7 billion by the end of the year. A study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia estimates 240,000 renter households statewide are behind on rent, with an average debt of $6,953. Updated: November 20 Struggling landlords are selling rental properties to make up for lack of income, leaving many renters vulnerable as new owners raise the rent or require all renters to move out before they take over the building. Nearly half the housing units in Monterey County are renter-occupied and of those renters, about half pay 35% or more of their monthly income in rental costs, according to the American Community Survey (ACS). The San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Office carried out 14 lockouts between March 18 and September 15. Housing-related calls to the San Luis Obispo Legal Assistance Foundation are up 300 percent from this time last year. Updated: November 13 Calls for assistance in housing cases to the Central California Legal Services have tripled in the past two weeks, with dozens of renters a week from Fresno, Merced, and Visalia seeking help to stay in their homes. 1 out of 5 California households is struggling to make their next rent or mortgage payment and hundreds of thousands are facing the threat of eviction or foreclosure, according to the latest report by UC Berkeley’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation. Updated: October 30 Despite the eviction ban, Ruby Jensen's landlady began trying to force out her tenants by shutting off the water and gas and beginning demolition in the kitchen. One reason evictions have continued is that the overlapping series of moratoriums can be complicated. "The fact that there's not a single, uniform moratorium in place. puts the burden on renters to know whether they're protected," said Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition. Updated: September 25 Gov. Gavin Newsome signed a five-month extension on the state’s eviction moratorium. Under the new legislation, tenants who pay at least 25% of their rent from September 1 through January 31 will be protected from eviction. Those who fail to meet the minimum rent payment could be removed beginning February 1. Updated: September 18 Under a new bill, evictions would be halted for California residents. Any missed rent from March through August would be converted to civil debt. Impacted tenants would be responsible for 25% of their total rent between September and January. Updated: September 3 A report by Working Partnerships USA and the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley found that an estimated 43,490 renter households in Santa Clara County are at high risk of eviction, threatening to increase the county’s homeless population by as much as 225%. The impending eviction crisis is “hardly inevitable,” reports Palo Alto Online. More than 1,600 California households have been evicted since Governor Gavin Newsom declared a statewide state of emergency on March 4, according to data that CalMatters obtained. Nearly a third of those evictions occurred after Governor Newsom’s March 19 shelter-in-place order , and more than 400 took place since Newsom issued an eviction moratorium on March 27. BuzzFeed News reports that more than one million Californians have yet to receive unemployment benefits. California is poised to resume evictions on September 1, putting approximately 30,000 Californians who are unable to work or collect unemployment benefits at risk of eviction. Updated: August 27 California is rapidly approaching what has been dubbed the “eviction cliff,” or the point where true protection from being evicted during the pandemic will fall away, at least for a short time. If that happens, as many as 1 million families across the state — some 365,000 in Los Angeles County alone — could find themselves at risk of being forced out of their homes, perhaps as soon as September. Updated: August 12 In the third week of July, 29.5% of adults in California reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, 1,554,278 renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment. The Judicial Council of California was the only entity to provide statewide protections against evictions, halting them unilaterally since April. But on July 24, the Supreme Court Chief Justice announced they would soon vote on whether to continue the order, potentially lifting it as early as August 14.
| LA County | Over 200,000 households in LA County applied for a rental assistance program intended to serve 50,000. | July 24 |
| Oakland | Housing advocates in Oakland estimate 10,000-20,000 residents are currently at risk of eviction due to COVID-19. | July 22 |
| Santa Clara County | 43,000+ households in Santa Clara County are at risk of eviction, which is sixteen times more than the county sees in a typical year. Those at risk are disproportionately people of color, women, and families with children--many at risk of eviction are low-wage workers who are employed by the wealthy tech giants that give Silicon Valley its name. | July 25 |
Updated: July 29 Thousands of California families are doubling up. And if they aren't able to stay where they are, they’re going to be forced out onto the streets. According to a weekly survey by the Census, 27% of adults in the state either missed their last housing payment or have little/no confidence of being able to make next month’s housing payment.
| LA County | A recent UCLA study found that about 365,000 renter households in the county are in imminent danger of eviction once the Judicial Council moratorium on eviction filings is lifted. The study also found that 120,000 of those households would likely become homeless soon after eviction. | June 24 |
| Oakland | Landlords are using intimidation and lockouts to attempt to illegally evict tenants. | June 29 |
A record number of applications seeking help with monthly rent or mortgage payments flooded Colorado’s rent-assistance programs in January after a state eviction moratorium ended. In 2020 we had a total of $44.5 million in rental assistance requests for 18,250 applicants. In January 2021, the request from both programs totaled $53.8 million and the amount of applications we had for the Property Owner Preservation Program (POP) and Emergency Housing Assistance Program (EHAP) combined were around 14,300 applications. The large volume of requests has left many waiting for up to double the two to four weeks it took to process a request last year. Eviction filings in Colorado have grown since January 1, an increase advocates and lawyers attribute to Governor Jared Polis’ decision not to renew the statewide eviction moratorium. The situation is exacerbated by the slow distribution of aid from Colorado’s Emergency Housing Assistance Program. Tray and Andrea Moore both lost their jobs during the pandemic. The family fell $9,300 behind on rent in 2020, and three days before Christmas, the parents had difficult decisions to make after receiving a letter from their landlord threatening an eviction.
Updated: March 15 Colorado’s eviction moratorium expired on January 1. There are no plans for Gov. Jared Polis to extend the moratorium.
Updated: February 5 The COVID-19 Eviction Defense Project recently estimated that 345,000 to 436,000 people in Colorado are at risk of eviction, defined as people currently unable to pay their rent. The Temporary Rent and Utility Assistance (TRUA) Program provided payments to 1,796 unduplicated households, worth $3.89 million, between January and September. Over that time, program resources primarily served people of color living in households earning below 30% AMI, or $24,000 for a two-person household. The Colorado General Assembly took up nearly three dozen bills focused on COVID-19 relief for families and businesses in the special session that started Monday. A proposed bill would allocate $50 million to emergency housing assistance to help those who are at risk of eviction or foreclosure due to COVID-19. Of the funding, $500,000 will go to the Eviction Legal Assistance Fund. Updated: December 11 Under continued state and federal moratoriums, local evictions have dropped by more than two-thirds this year during the COVID-19 outbreak, according to statistics from the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office. From March 2 to this week, sheriff’s deputies have served 292 court-ordered writs of execution, compared with 873 over the same time period last year. Governor Jared Polis announced a special session set to start on November 30. The session will focus on small business relief, child care support, housing and direct rental assistance, increasing broadband access, food insecurity, utility assistance, and public health response. The Catholic Charities of Central Colorado has spent more than $500,000 to provide rental assistance to more than 560 families. Several states ― including Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Vermont ― have secured CARES Act funding to expand tenant representation in eviction proceedings. Updated: December 3 According to the U.S. Census, 16.58% of the adult renters in Colorado have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. About 40.4% of Colorado adults surveyed said they live in a household that is behind on the rent or mortgage payment and at risk of eventual eviction or foreclosure. That represents the sixth-highest rate captured in the survey. Denver’s Temporary Rent and Utility Assistance (TRUA) Program has been in record demand for months. The first three months of the year drew in 522 TRUA applications, but the rate spiked to nearly five times as many from July through September. Landlords in Colorado are using the Property Owner Preservation program, which encourages landlords to apply for rent payments for tenants who cannot afford it. This is particularly helpful to mom-and-pop landlords who rent out older and often more affordable small complexes are less likely to receive federal aid in the form of forbearance for federally-backed mortgages. Updated: November 20 Gov. Jared Polis announced an executive order banning late fees for Colorado renters through the end of the year. Between the months of June and September, when there were no eviction moratoriums in place, 2,914 evictions were filed throughout Colorado. Of those filed, 2,281 resulted in an eviction. Updated: November 13 Colorado Housing Connects, a housing helpline that answers all sorts of questions for renters, homeowners, homebuyers, and landlords, is on average receiving 3,000 calls per month, up from 2,000 per month before the pandemic. On October 21, Gov. Jared Polis issued a 30-day order banning evictions of tenants who can prove financial hardship because of the coronavirus crisis. Polis formed a Special Eviction Prevention Task Force, which recommended that he enact the eviction ban. Updated: October 30 Eviction filings peaked in Colorado just before the CDC issued its order on September 4, and the pace dropped sharply afterward, according to data compiled by Colorado Public Radio. After advocates called for a state-level order to set clear standards, Gov. Jared Polis established a task force on evictions. Updated: October 8 In Globeville, a low-income Denver neighborhood, 51% of surveyed residents said they have no contract or are month-to-month on rent. Of the 55 residents who advocates have worked with, about 26 were able to complete a full application, and 11 of those ended up with rental assistance. Tenants without formal leases often lack the documentation of bills or receipts; others struggle to prove loss of income with paperwork, because many lack checking accounts. Updated: September 18 Colorado has seen a sharp acceleration in court filings for evictions: more than 1,200 removals throughout July, and nearly 300 more in the first week of August. This is significantly up from the earlier months of the pandemic when the courts were all but frozen. The Colorado Springs Indy reports that in Colorado, a United States Census Bureau survey meant to measure the impact of the pandemic, found in mid-July that 14.8 percent of state residents had no confidence in their ability to pay rent. The impacts of the housing crisis are disproportionately impacting women and people of color. In Colorado, 3 percent of white people weren’t confident they could pay rent compared to more than 27 percent of Latino people and 8.9 percent of Black people, according to the last week of the Census survey. Five times as many women than men responded that they had no confidence in their ability to pay rent, and almost 50 percent of respondents reported a loss in employment income, the survey found. Updated: August 27 Between 436,000 and 596,000 people in Colorado — or 25%-36% of renters in the state — could be at risk of eviction by the end of the year, according to a new analysis. Colorado landlords must continue to provide renters some grace as the state continues to weather the coronavirus pandemic, as Gov. Jared Polis extended his emergency executive order on evictions Monday. Updated: August 12 In the third week of July, one in five adults in Colorado reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, 127,974 renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment. Housing advocates are reporting that COVID-19 related homelessness has already hit the state. More than 800 eviction cases have been filed since June 1.
| Denver | Homeless shelters in Denver are logging about 1,700 visitors per night, more than they would during the coldest nights of the year. | July 13 |
Updated: July 29 400,000 Coloradans are at risk of evictions. After allowing their eviction moratorium to expire in June, Governor Polis released an executive order to require a 30 day notice before eviction, which legal aid experts claim will only delay the inevitable. According to a weekly survey by the Census, 1 in 5 adults in the state either missed their last housing payment or have little/no confidence of being able to make next month’s housing payment. Updated: July 16
According to the Connecticut Fair Housing Center, there have been more than 2,000 evictions in Connecticut since September. “As many as 45,000 people could be facing eviction in the next two months, so 110,000 people are behind on rent in our state. These numbers are large,” says Madeline Ravich, development director for the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness. From the beginning of the Connecticut moratorium to the end of 2020, 31 eviction cases were filed in New Haven. The most recent annual count found just over 2,900 people experience homelessness in Connecticut as of last year. And nearly two-thirds of Connecticut residents spend at least half their income on housing costs, according to the ACLU of Connecticut. The “Act Establishing a Right to Housing” (SB 194) aims to address housing and homelessness issues exacerbated by COVID-19. The bill would reduce the impact of criminal and eviction history on housing access, increase access to legal counsel for evictions and foreclosures, and more. Facing eviction this winter, Alice attempted to email to Hartford Housing Court the documents needed to qualify for the eviction moratorium program established by the federal government during the pandemic, but her paperwork didn’t arrive. At her hearing on Tuesday, Alice cried as she told a judge she meets all the requirements for the moratorium, to whom at Hartford Housing Court she sent her documents, and that she will be homeless if the judge allows a state marshal to remove her from her one-bedroom apartment in the West End of Hartford.
Updated: March 15 A “no-freeze” shelter in Danielson has been able to accommodate the number of clients who seek shelter, but the prospect of the federal eviction moratorium ending has shelter providers concerned about a potential surge of newly-homeless residents. Updated: February 26 Gov. Ned Lamont extended Connecticut’s eviction moratorium through February 9. Using data collected by the Connecticut Department of Children and Families (DCF) and state court records of evictions, the researchers found that with every additional eviction filing for every 100 occupied homes, there is a 2 percent increase in reports of child maltreatment. These increases were higher in neighborhoods with more low-income households, people of color, and households with children.
Updated: February 5 In Connecticut, more than 107,000 people say they are behind on rent payments, though the CT Fair Housing Center estimates that number is closer to 200,000 statewide. The executive director of the New London Homeless Hospitality Center has housed about 150 people since June, and demand will increase when the eviction moratorium expires. Jamaira Watson, a Stratford woman who faced eviction while suffering from the coronavirus, will be allowed to stay in her home into the new year. Under the agreement, Watson must vacate the apartment she shares with her mother before February 1 or risk eviction. Updated: December 18 According to the Independent’s review of state housing court records filed after October 1, when the most recent version of the moratorium went into effect, a total of 31 New Haven renters have been sued for eviction. Updated: December 11 Governor Ned Lamont and Connecticut Housing Commissioner Seila Mosquera-Bruno announced that the State of Connecticut is opening a second round of funding under the Temporary Rental Housing Assistance Program (TRHAP) to applicants seeking assistance with residential rent payments delayed by financial stress related to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Governor Lamont has allocated $40 million of federal CARES Act money to the program. Connecticut’s shelter capacity is slim going into the winter months. Madeline Ravich of the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness feared that shelter demand will increase once the state eviction moratorium expires on January 1. Updated: December 3 According to the U.S. Census, 23.91% of the adult renters in Connecticut have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. Eight weeks after launching an $800,000 COVID-related rental assistance program, the city of New Haven has not distributed any funds. The programs announced that day included the Coronavirus Assistance and Security Tenant Landlord Emergency (CASTLE) program and the Eviction Resolution Fund. Updated: November 20 Home Connecticut estimates that between $400 million and $1 billion is needed to stave off the expected eviction crisis in the state. The states with the highest numbers of unpaid mortgages and rent are: Mississippi, Louisiana, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Arkansas, Connecticut, Missouri, and West Virginia. Updated: November 13 Gov. Ned Lamont extended the state's eviction moratorium until January 1. Gov. Lamont also announced that he would double funding for the Temporary Rental Housing Assistance Program from $20 million to $40 million. Updated: October 8 130,000 families face evictions between now and December 31 due to COVID-19. Gov. Ned Lamont plans to allocate $10 million for the Temporary Rental Housing Assistance Program in addition to the previous $10 million that he added. Additionally, $.25 million will be added for renters excluded from federal help due to immigration status and $5 million for renters who previously faced eviction. The Connecticut Fair Housing Center noted that $20 million will only benefit about 5,000 households. Updated: September 3 An article in the CT Mirror discusses Connecticut’s looming housing crisis and the overwhelming need for rental assistance. About 1,100 people call each day seeking aid from Connecticut’s coronavirus housing assistance program. Only about 170 of the callers qualify for help under the program’s narrow eligibility parameters. Updated: August 27 A Connecticut-based housing lawyer predicts there will double or triple the normal number of evictions in the coming months. The rise in evictions will disproportionately impact people of color: 70% of Black families rent compared to 30% of white families. 894 evictions have already been filed in Connecticut since the pandemic started. In the third week of July, one in four adults in Connecticut reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, 95,781 renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment.
| Fairfield County | The number of households at risk of housing instability is estimated to have doubled in Fairfield County, from 21,500 to 41,200. | July 26 |
Updated: July 29 140,000 Connecticut tenants weren’t able to cover their June rent. 75% of those tenants are people of color. According to a weekly survey by the Census, 28% of adults in the state either missed their last housing payment or have little/no confidence of being able to make next month’s housing payment. Updated: July 16
According to the U.S. Census, 11% of adults in Delaware either missed last month’s housing payment or have little to no confidence that they can pay next month’s housing payment. Updated: December 3 According to the U.S. Census, 35.83% of the adult renters in Delaware have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. The Delaware courts have a backlog of 2,500 rent-related cases, and some of those are scheduled well into the new year. On November 2, the Justice of the Peace Court launched the Online Dispute Resolution system allowing landlords, tenants, and mediators to connect virtually to begin the process of settling disputes. Updated: November 20 Sussex County received nearly $1 million in CARES Act funding. About $620,000, was set aside for hotel/motel vouchers for Sussex County residents who are homeless, displaced, or quarantined. Updated: October 30 According to the Delaware State Housing Authority, renters who have applied for state assistance have a collective rent deficit of nearly $3 million. Nearly 1,400 eviction cases were filed in Delaware Justice of the Peace Courts between March 16 and August 31. Updated: October 8 In the third week of July, 1 in 5 adults in Delaware reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, 33,321 renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment. Updated: July 29 According to a weekly survey by the Census, 23% of adults in the state either missed their last housing payment or have little/no confidence of being able to make next month’s housing payment. Updated: July 16
Polk County’s COVID-19 Eviction Prevention Program deadline has been extended through March 15. A recent study found that of the nearly 3 million Floridians who are renting, more than 20 percent are behind on payments and could possibly be evicted. At the moment, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does have a federal moratorium on evictions, but it has not stopped evictions from being filed. As of March of this year around Tampa Bay, eviction filings have reached pre-pandemic levels, records show. Nonprofit organizations in Palm Beach County are seeing many tenants facing eviction, despite the federal eviction moratorium. Democratic Sen. Jason Pizzo is pushing a proposal to automatically ensure individuals cannot lose housing during a state of emergency. Pizzo is filing his bill (SB 1548) amid a COVID-19 pandemic that threatened to put residents out on the streets because of widespread economic shutdowns. Orange County predicts the new ERA program could help as many as 8,250 households with average payments of $4,000. In early September, Cristina Velez lost her job running the staffing team on a COVID-19 treatment trial. Faced with a $2,440 rent bill on the Boca Raton home she shares with her daughter, Velez began calling her landlord to ask whether it would give her time to come up with the money. Not once, Velez said, did the landlord or property manager tell her about a nationwide eviction moratorium ordered by the federal government to let tenants stay in their homes if they could not pay their rent. Updated: March 15 Orange County commissioners approved a revision to the county’s rental assistance program that will increase the amount of money available from $4,000 to $10,000 per household. The county received $33.4 million in federal rental assistance, which enabled the boost in funding. The program is scheduled to launch on March 1. The Ambert family has been selling their furniture to raise money in case the landlord is successful in evicting them and they are forced to leave on short notice. Updated: February 26 Under a bill filed by Sen. Shevrin Jones, landlords would not be permitted to deny applicants based on a pandemic-related eviction. The bill, SB 576, would prohibit landlords from refusing to enter into a rental agreement with a prospective tenant solely based on an eviction that occurred during the pandemic. Stout, an analytics firm, estimates between 187,000 and 391,000 renter households in Florida would be at risk of eviction if the CDC’s eviction moratorium expires on January 31. If the eviction moratorium does not get extended again, Panama City alone is looking at more than 400 eviction cases, according to the Panama City Rescue Mission. That could result in thousands of people with no place to live hitting the streets come February. In Leon County, 438 people were evicted in November. According to the Office of the State Courts Administrator, nearly 48,000 evictions were filed in Florida from March 1 through December 31, 2020. Hundreds of Florida renters have lost their homes since the federal eviction moratorium has been in effect. Landlords and property managers have refused to participate in Orange County’s eviction diversion program. Hillsborough County’s first rapid rehousing project under its 10-point pandemic response plan is now complete: a new home for up to 20 Hillsborough families partially funded by $1.25 million of the county’s Coronavirus Relief Fund. Updated: February 5 County Judge Robert Lee says evictions in Broward County could triple in the first three months of 2021, from 5,000 to 15,000. Some landlords “are almost in the same desperate position as the tenant is,” he said. A new report finds 15.6% of Florida’s renting households are at risk of eviction in the next two months. That compares to a national risk of eviction rate of 8.4%, according to AdvisorSmith. In St. Augustine, Nicole Strunk and her husband, who lost their jobs due to COVID-19, have been in and out of court with their landlord, who managed to obtain a writ of possession on their home for January 1, when the CDC eviction moratorium ends. Updated: December 18 In Broward County, there were 21 removal orders served in April versus 416 in September. In October, more than 643 orders of removals were served. Orange County offers landlords the chance to get a few months of their tenants’ basic rent covered using the federal CARES Act funding, the government’s coronavirus relief bill. So far, $6.5 million of the $13 million have been paid out to landlords across the county. But the clock runs out on using the federal money on December 31. Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry, alongside the Jacksonville Bar Association (JBA), is implementing a program to help residents with the prevention of evictions and foreclosures. The program will provide more than $5.1 million to Duval County residents and business owners who may lose their apartment, home, or business location due to the economic impact of COVID-19, according to a release. The Private Equity Stakeholder Project has counted more than 20,000 new eviction cases filed since September by corporate landlords in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, Tennessee, and Texas alone. Updated: December 11 More than 430 writs of possession — the final legal step of an eviction where tenants are removed by sheriffs’ deputies — were ordered in Pinellas County in October, and more than 280 in Hillsborough County. By contrast, no writs were issued in April and May in Pinellas and fewer than 25 were issued in Hillsborough in May and June, when DeSantis’ moratorium largely stayed courts from completing evictions. Updated: December 3 According to the U.S. Census, 31.9% of the adult renters in Florida have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. In March, federal lawmakers approved $250 million CARES Act dollars to help Floridians with housing. So far, the funding, $120 million of which went to the state's housing program and r $120 million of which went to local governments to use for housing aid, has helped more than 21,200 households. Orange County expanded the eligibility requirements for the Eviction Diversion Program. County residents are now eligible to apply for the program if they earn up to 120% of the area median income (AMI), originally, eligible applicants could earn no more than 105% of the AMI. Evictions will resume in "limited cases" in Miami-Dade County after Mayor Carlos A. Gimenez directed police to resume enforcement of writs of possession in all eviction cases filed on or before March 12. Updated: November 20 About 800 evictions were filed in Orange County court in October, according to the Orange County Bar Association's Legal Aid Society. The Jacksonville City Council unanimously passed legislation to provide more than $5 million in CARES Act funding for eviction and foreclosure relief. Since Florida's eviction moratorium expired on October 1, 716 eviction cases have been filed in Duval County. In 2020, 5,649 eviction cases have been filed in Duval County. On Monday, November 2, Charlotte County launched a program that will help prevent evictions. The county, which has distributed about $4 million in rental assistance, is launching the Charlotte CARES Act Eviction Diversion Program to help those they have assisted who are still behind on rent. According to recent Census Pulse Data, the likelihood of eviction and foreclosures are highest in the following regions: District of Columbia, Indiana, Florida, Iowa, Texas, Wyoming, Massachusetts, New Mexico, North Dakota, and Arizona. Updated: November 13 Despite no eviction notices being filed in court, locks were changed on the homes of more than 20 Tampa Park Apartments residents. A report sent to the county at the end of May showed that more than 70 tenants were behind in their rent with arrears totaling more than $100,000. A few weeks after Florida’s eviction moratorium expired, some Orange County residents are worried about looming evictions. Despite the CDC eviction moratorium, Jennifer Valentino Valentino received a three-day-notice from her Orlando apartment complex. From early September to October 17, despite the CDC eviction ban, almost 10,000 eviction actions have been filed in 23 counties in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, and Texas by large corporate landlords. Updated: October 30 Gov. Ron DeSantis' executive order on suspending evictions for Florida tenants expired on September 30. The CDC eviction moratorium covers applicable renters through December 31. Updated: October 8 Corporate landlords, including private equity firms, filed more than 1,500 eviction actions in large counties in Arizona, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, and Texas since the CDC announced it was imposing a moratorium, according to Private Equity Stakeholder Project, an advocacy group. Updated: September 25 Landlords in Broward, Palm Beach, and Miami-Dade counties filed 2,170 evictions cases between August 1 and August 27, despite an eviction moratorium. Updated: September 3 More than 800,000 renters in Florida are at risk of being evicted within weeks. Judges throughout Florida will interpret the various executive orders and eviction protection laws on a case-by-case basis, meaning there is no definite way to predict outcomes. Updated: August 27 A statewide moratorium on evictions and foreclosures signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in late July has not stopped a number of eviction proceedings from moving forward in Duval County. In Duval County, records show 219 evictions during the first week of August alone. On Monday, Aug. 3, nearly 100 cases were filed, marking the start of the first full business week since the moratorium was limited. Updated: August 12 In the third week of July, 31.6% of adults in Florida reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, over eight hundred thousand renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment. Most COVID-19 related evictions have occurred in low-income communities of color, especially in Florida.
| Miami-Dade | 1,533 evictions have been filed in Miami-Dade County between March 1-June 30, despite the moratorium. | July 21 |
| Broward | 1,646 evictions have been filed in Broward County between March 1-June 30, despite the moratorium. | July 21 |
| Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach Counties | Approximately 250,000 tenants in Broward, Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach counties are protected by the federal eviction moratorium, which will expire in less than a month. Nearly 50% of renters in Miami doubt they can make July’s rent. | June 26 |
| Orange County | Renters in Orange County are struggling; the county had to close down its assistance program after 30,000 renters filed applications for $1,000 in rental assistance. | June 29 |
A new study finds Georgia children suffer when their mothers face eviction. Gov. Brian Kemp announced that the State of Georgia has received more than $552 million in stimulus funds through the federal Emergency Rental Assistance Program. DeKalb received $21 million in eviction relief money to distribute. Two days after applications opened, at least 7,000 people had applied for help and the county quickly announced that they would cut off applications the following Monday; in the end, between 8,000 and 9,000 people applied. At one point, Courtney Marshall, a single mother of two, owed $4,500 in rent. “I’ve got it down to about $1,700 now,” she says. “I’m just trying to get it down to zero, but it’s hard.” Updated: March 15 Fulton County is developing its plan to distribute the $18 million in rental assistance it has received from the U.S. Department of the Treasury. The county plans to launch the rent relief program on March 1. DeKalb County launched its $21 million rent relief program on Friday, February 12. Six hours after DeKalb County opened applications for its new $21 million emergency rental assistance program on February 12, more than 2,000 individuals had already applied. The county also received 17,000 website visits, 3,700 emails, and 350 calls related to the program. A judge in Carroll County, Georgia, does not believe the federal government has authority over states and is allowing evictions to proceed despite the CDC order. The magistrates in Carroll and Coweta counties are not halting evictions. Augusta Mayor Hardie Davis is asking commissioners to consider giving a 15% tax break to some landlords. Mayor Davis says it would be only for landlords who did not evict their tenants during the pandemic and who provided affordable housing. Thousands of Augusta families have fallen through the cracks of the federal eviction moratorium. The Richmond County Marshal’s Office served 2,357 households with eviction papers during 2020 in every month except April. Augusta-Richmond County Commissioners recently approved over $6 million in federal rental and utility assistance. Updated: February 26 Georgia’s eviction process is one of the fastest in the country. As soon as tenants are late on rent, landlords can demand possession of the property and begin the eviction case at the courthouse. Georgia Advancing Communities Together is backing a bill that would add something like a grace period to Georgia law. As part of the demand for possession, landlords would have to give tenants seven days to catch up on past due rent. Habersham County Chief Magistrate Judge Gerald Johnson said there have been 186 eviction claims filed at the Magistrate’s Court office since March 2020. Of the 15,139 households in Habersham, 11,848 are owner-occupied and the remaining 3,291 are rental units. Of those, it is estimated that 2,977 are paying rent. Updated: February 5 With the CDC eviction moratorium expiring at the end of December, up to 160,000 Georgians are at risk of eviction. Stout estimates there is anywhere between $300-680 million in unpaid rent just in Georgia. Saving Our Atlanta Region’s Residents (SOARR) is asking landlords to forgive a portion of back rent in exchange for SOARR funding to cover the rest. Any landlord who receives funding from SOARR must agree not to pursue eviction for those tenants for financial reasons for the time they are participating in our program. Updated: December 18 Sally Lee and Robert Cho’s power line to their house was cut off and they believe their landlord is trying to push them out. The couple owes $9,000 in back rent after losing income due to COVID-19. The Private Equity Stakeholder Project has counted more than 20,000 new eviction cases filed since September by corporate landlords in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, Tennessee, and Texas alone. Updated: December 11 According to the U.S. Census, 11% of adults in Georgia either missed last month’s housing payment or have little to no confidence that they can pay next month’s housing payment. When landlords file evictions in Georgia, tenants feel the effects for years. Because Georgia does not seal eviction records, eviction notices could follow residents for up to seven years–the amount of time allowed under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Some eviction proceedings in Gwinnett have resumed, and representatives from HomeFirst Gwinnett, a homelessness and affordable housing initiative, have been at the courthouse every week to help those facing eviction. HomeFirst partnered with Gwinnett County on Project RESET, which will use CARES Act funds to pay past due rent for up to 400 families. Updated: December 3 According to the U.S. Census, 38.17% of the adult renters in Georgia have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. New research finds that in some parts of rural Georgia, the eviction process is continuing as usual. In Georgia, nearly a quarter of all renters did not make last month’s rent payment, the fourth highest in the nation. Gwinnett County officials plan to use CARES Act funding to make past due rent payments for residents in danger of imminent evictions through a new Project RESET Program. The payments will be made directly to landlords and the first phase will focus on 400 active dispossessory filings which are currently pending in Gwinnett County Magistrate Court. Atlanta is spending $22 million in CARES Act funding on rent, mortgage, and utility assistance. When an application for rental assistance opened up about 10,000 people applied in about two months and more than half had to be turned away because they were applying from outside the fairly small city limits of Atlanta. Updated: November 20 The states with the highest numbers of unpaid mortgages and rent are: Mississippi, Louisiana, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Arkansas, Connecticut, Missouri, and West Virginia. Updated: November 13 In Atlanta, the Efficiency Lodge illegally evicted about two dozen residents. The CDC eviction moratorium does not apply to motels and hotels, and some properties, such as Efficiency Lodge, have argued they fall in that category even though their properties function as permanent housing. From early September to October 17, despite the CDC eviction ban, almost 10,000 eviction actions have been filed in 23 counties in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, and Texas by large corporate landlords. Updated: October 30 Wendy Glasbrenner, managing attorney at the Gainesville regional office of the Georgia Legal Services Program, reported that there is confusion about the qualifications for the CDC eviction moratorium. Updated: October 8 Across Fulton, DeKalb, Cobb, Gwinnett, and Clayton counties, landlords have sought almost 18,000 evictions since March 1, according to a new tracker from the Atlanta Regional Commission. Some counties have put a pause on most of their eviction cases as they figure out how to permanently address the CDC moratorium. Corporate landlords, including private equity firms, filed more than 1,500 eviction actions in large counties in Arizona, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, and Texas since the CDC announced it was imposing a moratorium, according to Private Equity Stakeholder Project, an advocacy group. Updated: September 25 Between August 23 and August 29, there were 1,546 eviction filings across Fulton, DeKalb, Cobb, Gwinnett, and Clayton counties. With the CDC eviction moratorium, local advocates hope that Atlanta’s new $22 million rental relief program can help to prevent a flood of evictions once the moratorium expires. The money will ensure more than 6,700 residents who have lost income due to the pandemic can receive assistance with past due rent, utility, or security deposits up to a household limit of $3,000. Updated: September 8 Stout Risuss Ross, a consulting firm, estimates that 381,000 Georgians will face evictions as most protections expire at the end of August. Courts in Fulton, Cobb, and DeKalb counties have received more than 10,000 evictions since mid-March. Ellie Thaxton of the Clarksburg Economic Relief Fund worries that families facing evictions will affect children as they start the school year. Thaxton predicted that the most vulnerable members of society will be impacted by the evictions. Updated: September 3 The Georgia Recorder reports that eviction hearings are rising across Georgia after the supplemental unemployment benefit expired at the end of July and federal eviction protections expire on August 24. More than 10,000 evictions have been on hold in metro Atlanta during the pandemic, but courts in DeKalb, Gwinnett, Fulton, and Cobb counties have either recently resumed landlord-tenant hearings or will resume hearings in the coming days. Fulton, usually considered Georgia’s busiest eviction court, has a backlog of over 9,000 cases and will hold virtual hearings, rather than in-person hearings, until at least November. Updated: August 27 More than 10,000 eviction cases have been on hold in metro Atlanta during the health crisis, but courts in DeKalb and Gwinnett counties resumed landlord-tenant hearings this week. Fulton and Cobb plan to restart next week. Judges generally plan to start with cases that were filed before the pandemic hit but have not yet been ruled on. Updated: August 12 In the third week of July, 28.3% of adults in Georgia reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, 465,246 renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment.
| Fulton, DeKalb, and Gwinnett Counties | 6,000 evictions have been filed across these three counties since the pandemic began in mid-March. Housing advocates are concerned that many tenants did not know their chance to submit a defense in their eviction case and request a hearing (which could delay the process by a few weeks) had been extended from seven days to several months, but that the extra time expired last week. So far, tenants in Fulton, DeKalb, and Gwinnett have submitted letters to request hearings in only one-fifth of those cases. | July 23 |
Updated: July 29 According to a weekly survey by the Census, 1 in 3 adults in the state either missed their last housing payment or have little/no confidence of being able to make next month’s housing payment.
| Fulton County | 2,000 eviction cases are pending in Fulton County. | June 19 |
Hawaii lawmakers are considering implementing a landlord-tenant mediation program in an effort to prevent a flood of post-moratorium eviction proceedings from overwhelming the courts and driving up homelessness in the state. House Bill 1376 and its companion Senate Bill 1388 would require landlords to wait 15 days instead of five between issuing an eviction notice and filing a summary possession case in court. Updated: March 15 The Department of Hawaiian Home Lands (DHHL) received a federal funding allocation of $2.4 million for rental assistance. The DHHL COVID-19 relief program began accepting applications on Monday, February 8. Gov. David Ige issued an emergency proclamation, extending the eviction moratorium for 60 days until April 13. According to the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization, 30,000 households in Hawaii were late on rent last November. State housing committee vice-chair Rep. Troy Hashimoto is authoring a bill that would take the eviction process out of the courtroom by first requiring tenants and landlords to attend mediation through a designated community mediation center. Kristin Hennig received a 45-day notice from her landlord around Christmas time to move out because he's selling. Claiming she never missed a payment, Hennig says finding a new home wasn't easy "One person told me I'm getting up to 2,500 people responding to my ad. That was scary too, knowing it's that hard to find a place. The competition is out there," Hennig said. Updated: February 26 More than 13,000 have received federal rental subsidies through the state, and the Hawaii Housing Authority expanded the Section 8 program to add 750 more voucher recipients. The $6 million Rent Assistance and Mediation Program (RAMP), administered by Catholic Charities Hawaii, focuses on helping tenants avoid eviction by providing rental payments for unpaid rent and mediation services. Governor David Ige imposed an eviction moratorium through February 14, but it has loopholes. Landlords cannot raise rents or ask people who do not pay rent to leave, but they can move back into their units or sell their properties. Updated: February 5 Governor David Ige signed a 15th COVID-19 emergency proclamation that extends the state eviction moratorium until at least December 31. Updated: December 3 According to the U.S. Census, 20.96% of the adult renters in Hawaii have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. The Rapid Response Landlord-Tenant Mediation Program began in May to solve disputes between tenants and landlords struggling to make ends meet during the COVID-19 pandemic. Through the program, mediation centers on both sides of the island have opened 98 cases between landlords and tenants. Updated: November 20 The University of Hawai‘i Economic Research Organization published a survey finding a 10% increase in rent delinquencies and a 5% increase in vacant units. On October 2, the Kaua‘i County Housing Agency announced rent-relief and housing-assistance programs for renters and homeowners who experienced reductions in incomes caused by the COVID-19. This funding was provided by the federal CARES Act and administered on Kaua‘i by Catholic Charities in Hawai‘i. Updated: November 13 On October 13, Gov. David Ige signed a 14th supplementary emergency proclamation that extends the COVID-19 emergency period through November 30. More than 38% of Hawaii landlords surveyed are struggling to stay profitable and the residential vacancy rate has more than doubled, up to 9.2% compared with 3.9% prior to the pandemic. Ten percent of landlords in the survey have contemplated selling since the pandemic, which could shrink Hawaii’s limited rental housing stock and drive up prices over the long term. The state stopped accepting applications for rental or mortgage assistance after receiving nearly 20,000 applications. Fewer than 1,000 households have received assistance, according to the state, which is bringing on extra staff to process the backlog in applications. Updated: October 30 On September 17, Gov. David Ige announced that the state eviction moratorium would be extended through the end of October. The first phase of rent relief funding, amounting to $50 million, has already received over 8,000 applications and over 100,000 hits to the HIHousingHelp website. The program is currently set up to provide assistance for rent payments between Aug. 1 and Dec. 28. Dan O’Meara, a lawyer with the Legal Aid Society of Hawaii, noted that “ there’s a misconception that a landlord can send a regular 45-day notice to terminate a month-to-month tenancy after the moratorium ends…Almost all 45-day notices for month-to-month tenants are prohibited under the governor’s emergency proclamations separate from the moratorium. In addition, there is a prohibition against rent increases through the proclamations.” Updated: September 25 Gov. David Ige announced a new program that will use $100 million in federal funding to provide rent relief and housing assistance to residents financially impacted by COVID-19. The first phase, budgeted for $50 million, will provide eligible renters with up to $1,500 per month in Maui, Kauai and Hawaii counties and up to $2,000 per month on Oahu. Payments will be made directly to landlords and can be lump sums for up to three months at once, Ige said. The remaining $50 million will support the program’s second phase covering rent and mortgage costs from the beginning of March. Updated: September 18 Despite the extended eviction moratorium, residents are reporting that landlords are using harassment and threats to force people out of their homes. Legal groups, including the Medical-Legal Partnership for Children in Hawaii, are calling for increased enforcement of the moratorium. Updated: September 3 Despite the state’s eviction moratorium, attorneys who represent low-income communities say that landlords have been forcing people who can’t pay rent out anyway, without going to court or calling the sheriff and there has been little enforcement from the state. Updated: August 27 Despite Hawaii’s eviction moratorium, tenant advocates report that landlords have been using illegal tactics to evict tenants. Advocates are also concerned that a new rule approved by the Hawaii Public Housing Authority to enact strict social distancing requirements will result in increased evictions across the state. Updated: August 12 In the third week of July, 22.4% of adults in Hawaii reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, 39,330 renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment. Updated: July 29 21,500 renter households in Hawaii are at-risk of losing their homes, with 7,500 of these households at "extreme risk.” An estimated backlog of 800 eviction cases will begin being processed on August 1. According to a weekly survey by the Census, 29% of adults in the state either missed their last housing payment or have little/no confidence of being able to make next month’s housing payment. Updated: July 16
Jesse Tree, an eviction prevention nonprofit working in Ada and Canyon County, teamed up with University of Idaho’s College of Law to provide four legal interns to help those at risk for eviction. This year, Jesse Tree and University of Idaho interns have already worked together to serve nearly 20 households in eviction court. They helped 30 households last fall, according to Jesse Tree. In 2021, there have been over 200 eviction hearings in the Treasure Valley. According to the group’s 2020 annual report, Jesse Tree spent $449,510 in rental assistance for 2020. The group gave financial assistance to 278 households in Ada County and 102 in Canyon County and provided 950 households with some form of case management. Apartment List says Boise rent prices grew by 11.7% since the coronavirus pandemic began in March 2020. That increase is the most among all large and midsize cities. The Idaho Senate unanimously voted to authorize the spending of $175 million in rental assistance from funds the state was granted under a coronavirus relief bill signed into law in December. “There were over 1,800 eviction filings in the state of Idaho last year. The majority of those happened because simply people can’t pay their rent, and this is the case now more than ever before for our state,” said Sen. Ali Rabe, D-Boise. Nearly 700 applications for rental assistance have been submitted in Ada County since the window to apply for financial aid opened two weeks ago. Ada County and the city of Boise each received roughly $12 million in federal COVID-19 relief funds to help renters. Updated: March 15 As many as 76,000 households in Idaho have struggled to make rent payments during the pandemic, and 34,000 households may soon face the threat of eviction, according to the Idaho Center for Fiscal Policy. To address the housing crisis, the state is set to receive $200 million in emergency rental assistance — their share of the $25 billion in housing aid in the Covid relief bill passed by Congress in December. The Idaho Legislature’s budget committee approved $175 million in federal funding for emergency rental assistance stemming from people struggling to pay rent during the coronavirus pandemic. The City of Boise announced a new emergency rental assistance program for residents impacted by COVID-19 and is now urging residents to take advantage of it if they need help. The city received $11.5 million in grant funding from the US Department of Treasury as part of the second COVID-19 relief package. Updated: February 26 The CDC issued a temporary moratorium on eviction hearings in September for people unable to work due to COVID-19. Since then, there have been about 300 eviction hearings scheduled in Ada and Canyon County. A recent United Way survey on the impacts of COVID-19 in Southeast Idaho revealed that three out of every five local people have experienced some form of financial need during the pandemic, with nearly 70% of asset-limited and income-constrained families with earnings of less than $50,000 annually indicating they have only one month or less of savings to pay bills. Updated: February 5 The Idaho Housing and Finance Association (IHFA) stopped taking applications for rental assistance on December 11. So far IFHA has assisted about 4,300 households, which is nearly 14,000 individuals, with rental assistance and utility assistance, and that has been around $12.5 million that has been dispersed to help that group of individuals. Updated: December 18 Requests for rental assistance on Jesse Tree's housing crisis line have gone up 300% during the pandemic and they are hearing from 500 families every month. Updated: December 11 According to the U.S. Census, 24.33% of the adult renters in Idaho have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. Updated: November 20 More than a dozen evictions in Nez Perce County have been completed so far this year despite federal protections for renters enacted during the pandemic. In the same time frame in 2019, 12 evictions took place, and in 2018 10 took place. Updated: November 13 The Canyon County Trial Court Administrator is waiting to receive funding to begin its eviction court mediation program. There are already eviction court mediation programs in Ada County and Idaho Falls. Updated: October 30 Idaho Falls and Pocatello are among 9 Idaho cities to receive part of a statewide total $6.1 million in CARES Act funding to be used for rental assistance. Boise, Caldwell, Coeur D’Alene, Lewiston, Meridian, Nampa, and Twin Falls also received CARES Act funding. In Boise, Jesse Tree, an eviction-prevention organization and the Idaho Apartment Association are worried about what could happen once the CDC eviction moratorium expires. They want financial relief for renters or their landlords. Updated: September 25 Housing advocates in Idaho fear a tsunami of evictions once the CDC eviction moratorium expires. Howard Belodoff is an attorney who works for Idaho Legal Aid Services, an organization that helps people facing eviction, described the moratorium as” a Band-Aid. So (renters) won’t get put out on the street until January…The dam’s going to break and we keep on just putting up sandbags.” Updated: September 18 Evictions are rising in Idaho. There are 67 eviction hearings scheduled, the highest number on record this year. Updated: September 3 Eviction hearings are surging in Idaho, where data shows 53 hearings in various Idaho courts the first week of August, the most in one week since the start of May. Of those, 14 are in North Idaho counties, the highest number in that region since the beginning of June. There are more eviction hearings set in Idaho for this week (August 18) than there have been since May, with more than 50 on the docket. Updated: August 27 Hundreds of thousands of renters in the Idaho region are vulnerable to eviction. Updated: August 12 In the third week of July, 23.5% of adults in Idaho reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, 44,583 renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment. Updated: July 29 15% of households haven’t been able to pay rent during the pandemic and/or have little confidence they will be able to do so moving forward. Local advocates predict a "a lineup in the courts of folks being evicted" after federal aid expires at the end of July. Updated: July 16
Gov. Pritzker says he will extend the statewide moratorium on evictions for another 30 days. The Illinois Supreme Court announced a new order regarding eviction cases. The new order authorizes and encourages every Illinois judicial circuit to establish early resolution programs to allow for alternative dispute resolution of eviction cases, like mediation and online dispute resolution. "Families have been struggling to afford their housing," said Rep. Will Guzzardi (D-Chicago) during the Illinois House Affordable Housing Committee’s meeting. "They have been struggling with homelessness. They have been doubling up living with friends or relatives, crashing on people's couches simply because they have not been able to have access to stable housing." Winnebago County has received $8.3 million from the U.S. Treasury Department's Emergency Rental Assistance Program to help people stay in their homes and landlords receive backed rent. "The money will be distributed throughout all of Winnebago County," Anqunette Parham, the Executive Director of Rockford's Human Services Department, explains. "The target is between 2,000 and 3,000 households." According to a survey by Chicago's Neighborhood Building Owners Alliance, 71% of landlords surveyed in September said they had tenants behind on rent. That number rose to 79% just three months later. Updated: March 15 Gov. J.B. Pritzker extended Illinois’ ban on evictions caused by the coronavirus pandemic until March 6. Champaign County’s Regional Planning Commission is helping renters and landlords catch up on their bills. The county expects to help up to 1,500 families, so far they are approaching 700 families assisted. A report published by Loyola University Chicago and the Lawyers’ Committee for Better Housing estimated that as many as 21,000 evictions could have been filed in the city in January if the federal moratorium had not been put into place. That is more potential evictions in one month than all that were filed in Chicago in 2019, at 18,200. When Luz Franco got sick with COVID-19, she missed work and knew she would not have the money to pay the rent on her apartment in Brighton Park, but she figured she could give what she had to her landlord until she was able to catch up. Her landlord said she was a year behind on rent, and soon she found the heat had been turned off in her apartment, and one day her son found some of their belongings on the front lawn. Updated: February 26 Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced that Illinois’ ban on evictions would be extended until February 6. Updated: February 5 Gov. J.B. Pritzker extended Illinois’ ban on evictions until January 11. Updated: December 18 The Early Resolution Program — the first of several programs operated under the new Cook County Legal Aid for Housing and Debt (CCLAHD) initiative — will provide free legal assistance, counseling, pre-court mediation, and case management for residents and landlords dealing with evictions and delinquent property taxes. Several states ― including Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Vermont ― have secured CARES Act funding to expand tenant representation in eviction proceedings. Updated: December 3 According to the U.S. Census, 30.5% of the adult renters in Illinois have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. Governor JB Pritzker extended the state moratorium on evictions until December 12. So far, the state has distributed $182 million of the original $300 million in rental assistance to more than 40,000 renters. In recent months, nearly a third of Illinoisans have had difficulty paying for usual household expenses, and about the same number said they were behind on rent or mortgage payments and at risk of eviction or foreclosure. Updated: November 20 Chicago has given out more than $35 million to renters and landlords so far. Mom-and-pop landlords in Illinois say they are struggling without rent payments from their tenants and the rent relief support they need. Updated: November 13 Chicago has apportioned $33 million in rental assistance for 10,000 homes, and Cook County has authorized $20 million to help 4,400 suburban households. The eviction moratorium has prevented about 1,850 evictions in Cook County. On October 16, Gov. J.B. Pritzker extended the statewide eviction moratorium through November 14. Updated: October 30 In three days, over 620 tenants applied for Springfield’s $400,000 in federal funds for rental assistance. No funds have been disbursed yet. Updated: October 8 In Illinois, Gov. J.B. Pitzer extended the state eviction moratorium through October 17. On September 18, Madison County Circuit Court Chief Judge Bill Mudge issued an order that stays all eviction orders in the county until January 1. In Madison County, landlords have filed nearly 200 eviction cases since the governor’s moratorium took effect. Some judgments have already been made ordering that tenants pay back rent or be evicted. The decision to continue eviction proceedings since April left renters confused and frustrated after thinking they were safe from official filings. Johnson, 56, consistently paid his monthly $485 rent in the months leading up to March, he now owes $2,000 in back rent. Hartmann Realtors Inc. refuses to negotiate an alternative payment plan and is seeking to evict Johnson. Kristine Hartmann, of Hartmann Realtors Inc., filed eviction lawsuits against Johnson and 15 other tenants during the moratorium largely because the courts were accepting them. Updated: September 25 It is estimated that at least half a million households in Illinois are struggling to pay rent because of lost income from COVID-19. Applications for the State of Illinois' rental assistance program far exceeded the amount of assistance available. Updated: September 18 In June, Illinois ranked third in the nation for rent deferrals. Statewide, 24% of Illinois renters deferred or did not pay rent for July, according to the bureau’s July 16-21 survey, part of its weekly look at the impact of COVID-19 on the nation. The state’s eviction moratorium is set to expire Aug. 22, meaning landlords can move forward with evicting tenants for nonpayment. Updated: August 12 In the third week of July, 27.9% of adults in Illinois reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, 44,583 renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment. Updated: July 29 According to a weekly survey by the Census, 1 in 4 adults in the state either missed their last housing payment or have little/no confidence of being able to make next month’s housing payment.
| Chicago | Requests for eviction assistance have doubled in Chicago, compared to last year. | June 21 |
The Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority announced it will begin accepting applications for the Indiana Emergency Rental Assistance (IERA) program after receiving the updated guidance from the Treasury Department. The pandemic has exacerbated housing insecurity and homelessness in Indianapolis. Indianapolis ranks sixth in the country for eviction filings during the pandemic, and the pandemic has made it more difficult for homeless shelters to provide services. The Eviction Lab continues to monitor Indianapolis and South Bend. On January 14, Indiana Lawyer reported that our state “has tallied 26,561 eviction filings from March 15, 2020, to January 10, 2021” outpacing “the four other states being tracked — Connecticut, Delaware Minnesota, and Missouri — with Missouri coming in a distant second at 16,068 filings.” The Hamilton County Court Administrator said as of February 19, 111 eviction cases have been filed in Hamilton County for 2021. In 2019, there were 1318 evictions filed; and in 2020, 458 evictions. The Indiana House voted 67-32 to join the Senate in overriding Holcomb's veto of last year's Senate Bill 148 and to immediately enact the measure notwithstanding the governor's objections. The new law gives landlords the right to bring expedited eviction actions against tenants for nonpayment of rent, or for violating nearly any health or safety component of the rental agreement. A new study of housing instability in Marion County examines evictions before and during the pandemic. The study from the Center for Research on Inclusion and Social Policy, or CRISP, at the Indiana University Public Policy Institute found that a majority of evictions consistently occur in Black and brown communities during the decade leading up to the pandemic. There is some evidence that the predicted wave of COVID-19 evictions is already building, but if it crashes at any point during 2021, the Marion County communities identified are very likely to require additional support and resources. Fort Wayne received more than $8 million in funding for the emergency rental assistance program from the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Updated: March 15 There are bipartisan concerns that an Indiana bill that would allow landlords to apply for the state’s COVID-19 rental assistance program on behalf of their tenants could prevent renters from receiving aid. A woman facing eviction whose landlord denied rental assistance through the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority says the proposed bill puts “the power in the landlords’ hands yet again.” Hope of Southern Indiana gave $102,937.92 to families in need of housing assistance in the past year, a stark increase from the $13,000 handed out in the year before. “The eviction rate in Monroe County is up 28% from what it normally is. So eviction rates, even during a pandemic, even with moratoria, is still high and growing during the pandemic,” said Brandon Beeler, director of the Housing Law Center at Indiana Legal Services. Sherry Mayden is a single, unemployed mother of two young daughters, who is currently battling cancer. She said her family savings and unemployment benefits were running short in the fall, and by December she was unable to pay her $925 rent for her home in Newburgh. Anna Rae Gilbert and her two daughters are facing eviction from their Hammond home after her unemployment ended because of a multistate verification issue. Once she was notified of the eviction, Gilbert said she immediately applied for rental assistance through the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority (IHCDA), but according to an email from IHCDA, her application was denied because her “landlord has informed our staff that they are unwilling to participate in our program at this time.” Updated: February 26 The last week the state eviction moratorium was in place, August 9 through August 16, the number of eviction petitions filed totaled 434. The following week, August 16 through 23, when the moratorium had ended, filings spiked to 2,775. After the pandemic left him without a consistent job, Levi Morrow is thousands of dollars behind on rent. Morrow received an eviction notice before Congress extended the CDC eviction moratorium through January 31. He plans to put his stimulus check directly to rent, but will still owe thousands in back rent. Updated: February 5 About 7,300 families have been threatened with losing their homes in Indianapolis during the pandemic. Andrew Bradley, policy director at Prosperity Indiana and a member of the NLIHC, said the CARES Act rent relief has been inadequate to help the estimated 100,000 to 268,000 Indiana households at-risk for eviction and the state's use of CARES Act funds has not gone far enough. Updated: December 18 More than $26 million in rental assistance has been distributed since July to help Indianapolis residents who are facing financial challenges due to COVID-19. The deadline to apply for rental assistance through the City of Indianapolis was December 2 and landlords have until December 9 to complete the landlord portion of the application. After losing his job and falling $1,300 behind on rent due to COVID-19, Levi Morrow fears that himself, his wife, and child will be evicted once the CDC eviction moratorium expires. Updated: December 11 According to the U.S. Census, 33.22% of the adult renters in Indiana have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. Updated: November 20 As many as 313,000 Indiana households are now at risk of eviction. The Neighborhood Christian Legal Clinic and the City of Indianapolis have partnered to create a new online tool to walk renters at risk of eviction through the CDC verification process. According to recent Census Pulse Data, the likelihood of eviction and foreclosures are highest in the following regions: District of Columbia, Indiana, Florida, Iowa, Texas, Wyoming, Massachusetts, New Mexico, North Dakota, and Arizona. Without another stimulus or access to more rental assistance, Elkhart residents fear they will face evictions. Updated: November 13 A new study published by the National Council of State Housing Agencies estimates that 180,000-250,000 Indiana households are unable to pay rent and there will be about 150,000 eviction filings after the CDC eviction moratorium expires. Using CARES Act funding, Indianapolis expects to assist about 15,000 households by the end of December. After not accepting applications for months, Indiana is again offering help to Hoosiers who are facing the threat of eviction. The state’s rental assistance program has $15 million in CARES Act funding, but is considered underfunded due to the expected demand. The state reopened its online rental assistance portal but rolled out new emergency aid requirements that tenant advocates said would shrink the pool of eligible applicants. IndianaHousingNow.org began accepting applications for a $15 million emergency rental assistance program CARES Act funding. Updated: October 30 In Indiana, more than 36,000 people applied for state rental assistance. As of late August, about 25,000 people sat on the county's waiting list. Updated: October 8 Monroe County Circuit Court Judge Catherine Stafford said the county usually sees about 700 to 800 evictions per year, but this year there have only been a couple hundred from before March and a few others after. “January is going to be busy,” she said. Diane Walker, executive director and attorney at District 10 Pro Bono Project, said a government program for rent assistance would be more effective in preventing evictions. Updated: September 25 Experts estimate that 313,000 Hoosiers representing 42% of all renters could face eviction when the moratorium ends. In Indianapolis, that number could reach 34,000 renters, according to researchers at the Polis Center at Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis. Updated: September 18 Governor Eric Holcomb announced on August 19 that Indiana’s rental assistance program will stop accepting applications on August 26, despite receiving more than 30,000 applications since it opened five weeks ago -- nearly three times the number of applications originally expected. Less than a week after Governor Eric Holcomb allowed Indiana’s eviction moratorium to expire on August 14, hundreds of Hoosiers have been served eviction notices. A survey of small claims court cases in Marion County found nearly 600 filings this week, and most of them are evictions. “Unfortunately, this is just what we expected to see,” said Andrew Bradley, policy director at Prosperity Indiana, an NLIHC state partner. Indiana state leaders are working to determine how President Trump’s executive orders will impact low-income renters at risk of eviction. “President Donald Trump’s orders do not protect Hoosiers from evictions,” said Andrew Bradley of Prosperity Indiana. “Unless there is a moratorium put in place or real emergency rental assistance provided from Congress, somewhere between 569,000 to 720,000 Hoosiers could end up being evicted.” An estimated 600 eviction cases are pending in Allen County, Indiana, and 234 new cases have been filed since Governor Eric Holcomb allowed the eviction moratorium to expire. The Hoosier Housing Needs Coalition, an advocacy group that has urged Governor Holcomb to track eviction data as part of Indiana’s effort to combat the coronavirus, estimates up to 720,000 renters are in danger of losing their homes. More than one hundred tenants across Greater Lafayette have received eviction notices in less than a week after Indiana’s moratorium was lifted. “We have added additional court time to process evictions,” said Tippecanoe Magistrate Judge Daniel Moore. “We are prepared to hear 100 to 200 evictions per week if necessary.” Around 19,000 tenants are on a waiting list for Marion County’s Rental Assistance Program. A representative of Indiana Legal Services, a nonprofit law firm that helps low-income residents, is concerned about an impending flood of evictions after Governor Eric Holcomb allowed the state’s eviction moratorium to expire on August 14. Updated: August 27 State eviction protections and a state moratorium on utility shutoffs expired August 14, leaving an estimated 200,000 people without assistance. Updated: August 17 The Kokomo Housing Authority, which oversees 500 federally subsidized housing units in the city, has already seen a spike in the number of people asking for assistance, and that will likely increase once the statewide eviction moratorium lifts. Advocates, such as the Hoosier Housing Needs Coalition, argue that the Indiana COVID-19 Rental Assistance Program will not meet the overwhelming need for assistance. Updated: August 12 In the third week of July, 24% of adults in Indiana reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, 288,184 renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment. An estimated 212,000 evictions will be filed in the next four months. The emergency rental assistance programs for the state and the City of Indianapolis opened on July 13, quickly receiving thousands more applications than they could serve. Under the current programs, over 200,000 households who need assistance won't receive it, putting them at risk of eviction and homelessness. Updated: July 29 As many as 258,000 Hoosiers are at risk of eviction. According to a weekly survey by the Census, about 1 in 3 adults in the state either missed their last housing payment or have little/no confidence of being able to make next month’s housing payment. Updated: July 16
A proposed bill offers protection to manufactured home residents fearing unfair eviction Governor Kim Reynolds announced the availability of an eligibility precheck for the new Iowa Rent and Utility Assistance Program, which will begin accepting full applications in March. The State of Iowa was awarded $195 million for the program through the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021, which was passed by Congress in late 2020. Already this year, Iowa City's Domestic Violence Intervention Program has prevented 14 individuals and families from being evicted or becoming homeless in Johnson County. Updated: March 15 On January 27, Waypoint conducted an annual street count in Cedar Rapids. They said they found 19 people sleeping outside, the highest number seen in her several years. Updated: February 26 Though the monetary assistance and extension are working to prevent mass evictions of renters throughout the country, eviction cases have not stopped entirely during the pandemic. In Cerro Gordo County and across Iowa, eviction cases are as frequent as they have been at any point over the past year. The Iowa Supreme Court issued a Supervisory Order supplementing previous forcible-and-detainer-related supervisory orders related to COVID-19. The new order extends the duration of the eviction moratorium issued on October 2 through January 31, 2021. Iowa Legal Aid saw a 200% increase in eviction cases in 2020 over 2019's filings. Iowa housing and homeless service providers are struggling to meet the ongoing demand for rental assistance and transitional housing. Some families avoided homelessness by continuing to live in buildings damaged by the August derecho, but winter weather is forcing them out of their units. In March, Melanie Adams quit her job at a grocery store because she did not want to contract COVID-19. Adams fell behind on her bills and is one of more than 61,000 people in Iowa behind on rent, according to a survey by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Updated: February 5 Throughout Iowa, 35 groups will work with a total of $8.8 million from the Emergency Solutions Grant Program through the federal CARES Act. The funding is meant to help people at risk of getting evicted or who have already lost their homes. The rental assistance provided under this program will be available to applicants through September 2022 or until the funds are fully exhausted. Instead, tenants should locate the applicable partner agencies in their area covered by the Emergency Solutions Grant program by entering their county within the County Finder Tool on the program’s website and then call the local agencies. The Mason City Housing Authority is one of a few agencies in North Iowa aimed to help meet the housing needs of low-income families, within Mason City city limits. Executive director Cathy Burtness says her office has received some applicants to the program and other forms of assistance, though there is a bit of a backlog the agency is working through. Nearly 13,000 Iowans have received $30 million in total from the state's Eviction and Foreclosure Protection Program, but that number is low compared to the estimated need. The National Low Income Housing Coalition says 99,082 Iowans are in an extremely low-income household, making no more than $25,000 a year for a 4 person household. Updated: December 18 The $800,000 given to the Polk County Housing Trust Fund from the Board of Supervisors prevented 373 evictions. That helped 601 people, including 396 children, stay in their homes. There were more than 100 eviction hearings scheduled for November 30 alone, and not enough funds to cover the remaining demand for rental assistance. Updated: December 11 Governor Reynolds announced an additional allocation of CARES Act funds to support Iowa renters and homeowners at-risk of eviction or foreclosure due to a COVID-19-related loss of income. The Iowa Eviction and Foreclosure Prevention program has been allocated a total of $37.4 million, with approximately $8 million remaining available. The deadline to apply for rent and mortgage assistance, as well as utility assistance through the Iowa Residential Utility Disruption Prevention program, is December 4. Updated: December 3 According to the U.S. Census, 27.67% of the adult renters in Iowa have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. 54 Iowa organizations have signed a letter to Governor Kim Reynolds asking for $80 million more in funding to help prevent evictions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Currently, 51,000-104,000 households in the state are at risk of eviction. Updated: November 20 According to recent Census Pulse Data, the likelihood of eviction and foreclosures are highest in the following regions: District of Columbia, Indiana, Florida, Iowa, Texas, Wyoming, Massachusetts, New Mexico, North Dakota, and Arizona. Updated: November 13 So far, a new eviction prevention program prevented the evictions of 249 Polk County residents—including 131 children. Polk County had a 61 percent increase in eviction cases since mid-March. Only about $500,000 remains in Iowa's $20 million Eviction and Foreclosure Prevention Program. The Iowa Finance Authority reported 7,635 renters and 315 homeowners had received assistance through the program. The Iowa program providing short-term rental and mortgage assistance has received an infusion of $9 million from CARES Act funding to keep it going after its initial round of more than $20 million in funding ran low. Calls to HOME Inc. for rental assistance and tenant-landlord questions skyrocketed during the month of September, increasing from about 120 calls per week at the start of the month to more than 200 at the end. Updated: October 30 Sara Buck, the City of Cedar Rapids' Housing Program Manager, who spoke at NLIHC’s national call on coronavirus, disasters, housing, and homelessness, said the number of people needing rental assistance is increasing. Buck’s program in Cedar Rapids has helped over 200 families with $340 thousand in rental and utility payments. Updated: October 8 Polk County received $800,000 in CARES Act funding to provide emergency rental assistance low-barrier rental assistance that can cover rent through the end of September and as far back as March 15. Since the program began September 1, Iowa Legal Aid executive director Nick Smithberg said the program has helped prevent 61 evictions affecting 149 residents — 77 of them children. Smithberg said Iowa Legal Aid has opened 50% more eviction cases statewide than it had at this same time last year. In August, landlords filed 1,357 evictions, the highest number since March. Updated: September 25 CNN Business shares the story of a renter in Pottawattamie County, Iowa, who has been waiting four weeks for the sheriff to evict her due to the long backlog of evictions. The county typically sees 15 to 18 evictions per month, but the sheriff’s office reports having 63 evictions in July, and 25 already in August. Updated: August 27 The renting population for Iowa totals about 790,918, and the national average for eviction rates is around 2.3%, which translates to about 18,191 people, or 16.5 times greater than the number of people aided by the Iowa Finance Authority program to date. Even on a rough estimate, the program is able to support 6,500 people with the $22 million it has available. Were eviction rates to resemble the average, that would leave two-thirds of people without possible funds if the program isn't replenished. Updated: August 12 In the third week of July, 11.5% of adults in Iowa reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, over fifty thousand renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment. Updated: July 29 663 pending eviction cases began being processed when Iowa’s eviction moratorium was lifted on May 27. 443 hearings were scheduled for the week of June 15. Updated: July 16
The Wichita Workforce Center and the city of Wichita have partnered to offer in-person appointments to assist people applying for the Wichita Emergency Rental Assistance Program. Updated: March 15 Kansas is making $200 million available for rental assistance in the state. Gov. Laura Kelly and the Kansas Housing Resources Corporation announced the program, which will be funded through federal CARES Act money. The Kansas Emergency Rental Assistance (KERA) program and Wichita Emergency Rental Assistance Program (WERAP) follow the 2020 Kansas Eviction Prevention Program (KEPP), a $20 million assistance initiative administered by Kansas Housing Resources Corporation (KHRC) with federal CARES Act funding. In the roughly 60 days that the program was in statewide operation, KHRC received 10,138 applications for more than $25 million requested in assistance, representing 27,200 Kansans financially impacted by COVID. Unable to work and relying on disability benefits, Alice Nondorf of Manhattan, Kansas, struggled to pay rent for her $700-per-month apartment since September. After her lease rolled over at the end of October, Nondorf and her fiancé, Gary LaBarge — who was living in an adjacent unit on a month-to-month lease, and who has stage 4 chronic obstructive pulmonary disease — received notices in November to vacate. Updated: February 26 About $850,000 in federal money was set aside to help people in Lawrence with housing issues, but it has all been used up. The situation has become worrisome enough that organizations are trying new ideas and in some cases teaming up to address a long-running need. In Lawrence, a “city” of 20 tents has been set up in a park. It’s full. Updated: February 5 The deadline to apply for the Kansas Eviction Prevention Program was December 15. Already, more than 7,000 people have applied for assistance totaling $18.5 million. Updated: December 18 According to Stout Risius LLC, which has tracked rent and eviction issues for months, more than 100,000 households in Kansas were at risk for eviction earlier this month. Rental relief is now available through United Way for Jackson and Johnson County residents. Each tenant in both Jackson County, Missouri, and Johnson County, Kansas, can apply for up to $10,000 of rental assistance to get current. That money will go directly to the landlords. Updated: December 11 According to the U.S. Census, 10% of adults in Kansas either missed last month’s housing payment or have little to no confidence that they can pay next month’s housing payment. Updated: December 3 According to the U.S. Census, 26.52% of the adult renters in Kansas have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. Updated: November 20 The Kansas Housing Resources Corporation announced a program designed to provide rental assistance to tenants and their landlords. The initiative is called the Kansas Eviction Prevention Program, and it allows those eligible to apply for up to $5,000 in aid to help cover the cost of rent during COVID-19. Updated: November 13 Governor Laura Kelly announced that Kansans experiencing financial hardship due to the COVID-19 pandemic are eligible to receive up to $5,000 in rental assistance. Approximately $35 million of CARES Act funding is available through the Kansas Eviction Prevention Program, designed to reduce evictions across the state. Updated: October 30 As many as 357,000 Kansans face the risk of eviction. The CDC eviction moratorium has halted evictions for now, but advocates fear a tsunami of evictions will occur once the moratorium expires. Updated: September 18 In the third week of July, one in four adults in Kansas reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, over seventy thousand renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment. Updated: July 29 In the first week of July, 40,126 renters in Kansas reported that they had not paid their June rent, and an additional 6,208 reported deferring their rent payment. Updated: July 16
Senate Bill 264 would prohibit the governor from issuing an executive order placing a temporary moratorium on evictions during a formal state of emergency, as Gov. Andy Beshear did last year during the worst of the economic shutdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Judges ruled against renters in 1,298 eviction cases in Jefferson District Court between August and December and another 900 cases are awaiting a decision. There have been 8,000 applicants for the Healthy at Home Eviction Relief program as of March 1. Between those 8,000 applicants, $12.6 million has been requested. Duke is resuming utility shut offs as the moratorium ends. Updated: March 15 Gov. Andy Beshear announced the relaunch of the Healthy at Home Eviction Relief Fund with an additional $297 million to help keep Kentuckians in their homes for the duration of the coronavirus pandemic. Last year, a similar program provided more than $15 million to 4,135 households from September to December. A day after the state opened the Healthy at Home Eviction Relief Fund, more than 6,400 Kentuckians already have started the process of applying for rent or utility assistance. Louisville Metro, which already helped about 17,000 people remain in their homes using about $20 million of CARES Act funds last year, has received an additional $22.9 million. About 950 evictions have been filed in Louisville so far this year. The city of Lexington has received an additional $9.6 million from the federal government to help struggling tenants pay back rent or past-due utility bills. To date, the city, through its various eviction and utility relief programs, has already awarded $4 million in rental assistance to 1,472 households. Cheri Nicholson, 64 had logged on to Zoom for her eviction hearing, but she had been given the wrong access number. Though she phoned the district court clerk’s office and got the right number, it was too late and the judge had already ruled that she had seven days to leave her Louisville house. Updated: February 26 Gov. Andy Beshear extended Kentucky’s eviction moratorium through January 31. Despite the CDC eviction moratorium, landlords in Louisville are still using loopholes to evict tenants. Since August, more than 1,400 evictions have been filed in Fayette County. Between local and state rental assistance programs Lexington has given out $3.5 million, most of which is from federal coronavirus relief money, to 1,214 households to help with rent and utility payments.
Updated: February 5 Kentucky reopened their Healthy at Home Eviction Relief Fund for 24-48 hours to allocate the remainder of the funding. So far, the state has approved $12.3 million to assist 3,254 households. Update: December 18 More than 75,000 Kentuckians could be put out of their homes in January when the CDC eviction moratorium expires. The estimate comes from an analysis of U.S. Census data from the consulting firm Stout Risius Ross, which also says that by next month, Kentuckians will have accumulated a staggering rent shortfall standing somewhere between $149 million and $266 million. The number of applications for rental assistance and yearly evictions in Louisville is expected to double if the temporary ban on evictions is not extended by the mayor, governor, or president-elect. Updated: December 11 State Chief Justice John Minton issued two orders mandating that trials be put on hold and that hearings be held virtually except for some emergency situations. The order also allows evictions to proceed if certain conditions are met, such as if they comply with provisions of the federal CARES Act. Updated: December 3 According to the U.S. Census, 23.35% of the adult renters in Kentucky have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. Updated: November 20 Before closing, the Healthy at Home Eviction Relief Fund received 5,305 applications from tenants, 3,709 of which have submitted all required documents. Updated: November 13 The Healthy at Home Eviction Relief Fund, which allocated the entirety of its $15 million budget, stopped accepting applications. The executive director for the Homeless and Housing Coalition of Kentucky said 40 to 42% of renters in Kentucky will be a risk of eviction in the coming months. Updated: October 30 Since September 8, Kentucky has committed to distribute $8 million in rental assistance. $7.3 million of the funds are directed to families living below the area median income level. The Kentucky Equal Justice Center created an online tool that allows renters to sign the CDC declaration on a smartphone, tablet, or computer. Updated: October 8 Gov. Andy Beshear announced the launch of the Healthy at Home Eviction Relief Fund website where Kentuckians now can apply for assistance. The site has information on how to obtain a portion of $15 million in federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act money. Updated: September 18 The Lexington Herald Leader reports that hearings in Fayette County will resume on Monday, August 24. In Fayette County District Court, there are 157 eviction hearings scheduled next week and an additional 143 hearings the following week. This means more than 300 households could lose their homes by the first week of September. WFPL reports on Kentucky’s looming eviction crisis. According to the national research firm Stout, 42% of renter households in Kentucky are at risk of eviction in the coming months. Adrienne Bush, executive director of the Homeless and Housing Coalition of Kentucky, an NLIHC state partner, spoke about the urgent need for rental assistance. The Washington Post reports that workers, businesses, and advocates in Kentucky are furious with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) for blocking much-needed federal coronavirus relief aid. Approximately 200,000 Kentucky households are at risk of eviction in the next four months, but Senator McConnell has ignored housing advocates’ pleas to provide critical housing protections and provisions. Updated: August 27 Nearly one million renter households across the Ohio Valley are at risk of eviction: 42% of renter households in Kentucky, 46% in Ohio, and 47% in West Virginia. “What we need as a city government is extra funds not only to provide the services we’ve all come to expect, but to soften the impact of what we know is coming,” said Lexington Vice Mayor Steve Kay. “Hopefully, Senator McConnell and the rest of our delegation is listening to what we have to say.” Updated: August 12 On July 28, the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled to resume eviction procedures on August 1. Local advocates have observed rent delinquencies at up to three times the normal levels and anticipate there are thousands of evictions waiting to be processed. In the third week of July, 29.5% of adults in Kentucky reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, 168,555 renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment.
| Bardstown | Rural communities like Bardstown are concerned there will be a dramatic spike in homelessness once evictions resume August 1. | July 27 |
Updated: July 29 340,000 people in Kentucky are at risk of evictions. According to a weekly survey by the Census, 1 in 5 adults in the state either missed their last housing payment or have little/no confidence of being able to make next month’s housing payment. Updated: July 16
Gov. John Bel Edwards announced the launch of a new program that will provide financial assistance to Louisiana renters and landlords experiencing financial hardship as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Louisiana received $161 million to provide assistance in 57 Louisiana parishes. The Louisiana Housing Corporation, in partnership with the Louisiana Office of Community Development, will administer the state program, however in Louisiana, seven jurisdictions—Caddo, Calcasieu, East Baton Rouge, Jefferson, Lafayette, Orleans, and St. Tammany parishes—will administer their own programs. Jefferson Parish announced a new Emergency Rental Assistance Program that is now accepting applications. After the pandemic hit, Ronda Farve, 29, lost her job as a prep cook at a local restaurant, and the family’s tenuous situation got even worse. Unable to pay rent, Farve began receiving eviction notices and despite the apartment’s substandard conditions (which her landlord disputed), she began fighting to stay because she and her kids had no other safe place to go. Updated: March 15 New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell announced an expansion of the city’s rental assistance program. New Orleans received a direct initial allocation of $11.6 million from the U.S. Department of the Treasury, and the city is expecting an additional $14 million from the state of Louisiana for rental assistance. The program will go live on February 15 and will begin taking applications through its NOLA Ready website, in person, or over the phone. In early December, Hailey Barnett, a staff attorney who specializes in disaster work at Acadiana Legal Service Corporation’s Lake Charles office, started seeing landlords successfully evicting tenants by telling judges they needed to repair damage. “They know that they cannot evict for nonpayment of rent,” because of the federal moratorium, Barnett said, but Louisiana law permits landlords to seek possession of a property in order to make repairs if a dwelling is damaged enough that tenants cannot live there. Data from Jane Place Neighborhood Sustainability Initiative, which monitors New Orleans eviction hearings, found tenants evicted in about a third of the 726 hearings the group's members viewed since the CDC moratorium began. West Monroe Marshal William Guyton says evictions are starting to pick back up in the city, even though the eviction moratorium is still in place. When the enhanced unemployment benefits ran dry in July, Arielle Butler’s family was left scrambling to make ends meet and fell two months' behind on rent in October. By November, Butler was in front of a judge at a Zachary eviction court, and despite meeting the requirements for protection under the CDC eviction moratorium, she had failed to document her eligibility and was evicted. Updated: February 26 When state and local eviction moratoriums expired during the summer, eviction proceedings quickly returned in force. Southeast Louisiana Legal Services, which provides free legal aid, alone saw nearly three times the number of eviction cases as it did during the same period in 2019. Providence House in Shreveport, reports that the pandemic is causing a boom in homelessness. Updated: February 5 Alexis Alford, and her premature infant son, are facing eviction from their Algiers apartment house after she lost her job at a hotel in the French Quarter. Her son, who was born at 26 weeks and was on oxygen, is at increased risk of complications from COVID-19. Southeast Louisiana Legal Services (SLLS) is partnering with Wells Fargo to provide critical legal assistance to people at risk of eviction. Updated: December 18 Louisiana recorded 959 excess deaths through September 3 with nearly 30,000 excess COVID-19 cases after its moratorium expired on June 15. Updated: December 11 According to the U.S. Census, 42.24% of the adult renters in Louisiana have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. Updated: November 20 The states with the highest numbers of unpaid mortgages and rent are: Mississippi, Louisiana, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Arkansas, Connecticut, Missouri, and West Virginia. Updated: November 13 The House Judiciary Committee in the Louisiana Legislature voted against a bill that would have sealed records for any evictions due to nonpayment of rent occurring during the COVID-19 pandemic. The National Council of State Housing Agencies estimated in a recent report that there are currently between 150,000 and 230,000 households unable to pay rent, and come Jan. 1, 2021, there will be an estimated 140,000 eviction filings. 119 eviction petitions were filed in 1st City Court from October 5 to October 20. Updated: October 30 The Louisiana Housing Corporation streamlined the application for emergency rental assistance. The state rental assistance funds have only been distributed to landlords on behalf of 160 tenants. $115,000 in state rental assistance has been distributed in New Orleans. In Baton Rouge City Court, judges are only enforcing the moratorium if a tenant brings it up on their own as part of their defense. Updated: October 8 Nearly 200 families forced hundreds of miles from their homes when Hurricane Laura struck southwest Louisiana are now facing threats of eviction. The documents provided to tenants said their lease agreements were being terminated effective immediately “due to the natural disaster of Hurricane Laura.” In a cease and desists letter sent to the apartment complex’s management, Bill Quigley, an attorney at Loyola University’s College of Law, said “These actions by your corporation are particularly cruel when they target people who have been displaced through no fault of their own due to the hurricane and during a time when people are especially vulnerable from the effects of displacement due to the COVID-19 crisis.” Bobby Parker had no idea evictions were barred in New Orleans when he arrived home in March to find that his landlady had changed the locks to his apartment. For more than two weeks, Parker was forced to sleep outside, until a judge ordered his landlady to let him back in his place. Updated: September 25 36 percent of Louisiana tenants are facing eviction without a moratorium, according to the COVID-19 Eviction Defense Project. According to Diane Yentel, President and CEO of NLIHC, Calcasieu Parish, which was in the center of the storm’s path, is home to 30,000 people in deep poverty, another 30,000 with a disability, and 5,000 residents who don’t have a car. Updated: September 18 After hurricanes Marco and Laura closed courts in Jefferson and East Baton Rouge parishes, they opened and began hearing eviction cases again. Updated: September 3 Hundreds of renters in New Orleans have received eviction notices this summer due to unpaid rent—and local advocates and officials expect the worst has yet to come, right as hurricane season gets under way. With limited public funds on hand, the mayor of New Orleans is asking the public to donate money through Givebutter.com, a website often used by college students for funding charity causes, to raise money for tenants who can’t pay their rent. First City Court Clerk Austin Badon is bracing for a surge of eviction filings in New Orleans starting August 25, when the 30-day notice ends since the CARES Act expired. “I’ve had one resident agent who already put us on notice that he’s bringing 250 evictions, so I’m going to extend hours,” said Badon. Updated: August 27 Fifty-six percent of Louisiana renters cannot pay their full rent and are at risk of eviction. As a result, as of July 26, landlords can start the eviction process against renters unable to pay their rents as a result of the pandemic. Advocates say that local eviction courts immediately saw numerous landlords move to evict residents. “They’ve already started putting people on the street,” Cashauna Hill, executive director of the Louisiana Fair Housing Action Center, said. “Eviction is absolutely terrifying for people who are struggling. We’re hearing from many tenants who are concerned, who are fearful of being evicted.” Updated: August 12 In the third week of July, 35.5% of adults in Louisiana reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, over a quarter of a million renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment. The Louisiana Housing Corporation created an emergency housing assistance fund for which 40,000 people applied for 10,000 spots. Another local nonprofit estimates $250 million is needed to keep tenants housed. Updated: July 29 According to a weekly Census survey, in the first week of July 186, 621 renters in Louisiana reported they had not paid their June rent, with an additional 44,122 indicating they had deferred their June rent payment. The Center for Planning Excellence and UrbanFootprint estimate that Louisianans are the third most vulnerable to eviction in the nation once the supplement federal unemployment payments end. Updated: July 16
A $200 million federally funded rental relief program will begin taking applications. About 2,000 applications for rent relief that were filed in Maine before the last round of the program ended December 31 are still being processed. A study in December found that Maine renters are at the lowest risk in the nation to be evicted, largely because of state programs administered with CARES Act funding and through MaineHousing. Sen. Anne Carney introduced the Act To Prevent Homelessness by Establishing an Eviction Mediation Program, which would help people who are facing eviction find and access resources like legal aid or rental assistance, to stay housed, and the opportunity to request mediation. Rep. Tavis Hasenfus introduced the Act to Enact the Maine Data Collection Protection Act, which would require background check companies and landlords to use eviction records with care and not wrongfully deny a tenant housing based on an eviction filing that was dismissed, or involved illegal conduct on the part of the landlord. Roughly 20,000 to 40,000 Maine households are behind in their rent and at risk of eviction. In Waterville, Mid-Maine Homeless Shelter Executive Director Katie Spencer White said the Colby Street shelter is serving about one-third more people than it did before the pandemic. Updated: March 15 Eviction filings have decreased since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic and the implementation of eviction moratoriums, but pressure is building as landlords claim that their tenants are falling further behind on payments, according to the Maine Affordable Housing Coalition. Through last November, evictions fell by 40 percent in Maine compared to past years — as a federal moratorium and other protections have helped to keep renters in their homes during the pandemic. According to MaineHousing, about 2,000 applications for the state’s rent relief program that were filed before the program ended December 31 are still being processed. Updated: February 26 Governor Janet Mills issued a proclamation extending Maine’s State of Civil Emergency through January 20. The state’s eviction moratorium will expire 30 days after the termination of the state of civil emergency.
Updated: February 5 Governor Janet Mills issued a proclamation extending Maine’s state of civil emergency through December 23. The state’s eviction moratorium will expire 30 days after the termination of the state of civil emergency. The state’s COVID Rental Relief Program has provided over $7 million in funds to more than 6,000 households, fielded nearly 13,000 requests, and has helped keep many Maine families out of debt. It is estimated that roughly one out of every 33 Mainers has or will require financial assistance to pay their rent between October and December 2020. Updated: December 11 On November 20, Governor Janet Mills announced that her office would allocate an additional $6.2 million to ensure the state's rental assistance program’s solvency through 2020. The program allows households under certain incomes to receive up to $1,000 per month for a maximum of three months, which is paid directly to the landlord. It is estimated that roughly one out of every 33 Mainers has or will require financial assistance to pay their rent between October and December 2020. NLIHC estimates that the state would need $28 million — more than four times the sum allocated by Gov. Mills — to fully meet the needs of Maine renters between October and the end of December. Updated: December 3 According to the U.S. Census, 52.83% of the adult renters in Maine have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. Nearly 400 Maine tenants applied for assistance daily in the first week of a revived rent relief program. Intakes for new eviction cases increased statewide by more than 20% in the past three months since eviction protections under the CARES Act expired. Pine Tree Legal Assistance, a Maine group that defends low-income tenants, has received 805 cases from August 3 through October 26. Updated: November 20 On October 29, Gov. Janet Mills issued a proclamation extending Maine’s state of civil emergency through November 27. The state eviction moratorium will expire 30 days after the civil emergency is terminated. Updated: November 13 According to the Aspen Institute, between 57,000 and 129,000 in Maine could be evicted in the coming months without further action. Updated: October 30 After distributing $10 million in CARES Act rental assistance, the Maine State Housing Authority announced it is out of funds and closed down the program. 46% of Maine renters who received eviction notices in the first half of 2020 owed less than a month’s rent. In a large majority of cases, Mainers were behind on rent for less than two months and owed between $1,000 and $1,500. Updated: October 8 Pine Tree Legal is unable to keep up with demand in normal times. Navigating changes to the court system during the pandemic has spread them thin, making it more difficult to aid tenants in new eviction cases. The bulk of eviction cases filed in August are for nonpayment of rent, a clear shift from those filed between mid-March and July, which mostly cited behavioral or property damage issues. Updated: September 3 Housing advocacy organizations, including the Maine Affordable Housing Coalition, an NLIHC state partner, warn of a devastating tidal wave of evictions in the near future if Congress does not provide critical housing protections and resources for Mainers. Updated: August 28 In the third week of July, 16.9% of adults in Maine reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, 24,699 renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment. Updated: July 29 In interviews with low-income renters in Maine, nearly half sought aid from food pantries to save money on groceries, and about 42 percent have fallen behind on utilities and other bills in order to keep up with rent. Local officials expect a flood of evictions when the courts reopen in early August. According to a weekly survey by the Census, 1 in 5 adults in the state either missed their last housing payment or have little/no confidence of being able to make next month’s housing payment. Updated: July 16
More than 300 Annapolis families are behind on rent and are at risk for eviction from public housing. Anne Arundel created the Renter Eviction Avoidance Program to give legal assistance and financial counseling, among other resources, to residents of the Housing Authority of the City of Annapolis. A special pilot program has been formed to help families struggling to pay their rent. As the first-of-its-kind effort in Maryland, Baltimore County's Strategic Targeted Eviction Prevention pilot program so far has provided $4 million in rent assistance to 935 households across Baltimore County. Updated: March 15 Baltimore County has been approved a $24.7 million federal grant to prevent evictions. Tayvon Hughes, who lost his financial analyst job because of the pandemic, is trying to get unemployment benefits and is three months behind in rent but says his landlord is working with him. In the Washington, DC region, residents most at risk of utility shut-offs are in Maryland, which began allowing them as of November 15. Updated: February 26 From October through November, Maryland courts processed over 4,500 warrants to evict families, and landlords evicted over 1,100 households. According to housing advocates, about 200,000 Maryland families currently face the threat of eviction. Housing advocates said 30% of Marylanders who earn less than $50,000 a year have not paid last month's rent. In August and September 2020 alone, 233 tenant holding over cases were filed in Baltimore district court, an 82% increase in activity from the same two-month period a year before, according to a Baltimore Sun data analysis. The Baltimore City Council unveiled a package of proposed housing legislation targeted at helping renters and homeowners struggling during the ongoing pandemic. The bills aim to suspend late fees for those receiving public housing subsidies, change how security deposits are paid, and close a loophole allowing people to be effectively evicted despite the moratorium. The Fair Housing Action Center indicated that of the 379 Maryland households seeking eviction prevention assistance, 75% were Black households. Governor Larry Hogan today announced that the State of Maryland is eligible for an estimated $402,439,000 in federal rental assistance. According to Maryland Legal Aid, landlords are filing evictions as “tenant hold overs,” which is when renters remain in a property after their month-to-month lease expires. Many judges are ruling in favor of landlords despite the extenuating circumstances and federal and state eviction bans. Democratic lawmakers and housing advocates in Maryland are eyeing legislation to extend restrictions on evictions and offer other protections to renters amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The legislation includes a measure that would bar all eviction filings other than those that cite an “imminent threat” until April 2022 and a proposal to encourage landlords to seek alternatives before filing for eviction and establish a statewide right-to-counsel for tenants. After losing her sales job and being unable to pay rent, Ailisha Vaughn complied when her landlord gave her an ultimatum and a date to vacate her home. Former medical receptionist Myra Riggins said she worries about possibly losing the apartment where she, her 8-year-old daughter, Tori, and her 5-week-old son, Troy, live.
Updated: February 5 Tenants in the city of Baltimore now have a legal right to counsel in eviction cases, making the city just the seventh jurisdiction in the country to guarantee renters that right. One recent study of eviction cases in Baltimore by the Chicago-based consulting firm Stout found that tenants with legal representation are more likely to avoid “disruptive displacement.” Carissa Hatfield, an attorney with the Homeless Persons Representation Project in Baltimore, does not think Maryland officials are ready for the surge in homelessness the pandemic could bring. In a 2019 Baltimore City assessment on homelessness, more than 20% of people surveyed cited eviction as a cause for their own homelessness. According to the Public Justice Center, an analysis of eviction data in Baltimore City showed that the eviction count for Black households was three times higher than for white households. Updated: December 18 A mother of four called Habitat for Humanity in hysteria, as law enforcement stood outside her door a week before Thanksgiving to carry out her eviction and another grown man burst into tears meeting with Sheri Ewing, having never needed to ask for help. "The moratorium has really made people think they cannot be evicted," said Ewing, family services manager for Habitat in Wicomico County. "I've been very clear with anyone I've talked to that — 'Yes, you can still be evicted.'” According to the Montgomery County Renters Alliance, Inc, the county is currently expecting a staggering 20,000 to 30,000 evictions out of nearly 400,000 renters. Updated: December 11 According to the U.S. Census, 10.5% of adults in Maryland either missed last month’s housing payment or have little to no confidence that they can pay next month’s housing payment. Governor Larry Hogan awarded a total of $19.3 million — including a total of $5 million to Baltimore City and Baltimore County eviction prevention programs. Howard County received $2 million. Garrett County received $350,000 and Allegany County received $39,000. Wicomico County, which has seen 74 evictions since evictions resumed in August, received $900,000. Maryland legislators, including two who represent parts of Anne Arundel County, are set to introduce a slew of bills in January’s General Assembly session to protect tenants during the coronavirus pandemic. One bill, sponsored, by Anne Arundel and Prince George’s county Del. Mary Lehman, would prohibit landlords from using certain information against prospective tenants, such as dismissed evictions, arrests, or old credit or rental history. The coronavirus pandemic has increased the strain on groups that work to prevent homelessness in Maryland, with experts saying single mothers and people of color are being hurt the most. Of all 2020 tenants through early October who needed financial assistance at the Fair Housing Action Center, 67% are women and 57% are Black. Updated: December 3 According to the U.S. Census, 39.29% of the adult renters in Maryland have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. The Washington County Community Action Council has grant assistance to help those behind on their utility bills and rent or mortgage payments. Updated: November 20 With a moratorium on rent evictions in Annapolis public housing expired, about 285 families who owe a combined $512,000 in unpaid rent may soon be at risk of eviction for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic began. Updated: November 13 Invisible evictions are on the rise in Maryland. A nonprofit corporation that distributes grants to ensure access to legal services to Marylanders who are in danger of losing their homes will receive $11.7 million from the state. Some Maryland residents have not received their unemployment benefits. One resident reported that without unemployment insurance she is facing eviction. Updated: October 30 Baltimore County officials are estimating the county could see as many as 24,000 eviction filings in a single month once courts get up to speed processing claims, so county officials are setting aside assistance money and the County Council is considering a bill to protect renters during the pandemic. To prepare, Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski Jr. has asked the council to approve an application for $3 million in federal relief funds for the county’s rental assistance program. Approximately 500 households could be served with these funds, according to county documents. So far, Baltimore County’s Eviction Prevention Program has provided $1.2 million to 485 households. Updated: September 25 On September 9, Gov. Larry Hogan announced that Maryland’s local jurisdictions can apply for $16 million in Maryland Eviction Prevention Partnership grants. The grants will help support local rental assistance programs across the state. Updated: September 18 Stout, a consulting firm, estimates that about 274,000 Maryland households have lost income due to COVID-19 and could face impending eviction. The court is beginning to hear new failure-to-pay cases on August 31, which will lead to a wave of new evictions. Notices to vacate and tenant holding over cases have increased during the pandemic as a means to remove tenants with month-to-month leases who struggled to pay rent. Updated: September 3 Approximately 356,000 Maryland households are predicted to be at risk of eviction by the end of September. In the third week of July, 26% of adults in Maryland reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, over a quarter of a million renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment.
| Montgomery County | Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich is concerned about ‘massive displacements’ as a result of the growing evictions crisis, which he says won’t be resolved by the current $20 million local aid package. | July 23 |
Updated: July 29 An estimated 20% of Maryland residents are behind on their rent. According to a weekly survey by the Census, 29% of adults in the state either missed their last housing payment or have little/no confidence of being able to make next month’s housing payment. Updated: July 16
The Boston Housing Authority extended its eviction moratorium through the end of March, but housing advocates say monthly extensions and legal loopholes do not provide enough stability for Boston’s 25,000 public housing residents. Last June, the city of Springfield announced a $2 million emergency housing fund to help people pay rent, mortgage, and utility bills; all but $140,000 has now been claimed. Way Finders, the Springfield-based nonprofit that administers housing assistance programs in Hampden and Hampshire counties, receives 60-70 calls per day from people looking for help paying rent. Updated: March 15 A state moratorium on evictions prevented most from happening for months during the pandemic. But once it ended on October 17th, eviction notices skyrocketed, despite a federal moratorium still in place. The Massachusetts Trial Court has reported that 449 eviction cases, 353 of which were for nonpayment of rent, were executed across the state last December. The Martha’s Vineyard Mediation Program (MVMP) announced it is now a part of the Massachusetts Eviction Diversion Initiative (EDI). Many landlords are willing to help their tenants, said Douglas Quattrochi, executive director of the MassLandlords trade organization. “A lot of renters who can’t pay the rent have so much other calamity going on. Health and illness are certainly one, but also work and trying to manage the kids with remote school going on,” said Quattrochi, who has filled out a RAFT application for one of his own tenants. “It’s very difficult for a lot of people, and the last thing they can think of doing is taking a shot at state assistance, which is by no means guaranteed and involves filling out a thirteen-page application asking every detail of your life.” Framingham enacted a local eviction moratorium that generally prevents evictions while the state coronavirus public health emergency remains in effect. The 22 News I-Team found that Springfield is one of the hardest-hit cities in Massachusetts in terms of eviction filings. According to data from the Massachusetts Trial Court, 60% of Hampden County evictions that have occurred since the statewide moratorium was lifted in October were in Springfield. Updated: February 26 Lower-income areas like Springfield, Fall River, and Worcester saw a greater rise in eviction filings than cities like Boston and Cambridge. Nearly 27 percent of the Massachusetts adult population is at risk of eviction or foreclosure in the next two months, according to the US Census Bureau Household Pulse Survey. New research shows that large corporate landlords are responsible for nearly half of all evictions in Boston. Landlords who owned more than 100 units in Boston were responsible for 45% of all evictions in 2015 and 2016, even though they represented less than 0.5% of landlords in the market. After the expiration of Massachusetts’ eviction moratorium, hundreds of renters in Berkshire County found eviction notices taped to their doors. In the month after October 17, when the moratorium was lifted, 327 14-day notices were served through the Berkshire County Sheriff’s Office; during the same period last year, 102 were served. So far this year, there have been 259 cases in Berkshire County and 1,712 cases in Suffolk County. During that period of time, the trial court says nearly 98 percent of defendants went to housing court pro se, meaning evictees were representing themselves. More than 6,000 formal court evictions have been filed in Massachusetts since the statewide moratorium expired on October 17, according to trial court statistics. City officials have extended the moratorium on non-essential evictions for Boston Housing Authority public housing residents until March 1. Mayor Gary Christenson signed an executive order establishing a moratorium on evictions in Malden. The order goes into effect on December 21 and applies to evictions due to nonpayment of rent and no-cause evictions. As temperatures fall and positive coronavirus cases rise, advocates are concerned about homelessness in Massachusetts, where shelters remain at a reduced capacity due to the pandemic and evictions are on the rise. Many providers are anticipating having to turn people away as outside conditions worsen. Local nonprofits in Quincy and the surrounding area report that the pandemic has flooded them with requests for assistance from people experiencing job loss, food insecurity, and housing instability. The Worcester Public Schools is preparing to offer extra support to families during the coronavirus pandemic, as the district has nearly 2,000 students who are currently homeless and expects to see more evictions.
Updated: February 5 Massachusetts Trial Court data show 743 new cases filed in the week of November 30, surpassing the previous 2020 high of 729 set during the week of January 13 before COVID-19 hit. As eviction cases rise, advocates are increasingly concerned about delays in the state’s rental assistance program. As COVID-19 drives up the need for emergency housing, advocates fear many more families will have to be placed farther away from the lifelines of their home communities. To prepare for the impending expiration of the CDC eviction moratorium, the state is beefing up several existing relief programs to try to keep people in their homes, but experts say those resources fall well short of what’s needed, and once a family is pushed out of their home, the cycle of instability can go on for years. Evictions are hitting hard in parts of Massachusetts where people are most vulnerable. For example, Worcester County has seen far more filings, per capita, than Suffolk County — dominated by Boston — or suburban locales such as Middlesex and Norfolk Counties. Gov. Charlie Baker sent back amendments about eviction proceedings, which proposed holding off on trials if a tenant has a pending application for emergency rental assistance, a proposal that went through in response to the state’s eviction moratorium lapsing. Since the eviction moratorium expired, the Hampshire County Sheriff’s Office has served 155 “notices to quit” as of December 4 and in Hampden County, the sheriff’s office served 1,071 notices since the moratorium was lifted, as of December 3. Statistics show that 66% of landlords in the cases currently filed across the state have an attorney, while only 2% of tenants have an attorney. The Massachusetts Association of Realtors (MAR) has created a first-in-the-nation scholarship program that will fund mediation training for its members through the Massachusetts Office of Public Collaboration (MOPC). Renters who went through the voluntary and confidential mediation process with their landlords preserved their tenancies 96 percent of the time, according to MOPC data. Kimberly Landaverde, a 17-year-old high school senior and her family are facing the real possibility of being evicted from their East Boston apartment amid the coronavirus pandemic, like countless families across the commonwealth. After her parents lost their jobs due to COVID-19, Landaverde and her 16-year-old brother both got jobs to help pay rent. Updated: December 18 Fearing the increase in homelessness once the CDC eviction moratorium expires, Massachusetts is adding more than 1,300 temporary shelter beds to help individuals experiencing homelessness stay warm and distanced this winter. The city of Malden and the Malden Redevelopment Authority recently launched a new Eviction Prevention Program to help residents facing eviction. The program will provide court-based legal aid, mediation, and rental assistance. Updated: December 11 In the five weeks since a moratorium on evictions and foreclosures ended, eviction filings have nearly doubled every week, jumping from 21 on October 19 to 689 in mid-November. Housing advocates warn this trend is likely to continue. Several states ― including Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Vermont ― have secured CARES Act funding to expand tenant representation in eviction proceedings. Updated: December 3 According to the U.S. Census, 18.88% of the adult renters in Massachusetts have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. A group of property holders and landlords signed a pledge to communicate with tenants experiencing financial hardship about emergency support programs that could help cover rent, also agreeing to pursue repayment plans and seek mediation as first steps before turning to formal eviction proceedings. Updated: November 20 In Massachusetts, as many as 120,000 people have been forced from their homes during the pandemic despite federal and state bans aimed at protecting tenants. An investigation by member station WBUR has found some landlords are threatening to change the locks on people, reporting tenants to ICE, and threatening to evict people following a positive COVID test. Updated: November 13 Gov. Charlie Baker unveiled a new $171 million initiative Monday that he said will help tenants and landlords cope with the fiscal challenges of the ongoing coronavirus epidemic. $100 million will go to expanding relief to renters and landlords impacted by COVID; $48.7 million will go to rapid rehousing programs; $12.3 million to provide tenants and landlords with access to legal representation and related services prior and during the eviction process, and community mediation to help tenants and landlords resolve cases outside of court; $6.5 million will go to providing resources, services and help answer questions about all housing problems; and $3.8 million will go to homelessness prevention. Housing advocates estimate 100,000 residents could face evictions once the moratorium lifts Saturday. The Metropolitan Area Planning Council suggests at least 60,000 renters fear they will soon be evicted. The state’s ban on evictions and foreclosures expired on October 17. Boston Mayor Marty Walsh announced a “housing stability pledge” that aims to prevent evictions once the statewide moratorium ends. Updated: October 30 Lawmakers estimate that roughly 20,000 people could face eviction or foreclosure next month if the legislature does not vote to extend the moratorium past October 17. Updated: October 8 The initial pause on evictions and foreclosures in Massachusetts took effect in April and was scheduled to expire August 18, but was extended until October 17. A state bill would also establish an assistance fund to help landlords affected by COVID-19. Updated: September 25 With the eviction moratorium extended, some property owners in Massachusetts have decided to leave properties vacant rather than renting to lower-income individuals and possibly risking the cost of unpaid rent. This is deepening the Massachusetts housing crisis. The CDC eviction moratorium does not cover rent costs or cancel rent, but defers payments through December 31. Advocates are requesting $100 billion in rental assistance. Updated: September 18 An investigation found that during the federal and state eviction moratorium, at least 70 illegal eviction cases were filed in Massachusetts Housing Court, including 50 violating the national ban that blocked displacing renters in most federally subsidized properties. Some tenants were only a few hundred dollars in arrears, lived in the poorest areas of the commonwealth, and nearly all lacked lawyers, court records show. Updated: September 3 With September rent and mortgage payments due in less than a week, nearly 109,000 Massachusetts households will need help to make those payments, a new analysis finds. According to a report by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, unemployed people across the state will need $117 million a month in housing assistance. Updated: August 28 More than 654,000 Massachusetts residents either missed their July rent or mortgage payment or feared they wouldn’t pay August, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. In the commonwealth alone, without continued federal help, homeowners and renters could fall short in their housing payments by $135 million a month, based on data from Boston’s Metropolitan Area Planning Council. Updated: August 12 In the third week of July, 17.1% of adults in Massachusetts reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, 190,339 renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment. Updated: July 29 During the height of the pandemic, between March 16 and April 13, 602 new eviction cases were filed statewide. According to a weekly survey by the Census, 1 in 5 adults in the state either missed their last housing payment or have little/no confidence of being able to make next month’s housing payment.
| Boston | 120,000 households in Boston are at risk of being unable to make their housing payments, according to a study by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council. | June 28 |
More than $600 million in federal funding was allocated to Michigan for eviction diversion, but the state legislature has not agreed on a plan to distribute the funding yet. A philanthropic organization is working with a credit union to front millions of dollars to a Detroit housing agency as it waits for the legislature and governor to agree on how to administer emergency COVID-19 federal aid, including hundreds of millions of dollars earmarked to help renters pay back rent and avoid eviction. The Michigan State Housing Development Authority (MSHDA), responsible for administering the rental aid through agencies across the state, said it's unclear exactly how many renters are waiting for aid, but estimated a backlog of between 6,000 to 8,000 renters across the state. One Detroit housing nonprofit alone has a backlog of 2,000 households who need federal rental assistance. The Northwest Michigan Community Action Agency’s (NMCAA) homelessness prevention team reported a high volume of calls September through December and are “seeing an alarming number of cases from people who never before have needed to access assistance from their agency.” Though NMCAA assisted 113 Grand Traverse County households with eviction diversion in a five-month period, grant funding is drying up and some families are being turned away due to income eligibility requirements. MSHDA will disseminate funds through local housing development corporations. Detroit is expected to receive up to $94 million in funds, with a little less than half of that expected to move through the United Community Housing Coalition (UCHC), which has a growing database of renters who need help to avoid eviction and possible homelessness. In mid-2020, following the impact of the COVID-19 crisis in Ottawa County, Good Samaritan Ministries (GSM) was designated by the state of Michigan to create and manage an expanded Eviction Diversion Program for the county. To date, GSM has served more than 100 families within this program compared to a typical year when they served about 20 families in the entire county. Updated: March 15 The agency responsible for administering $622 million in federal rental aid for struggling Michigan landlords and tenants said GOP lawmakers' plan to initially dole out only a quarter of the funds would make it harder for nonprofits to hire more staff and help people in need. "Having only 25% of the funds allocated initially will make it much more difficult for nonprofits to hire staff so that the programs can effectively serve renters and landlords," said Katie Bach, communications director for the Michigan State Housing Development Authority. The Mecosta/Osceola Mid Michigan Community Action helps individuals and families who are homeless find stable housing and provide case management services for individuals experiencing homelessness, those that owe back rent, and people at risk for eviction. Updated: February 26 Local judges in Michigan continue to order thousands of evictions, despite government-mandated protections for renters. Michigan does not collect comprehensive data statewide, so officials do not know the total number of evictions that have been ordered during the pandemic or where the hotspots are. Eviction proceedings begin again in Detroit’s 36th District Court the Monday after New Year’s and there are more than 4,000 eviction cases in the pipeline. Youth homelessness is spiking in northern Michigan. According to Ashley Halladay-Schmandt, director of the Northwest Michigan Coalition to End Homelessness, northern Michigan’s data shows significantly more people under the age of 25 are “experiencing housing instability.” The number of families in Kent County homeless shelters has doubled since the onset of the pandemic. While 82% of residents in the county are white, approximately 75% of the families needing shelter are people of color, with Black residents accounting for the majority of that number. A Michigan eviction diversion program funneled almost $475,000 to Northeast Michigan residents in late 2020 to help with rent payments, keeping 163 households in their rental homes. The program, funded by the Michigan State Housing Development Authority and administered by Northeast Michigan Community Service Agency (NEMCSA), paid back missed rent to 106 local landlords. Over 1,000 households in Greater Lansing received assistance through an eviction diversion program funded through the CARES Act and other state and local funds. Despite the diversion and other assistance programs, evictions are still taking place, with over 770 eviction cases filed in the district court that serves Lansing between early October and January 25. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced the addition of another $2 million for the Eviction Diversion Program.
Updated: February 5 “It is entirely possible that the courts will have influx of activity as we come out of the most restrictive parts of the pandemic,” said State Court Administrator Judge Tom Boyd. The courts can increase or decrease in-person and virtual proceedings as needed to deal with any evictions that may come through the system. Michigan got about $50 million for eviction diversion through the CARES Act and has spent about $17 million, with another $15 million expected in November and $15 million more in December. The deadline to apply for rental assistance in Wexford and Missaukee Counties, distributed through the Northwest Community Action Agency, is December 22. In Muskegon County, about 260 households have been able to receive rental assistance through an eviction diversion program that is funded by the CARES Act. The Muskegon Rescue Mission Women and Children Shelter has seen a 16% increase in shelter needs since last year--a rise they attribute to the impact of COVID-19. Homeless service providers across metro Detroit are facing a trio of challenges, as the temperature drops and COVID-19 cases surge. Shelters normally see increased demand during winter and this year is no different, but at the same time, pandemic safety restrictions have forced shelters to cut back on the number of people they can accommodate. Without further intervention, housing experts expect an eviction crisis that could send people into homelessness, taxing an already overwhelmed system of providers. Updated: December 18 In Washtenaw County, requests for eviction prevention assistance rose from 24% in 2019 to 55% in 2020 from March through June, with the need among immigrant communities sharply increasing. Updated: December 11 Clarence Washington, a 90-year-old veteran, was evicted during COVID-19. “Two years ago, when I first moved into this place, I was making twice as much as I do now,” he said. “So with the loss of income, I was having a problem.” Washington said due to poor health, he missed vital court dates, but he was under the impression he was protected by Federal pandemic guidelines. Eviction cases are on the rise in Jackson County. The United Way of Jackson, which helps families to stay in their homes, saw double the amount of calls from families being forced to relocate. Several states ― including Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Vermont ― have secured CARES Act funding to expand tenant representation in eviction proceedings. Updated: December 3 According to the U.S. Census, 24.34% of the adult renters in Michigan have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. Updated: November 20 In Michigan, evictions in September and October were about half what they were during the same time period last year. This decrease is also due to a state program that uses CARES Act funds to pay 90% of someone's rent if the landlord agrees to forgo the other 10 percent. Still, data from the State Court Administrative Office show statewide eviction filings have steadily increased since July, when Michigan’s state moratorium lifted. Updated: November 13 Applications for Michigan's pandemic rental aid are so backlogged in several counties that the state announced it will start taking applications directly to "speed up the process." As of September 30, Michigan has paid out 16%, or $8 million, of the $50 million it allocated for rent relief. Landlords in Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Washtenaw, Ingham, and Kent counties with three or more tenants behind on rent, on whom they have not filed an eviction case yet, can apply to the Michigan State Housing Development Authority for the EDP aid in addition to the local agencies. The Michigan Supreme Court issued additional guidance to district courts and landlords regarding the CDC eviction moratorium. The administrative order includes a new requirement that landlords must file a verification form declaring if the tenant submitted a CDC declaration. The order also says Michigan courts will process cases of nonpayment and can go so far as enter a judgment but that no orders of eviction can be issued while the CDC's eviction ban is in place. Updated: October 30 In July, the Michigan Eviction Diversion Plan was created to help renter. The program earmarked $50 million to help participating landlords cover up to 90% of unpaid rent for eligible tenants earning up to 100% of area median income. Updated: October 8 The Detroit eviction moratorium ended on August 15. Lakeshore Legal Aid has seen increased calls since the statewide moratorium ended. In Detroit, they have received 5,126 calls and 513 online applications regarding eviction help.
As of August 26, more than 100 people were in the last step of the eviction process. Updated: September 3 As Detroit’s eviction moratorium ends this week, the 36th District Court estimates a backlog of about 900 eviction cases and expects to hold hearings for 200 to 300 cases that were not already resolved. 49 eviction hearings were held at the courthouse last week in Ypsilanti Township. Advocates worry that these numbers will skyrocket: 70% of Ypsilanti are renters. Updated: August 28 Detroit News reports that the eviction process has resumed in Michigan - except in Detroit, which extended its eviction moratorium until August 17. An estimated 457,000, or 43%, of Michigan renter households, are at risk of losing their homes, and Black renters are disproportionately represented among renters who report “no or slight confidence” that they can pay next month’s rent. Updated: August 12 In the weeks before Michigan's statewide eviction moratorium expiration on July 15, calls to their state's 211 call center increased 76%. In the third week of July, 21.4% of adults in Michigan reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, over two hundred thousand renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment. Updated: July 29 Michigan’s statewide eviction moratorium expired on July 15th. State officials are bracing for an estimated 80,000 eviction cases to be filed in the coming months. According to a weekly survey by the Census, 1 in 5 adults in the state either missed their last housing payment or have little/no confidence of being able to make next month’s housing payment.
| Detroit | Though the statewide eviction moratorium expired, Detroit extended their moratorium until August 15th. The District Judge reports that there are 450 outstanding eviction cases which will become enforceable on August 16th. | July 16 |
Minnesota Senate Republicans are pushing to phase-out Governor Tim Walz’s COVID moratorium on evictions — after testimony Tuesday from landlords’ groups about large amounts of unpaid rent that put building owners in tough financial straits. Updated: March 15 According to an analysis of census data from Attorney Lawrence R. McDonough, who works in landlord and tenant law for the National Anti-Eviction Project at Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, Minnesota could be looking at 13,330 evictions if the COVID-19 eviction moratorium were to expire. One Roof helped 318 households apply for CHAP aid, and the Salvation Army and Arrowhead Economic Opportunity Agency combined to help about a few hundred more access assistance. In all, more than 38,000 Minnesotans applied for $100 million in available CHAP aid. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison is suing an Apple Valley landlord for allegedly evicting tenants illegally during the pandemic. According to the lawsuit, the landlord falsely stated her relatives would move into the property, but instead she put it up for sale, but under executive orders issued by Gov. Tim Walz evictions are banned except for certain exceptions; one exception is that landlords can evict tenants to make room for family members to move in. Zach Eichten, public policy director of the Minnesota Coalition for the Homeless, said there is not capacity in the shelters to handle a surge in displaced people. Updated: February 26 The COVID-19 Housing Assistance Program (CHAP), run through the state’s Minnesota Housing Finance Agency, received more than 38,000 applications for rental assistance, funded by $100 million from the federal CARES Act. Minnesota will receive at least $3 billion from the federal COVID stimulus passed in December. Twin Cities residents in lowest price apartments continue to struggle most with rent. The Multi Housing Association’s (MHA) survey of more than 30,000 mostly market-rate units managed by its members shows that 86% of renters in older, more-affordable buildings in less-desirable areas (Class C buildings) were able to pay their January rent, a slight increase from the previous month, but 6 percentage points lower than last year at the same time. Gov. Tim Walz has extended Minnesota's eviction moratorium to February 12. According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, 7,243 people are homeless on any given night in Minnesota. Of that statewide number, 497 people are in Southeast Minnesota. Updated: February 5 A state program meant to help struggling households make rent, mortgage, and utility payments during the coronavirus pandemic stopped accepting new applications on December 7. Anti-eviction protections implemented by Minneapolis officials amid the coronavirus pandemic have been successful in keeping people housed and in reducing spikes in homelessness, a new study found. Minneapolis is among the nation's cities seeing the fewest evictions of residents financially hit by coronavirus-spurred work slowdown as a result, according to data from the Eviction Lab. Updated: December 18 More than 28,000 low-income households across the state have applied for rental relief under the federally funded program, which was designed to prevent evictions and homelessness among the growing number of people struggling to make ends meet because of COVID-19. The assistance checks flow to the landlord, bank, or utility, not the applicant and some landlords have expressed concerns that they often wait a long time to receive the money. The application closes on December 7. Data compiled by the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency shows that 56 percent of applicants so far are people of color or Native Americans, 23 percent have been homeless and 7 percent have been evicted. The pandemic has increased housing insecurity in the area. The MAHUBE-OTWA family development has provided funding to 72 households to cover rent, utilities, and mortgage payments in Hubbard County. Updated: December 11 The Community Resource Center has helped 242 people with rental assistance this year already in Washington and Ramsey counties. But, advocates believe thousands of people who are behind on their rent because of the pandemic could lose their homes if the federal moratorium ends, or if a state ban on evictions - which is renewed every 30 days with the governor's special emergency powers - is not extended. Updated: December 3 According to the U.S. Census, 25.11% of the adult renters in Minnesota have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. $30 million remains in Minnesota’s housing and rental assistance fund. About 21,000 applications requesting a combined $51.9 million have been submitted to the state program so far. Updated: November 20 As of October 1st, the COVID-19 Housing Assistance Program awarded $30.3 million, 53% of which covered rental assistance, to Minnesota residents. So far, $10.3 million has been dispersed to applicants. Updated: October 8 In Minnesota, there have been 171 cases leading to an eviction judgment since the state eviction moratorium began. Updated: September 25 After confusion over the state eviction moratorium, a family was illegally evicted from their home and moved into a tent. The family did not know that the eviction moratorium was extended to September 11. Updated: September 3 The Minnesota Attorney General’s Office has received 1,235 complaints from tenants since the state’s eviction moratorium went into effect in late March. Complaints have often included landlords trying to remove tenants for unpaid rent, tenants being told to leave after a lease had ended even though they can’t move anywhere, and general misinformation given about how the moratorium works — all violations of the executive order. Updated: August 28 In the third week of July, 18.5% of adults in Minnesota reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, 98,286 renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment. Based on current projections, 133,000 evictions could be filed in the next four months, thirteen times more than in a typical year. Updated: July 29 According to a weekly Census survey, 93,758 renters in Minnesota reported they had not paid their June rent, with an additional 2,189 reporting they had deferred their June rent payment. In response to the growing crisis, the Minneapolis Parks and Recreation Board is considering terminating Minneapolis parks as a refuge space, limiting the protections to only 10 parks with 10 encampments per park. Updated: July 16
Jackson property owners filed evictions — just the first step in forcing a tenant out of their home — against more than 1,100 families between September 4 to November 30 and secured nearly 200 warrants of removal. That amounts to nearly 13 families each day in that time period, compared to roughly ten per day in 2016, according to the Eviction Lab. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s eviction moratorium starting September 4 caused at least one unintended consequence: Most renters were then no longer deemed at a great enough risk of homelessness to qualify for the only rental assistance program available at the time. Now, the nonprofits running the Rental Assistance for Mississippians Program (RAMP) have shut off the program altogether until the moratorium lifts. AdvisorSmith found Mississippi has the fifth-highest risk of people being evicted.
Updated: February 5 Mississippi recorded 804 excess deaths with 22,010 excess COVID-19 cases after going 12 weeks without a state eviction moratorium. Updated: December 11 According to the U.S. Census, 14.8% of adults in Mississippi either missed last month’s housing payment or have little to no confidence that they can pay next month’s housing payment. Updated: December 3 According to the U.S. Census, 52.82% of the adult renters in Mississippi have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. Updated: November 20 The Mississippi Development Authority has officially launched the application process for the Mississippi Rental Assistance Program, which has $15 million available for rent relief. The program was created by the Legislature in HB 1810 during the final days of the 2020 session in order to provide assistance to property owners and tenants whose resources have been impacted during the pandemic. The states with the highest numbers of unpaid mortgages and rent are: Mississippi, Louisiana, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Arkansas, Connecticut, Missouri, and West Virginia. Updated: November 13 A July study by global advisory firm Stout Risius Ross shows as high as 58% of those households were at risk of eviction. The national figure was about 43%. Updated: October 30 The Mississippi State House passed a $20 million rental assistance grant program, designed to offer financial assistance worth up to $30,000 for landlords who are unable to evict renters during the pandemic due to nonpayment of rent. Updated: October 8 Since September 1, property owners in Hinds County have filed 260 evictions and 78 warrants of removal. In one day, out of several renters who appeared in internet court—plus the many more whom the judge evicted after they did not log on—just one person notified the court that she had supplied a CDC declaration form. The judge granted an eviction anyway. According to the Eviction Lab, Mississippi ranks eighth in the nation for evictions. In Jackson, between seven and eight families are evicted daily. Updated: September 25 More than half of Mississippi’s 352,000 renter households are at risk of eviction if Congress does not intervene. More than a third of all Mississippians missed last month’s housing payment or believed they would not be able to pay the next rent or mortgage on time, making Mississippi the third most vulnerable state in the nation for housing. Updated: August 28 In the third week of July, 34% of adults in Mississippi reported they had missed their previous housing payment and/or had little confidence they would make their next one, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, 181,760 renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment. According to this Census survey, which has published weekly data since late April, Mississippi had the highest recorded housing insecurity in the nation for 6 of the 12 weeks data was collected, as well as the highest reported housing insecurity overall: 46.4% in Week 3 (May 14-19).
| Tupelo | In a July 16 meeting of the Tupelo Homeless Task Force, the director of the Mississippi Balance of State Continuum of Care (CoC) warned that with the expiration of the federal eviction moratorium and unemployment benefits, they will likely see a new wave of Mississipians experiencing housing insecurity and homelessness. In preparation, members of local and state homelessness advocacy organizations are planning to hold a Homelessness 101 class on July 30 to orient nonprofit community partners to the growing crisis. | July 23 |
Updated: July 29 According to a weekly survey by the Census, 38% adults in the state either missed their last housing payment or have little/no confidence of being able to make next month’s housing payment – MS has one of the highest rates in the country. Updated: July 16
St. Louis Circuit Judge Michael Stelzer signed an order Monday extending the city’s eviction moratorium through April 5. Lee Camp, an attorney with Arch City Defenders in St. Louis, began to see a spike in calls to his office, which represents tenants in St. Louis. At the onset of the pandemic, KC Tenants quickly created a hotline that has since received thousands of calls from tenants seeking help. It launched a mutual aid fund in March 2020 that has raised over $51,000 and distributed literature to at least 15,000 tenants’ doors informing them of their rights. Back in November, Shaulewn Bell was living out of a storage facility, unable to pay her rent because she lost her job during the COVID-19 pandemic. She was evicted during the brief period when eviction moratoriums were lifted. Updated: March 15 The Missouri Housing Development Commission announced that applications for the Missouri State Assistance for Housing Relief Program are now open. Gov. Mike Parson signed a bill to provide more than $324 million in federal funding to Missouri renters and landlords struggling during the coronavirus pandemic. The money could help an estimated 200,000 Missouri households struggling to pay rent and utilities. In St. Louis City and St. Louis County, nearly 5,000 evictions have been filed since mid-March. A hotline set up by the Metropolitan St. Louis Equal Housing and Opportunity Council to help those facing eviction received over 400 calls by the end of 2020; it also takes calls about landlords locking out tenants, which increased from once a month to once a week last year. A longtime tenant at the recently rebranded Fountains at Carondelet stood outside a St. Louis housing complex and broke down in tears. After losing much of her income over the past year, she said, she is now about two months behind, and the property management company, Clayton-based Sansone Group, has declined to address issues like cockroach infestations and plumbing problems for tenants behind on rent. An emotional Melissa Crader called FOX 2 in desperation when she and her two kids had gotten evicted from her home in De Soto in Jefferson. Crader says she offered to pay the landlord some of the rent but he would not accept partial payment. In December 2020, Sommai Peterson was diagnosed with COVID-19, and could not work her Amazon job until she got better. Bills started to pile up. Before her COVID-19 symptoms had even subsided, Peterson's landlord filed for eviction in St. Charles County circuit court. Updated: February 26 A Jackson County judge suspended eviction proceedings in the county for two weeks, citing dangers to county employees. Circuit Judge J. Dale Youngs ordered that county employees stop posting eviction notices, conducting eviction hearings, or performing evictions until January 24. Thousands of eviction filings are piling up in St. Louis and St. Louis County courts. According to data compiled by the Eviction Lab, landlords have filed for almost 5,000 evictions since mid-March. By late summer, Neena Dickerson had several months of lot rent and water bills to pay, but she believed she had made a temporary payment plan with park management that would keep her in her trailer through the end of the year. Dickerson said she only learned that she could soon be forced from her home on September 11, more than a week after the court entered an eviction judgment in her absence. Updated: February 5 The Missouri Emergency Rental Arrears Program (ERAP) offers a one-time payment for up to six months of past-due rent dating back to April 1, directly to landlords on behalf of qualified tenants. In exchange, the landlords must agree not to file for eviction for non-payment for 120 days from the date an application is submitted and waive all fees and outstanding rent up to the date of application submission. The program will be funded through a CARES Act Emergency Solutions grant. Legal Aid of Western Missouri is also able to provide some free assistance for evictions in-person, at the Jackson County Courthouse. The Missouri Public Service Commission is considering a request for a utility disconnection moratorium due to the continuing COVID-19 pandemic. Updated: December 18 According to KC Tenants, research shows online hearings may even violate the rights of renters with disabilities or those who cannot speak English or lack internet access. Legal aid organizations across the country say they have observed worrying practices in remote hearings. According to Stout Risius LLC, which has tracked rent and eviction issues for months, up to 234,00 households in Missouri were at risk for eviction earlier this month. Rental relief is now available through United Way for Jackson and Johnson County residents. Each tenant in both Jackson County, Missouri, and Johnson County, Kansas, can apply for up to $10,000 of rental assistance to get current. That money will go directly to the landlords. Updated: December 11 A federal judge rejected a request to halt evictions after a tenants' rights group in Missouri claimed Jackson County was violating a federal moratorium that aims to stop the spread of COVID-19 by preventing homelessness. The lawsuit was filed by KC Tenants and the American Civil Liberties Union in the U.S. District Court in the Western District of Missouri. Many Missouri tenants lack legal counsel during eviction proceedings. The Missouri House approved a budget proposal that allocated $18.7 million in the Emergency Shelter Grant Program funds for homeless prevention. Updated: December 3 According to the U.S. Census, 25.86% of the adult renters in Missouri have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. The Missouri Housing Development Commission approved a program to help low-income tenants by providing a one-time payment for their unpaid rent. Ideally, the program, which will use $15 million CARES Act funding, will be up and running in January, once the CDC eviction moratorium expires. A St. Louis Circuit Court extended the state eviction moratorium through the end of the year. Since the CDC eviction moratorium was enacted, there has been an average of 75 filings every week in Kansas City, Missouri, according to Princeton University's Eviction Lab. Updated: November 20 Phone calls from families on the verge of losing their homes have jumped 300 percent at Catholic Charities of Southern Missouri. Since March, about 2,700 eviction cases have been filed in St. Louis 2,027 have been filed in the Kansas City area. Since the CDC moratorium was put in place, more than 90 evictions have been filed in Boone County, 340 in Greene County, and 470 in Jackson County. Missouri lawmakers approved $9.6 million in CARES Act funding for the program in May, and they will return for a special session starting November 5 to appropriate more. The commission has the authority to spend up to $28 million in CARES Act funding on homeless prevention. The states with the highest numbers of unpaid mortgages and rent are: Mississippi, Louisiana, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Arkansas, Connecticut, Missouri, and West Virginia. Updated: November 13 A lawsuit filed in federal court states that eviction hearings continuing to happen in Jackson County, Missouri Circuit Courts are in direct violation of the CDC eviction moratorium. “The Jackson County Circuit Court’s order allows landlords to defy this moratorium and persist in evicting tenants by subjugating them to overly intrusive and potentially retaliatory evidentiary hearings and forcing tenants to testify before the courts during a global pandemic,” the ACLU said in the statement. Updated: October 8 On September 11, HUD allocated nearly $27 million in CARES Act funding to Missouri. Updated: September 25 48 families are at risk of eviction from Kansas City, Missouri Housing Authority properties. Thousands more Housing Choice voucher recipients owe money to private landlords and subsequently face eviction. Updated: September 3 The Kansas City Star shares the story of a single mother of three who was evicted from her Kansas City rental home. According to the Kansas City Eviction Project, more than 1,600 eviction cases have been heard in Jackson County since the moratorium expired on May 31. Voice of America profiles Kansas City renters at risk of eviction. Currently, nearly 50% of renters in the state are at risk of eviction because they can’t pay their rent, KC Tenants Director Tara Raghuvee told VOA. Updated: August 28 In the third week of July, 19.9% of adults in Missouri reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, 160,512 renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment. An estimated 48% of Missouri renters are at risk of eviction.
| Kansas City | Local leaders predict 50,000 individuals could become homeless in Kansas City due to COVID-19. | July 28 |
| St. Louis | On July 10, police evicted individuals living in a homeless encampment under an expressway overpass, citing concerns about COVID-19. Most living in this encampment had previously been evicted from temporary housing in hotels to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and were now trying their best to keep themselves safe by avoiding jail and crowded shelters. | July 8 |
Updated: July 29 According to a weekly survey by the Census, 1 in 3 adults in the state either missed their last housing payment or have little/no confidence of being able to make next month’s housing payment. Updated: July 16
House Bill 430, sponsored by Rep. Kathy Whitman, R-Missoula, would prohibit state and local governments in Montana from restricting landlords from collecting rent or evicting tenants during states of emergency. Another measure from Rep. Steven Galloway, R-Great Falls, House Bill 541, would allow law enforcement to remove a former tenant from an apartment if they remain on the premises after a 24-hour notice of their eviction expires. Galloway also sponsored House Bill 439, a partner bill to HB 541 that allows landlords to petition law enforcement to help in removing a tenant following a court ruling in favor of eviction. Updated: March 15 A legislative budget panel authorized an additional $27 million in federal rent and utility assistance to Montanans harmed financially by the Covid-19 pandemic. The Joint Appropriations Subcommittee on General Government voted unanimously to insert the money in a yet-to-be-introduced bill, to augment $17 million in another bill awaiting Gov. Greg Gianforte’s signature. Last year, Montana distributed only $8.4 million in federal money allocated for “emergency housing assistance” to Montanans who had trouble paying rent or mortgage payments because they’d lost their job during the pandemic. About 2,500 households got an average of $3,400 each. Gov. Gianforte issued two new directives and an executive order to update policies and guidance regarding COVID-19 in Montana. The news release on the directive also continues to protect Montanans from eviction or foreclosure. Updated: February 26 From September 4, when the CDC’s order took effect, to December 1, Lewis & Clark County Justice Court took 23 complaints from landlords seeking to evict tenants. So far, the Montana Eviction Intervention Program has provided attorneys to 100 households facing eviction, including 27 in Yellowstone County.
Updated: February 5 The Montana Eviction Intervention Project, which provides financial assistance for Montana residents facing eviction through CARES Act funding, will come to an end on December 30. The Montana Rescue Mission is bracing for more residents when that happens. The Montana Department of Commerce announced a new partnership with the Montana Legal Services Association (MLSA) to form the Montana Eviction Intervention Project, a new program that will provide civil legal assistance for Montanans facing evictions as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Updated: December 11 According to the U.S. Census, 22.58% of the adult renters in Montana have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. The state has spent more than $5 million from the federal CARES Act to help people as they face eviction during the pandemic. Research firm Stout Risius Ross, LLC, said in an October report that if the CDC’s federal moratorium on evictions isn’t extended at the end of the year, Montana will see up to 10,900 new eviction cases by January 1. That’s more than 8 times the number of evictions in Montana in 2016, according to data from the Eviction Lab at Princeton University. Updated: November 20 The Montana Department of Commerce announced a new partnership with the Montana Legal Services Association to form the Montana Eviction Intervention Project, a new program that will provide civil legal assistance for Montanans facing evictions as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Applications for the state’s Emergency Housing Assistance Program are due on November 10. Updated: November 13 All applications for the Montana Department of Commerce’s rent and mortgage payment assistance program are due by November 10. Since the program’s May inception, Montana Housing, with assistance from NeighborWorks Montana, has approved more than 1,300 applications and awarded more than $4.5 million in rental and mortgage assistance to Montana families and individuals statewide. Updated: October 30 23% of all Montana renters, or 48,000, are either food-insecure or already behind on rent or both. Updated: October 8 In the third week of July, one in five adults in Montana reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, 49,180 renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment. Updated: July 29 According to a weekly Census survey, 25, 394 Montana renters reported they did not make their June rent payment, with an additional 2,430 indicating they had deferred their June rent payment. Updated: July 6
In one week, Douglas County courts are scheduled to hear nearly 70 eviction cases, nearing pre-pandemic numbers. Douglas County has made $2 million in leftover CARES Act funds available for rental assistance. The Omaha City Council voted unanimously to provide $22.2 million of rental assistance. Eviction cases across Douglas County are climbing to near-pandemic levels, and those on the ground want renters to know there are options out there for those still struggling to make ends meet. “I’m four months behind in rent now, so I’m trying to catch up, but I’m still behind so it’s difficult,” said Yolanda, who’s back to work, but still having a tough time making up for wages lost earlier on in the pandemic. Nicole Williams, her boyfriend, and her two children were evicted just days ago after a judge ruled against her case. Their landlord used a loophole in the CDC’s eviction moratorium, and chose not to renew their lease. Updated: March 15 State Sen. John Cavanaugh introduced a bill that would give tenants in eviction hearings the right to an attorney. In 2020, about 3,200 people in Douglas County faced eviction, down from an average of about 5,000 in years past. Lincoln and Lancaster County together have received nearly $15 million in federal dollars meant to help stave off evictions and utility disconnections because of the pandemic. More than 1,100 people have contacted Lincoln’s rental assistance administrators since the program began, and 850 payments have been approved. The Civil Clinical Law program at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln is establishing the Tenant Assistance Project with local non-profits, which pairs student and volunteer attorneys with residents facing eviction. Updated: February 26 Lincoln residents, Heide Massato, a former firefighter and science teacher, and Melanie Butcher, believed a nationwide halt on evictions would protect them, but Commercial Investment Properties began eviction proceedings in Lancaster County Court on December 16. On New Year’s Eve, a day after a court finalized the eviction, Massato and Butcher quickly loaded up their car with their pets, two EpiPens, enough medications to make it through the week, and a few changes of clothes. After losing her job due to the pandemic, Jolina Manley, a single mother of five in Omaha got an eviction notice from her landlord. Manley says the notice came after her 11-year-old son got in an argument with another tenant. This means she was not covered by the CDC eviction moratorium, which only protects tenants from eviction due to nonpayment of rent. Encouragement Kingdom Outreach Ministries is renting storage units to assist those facing evictions. Legal Aid of Nebraska has handled more than 800 eviction cases since March, with more than a third of those occurring in Lancaster County, and just over half in Douglas County.
Updated: February 5 In Fremont, Nebraska, Dana Imus, a mother of four went to court this month to avoid getting evicted for falling behind on rent, after she lost her job due to COVID-19. When she presented a CDC declaration form to her landlord, she said he told her wrongly that Nebraska did not recognize the CDC eviction moratorium. She also tried to pay her landlord $400 of the $1,000 rent for October, but he refused. Legal Aid of Nebraska sends mail to every person with a scheduled eviction hearing, explaining the CDC eviction moratorium and offering legal representation. Since late July, Douglas County’s rental assistance program, which can pay up to $7,000 owed rent in CARES Act dollars, has approved less than half of the 5,761 applications it has received. Updated: December 11 More than 75 eviction hearings are scheduled in Douglas County Court for the week after Thanksgiving. Leaders of 38 nonprofit agencies sent Governor Pete Ricketts a letter asking him to indefinitely suspend a state statute that requires eviction hearings to be held within 10 to 14 days of property owners filing for evictions. Updated: December 3 According to the U.S. Census, 35.03% of the adult renters in Nebraska have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. Updated: November 20 The eviction moratorium for Douglas County has a maximum income of $60,900 for a one-person household, while the CDC eviction moratorium has a maximum income of $99,000 for a one-person household. Many people that are not covered under the Douglas County moratorium, but are covered under the CDC eviction moratorium do not know about the rights it grants them. Legal Aid of Nebraska has stopped every eviction case that they have used the CDC moratorium on. Advocates fear that some people do not know about the CDC eviction moratorium and the protections it grants them. Updated: October 30 Despite eviction moratoriums on the state and federal level, 466 evictions have been carried out in Omaha during the pandemic. Updated: October 8 Volunteers at the Society of St. Vincent de Paul (SDVP) Omaha have had to turn callers away these past few weeks. Group executives say their own fund reserves are tapped out, and they are still waiting for funding from the state of Nebraska. Without the $1 million CARES Act grant they've been approved for, SDVP of Omaha volunteer leader and board member Linda Kueper said she fears more people will lose their power, heat, and homes. Updated: September 18 In the third week of July, 13.4% of adults in Nebraska reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, 19,318 renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment. On July 27, the state legislature voted against a bill to create a statewide eviction moratorium.
| Lancaster | In the immediate wake of the eviction moratorium expiration on May 31, 64 evictions were enforced. | July 27 |
Updated: July 29 According to a weekly survey by the Census, 1 in 5 adults in the state either missed their last housing payment or have little/no confidence of being able to make next month’s housing payment. Updated: July 16
Assembly Bill 141 would automatically seal eviction records for nonpayment of rent during the pandemic and require landlords to give some tenants longer notice for a no-cause eviction drew vocal opposition in a legislative hearing from landlord groups. The bill “really is aimed at preventing homelessness,” Assemblyman Howard Watts (D-Las Vegas) said. “As a result of the pandemic, Nevada is on the cliff of a major eviction crisis.” Assembly Bill 161, sponsored by Las Vegas Democratic Assemblywomen Selena Torres and Shondra Summers-Armstrong, would eliminate summary evictions, a process that critics have said leaves renters with little chance for remedy, and would instead require those evictions to go through a more robust legal process like other types of evictions. On February 2, Arlene Mendez found a piece of paper taped to her apartment door. An eviction notice. She and her husband had 24 hours to pack their stuff and vacate their apartment in 89110. Updated: March 15 Nevada lawmakers approved an allocation of $124 million in federal rental assistance funds. These funds are expected to benefit up to 20,000 households in the state, according to an estimate from the Nevada Housing Division. The I-Team found 330 new eviction filings from December 1 to January 15 in Henderson, 403 in North Las Vegas, and more than 2,800 in Las Vegas and the bulk of unincorporated Clark County. Updated: February 26 Gov. Steve Sisolak signed an emergency directive to implement a moratorium on most residential evictions through March 31. According to Bailey Bortolin, Nevada Legal Aid Policy Director, under the governor's eviction ban, "If the homeowner is facing a very real threat of foreclosure, they can go ahead and move forward with an eviction process." The order allows landlords to charge late fees, interest, or penalties and tenants who can pay rent are required to continue making their payments. If a landlord feels a tenant is taking advantage of the moratorium, they’re able to challenge the order but must have a copy of the tenant’s declaration and provide evidence showing why the tenant does not meet the eligibility requirements. Nevada’s eviction moratorium is not automatic. “You have to sign a declaration; you have to give it to your landlord, and you have to keep some proof of how you delivered that to your landlord,” explained Jim Berchtold, directing attorney for the Consumer Rights Project at the Legal Aid Center. Susy Vasquez, executive director of the Nevada State Apartment Association, said the federal stimulus plan adds more funding for rental assistance, and because of this, the deadline to apply for assistance through Clark County's CHAP program has been extended to December 31, 2021.
Updated: February 5 In November the Las Vegas Justice Court reported 4,263 eviction filings, almost double the 2,387 cases it saw in November 2019. There were 3,055 eviction filings in October when Gov. Steve Sisolak’s extension on the moratorium ended — the number was 2,636 in October 2019. Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada is working around the clock to help tenants understand their rights as the CDC eviction moratorium is set to expire. As of December 1, the Clark County CARES Housing Assistance Program (CHAP) has assisted more than 6,000 households with $25 million in housing aid, including rent, utilities, and mortgage payments. “The County doesn’t have a Spanish-language website for people to be able to apply through,” said Bliss Requa-Trautz, the director of the Arriba Las Vegas Workers Center. “A lot of people are seeking assistance, but they don’t have an effective avenue to access, and are facing initial barriers to accessing the program.” Gov. Sisolak announced that he is extending current coronavirus health and safety restrictions for another month and putting in place a new moratorium on evictions through the end of March. Updated: December 8 After receiving an eviction notice, Lynn provided his landlord with a CDC declaration statement. When his landlord refused to sign for the certified mail containing the document, he sent it through FedEx. But when the case went to Justice Court later that month, the eviction was granted and the judge said the CDC order did not protect him; after Lynn appealed the decision, the District Court reversed the Justice Court’s decision, meaning his landlord could attempt an eviction January 1. The Private Equity Stakeholder Project has counted more than 20,000 new eviction cases filed since September by corporate landlords in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, Tennessee, and Texas alone. Updated: December 11 Some Las Vegas landlords and property managers are moving ahead with the eviction process and banking on Clark County courts to take their side. The Las Vegas Justice Court reported that it opened 5,511 eviction cases and granted 2,499 eviction orders from October 1 through November 20, and had a backlog of more than 1,000 landlord complaints to process. Clark County has spent or committed $48 million to residents, with the average award being about $3,500. County officials said they have received about 14,000 applications for the help so far. James Page, a Marine veteran, his partner Kathy, daughter and, two grandchildren are facing eviction in Clark County. This month, Kline Veterans Fund helped them with around $1300 to pay their rent and get their bills up to date, but they are not sure how they will afford next month’s rent. Updated: December 3 According to the U.S. Census, 36.34% of the adult renters in Nevada have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. According to the Nevada Department of Veterans Services, the state is bracing for 250,000 to 400,000 possible evictions, with 25,000 to 40,000 being veteran households. Updated: November 20 The Las Vegas City Council approved the expansion of its flexible housing program, which now can help 45 families. Clark County launched an online system that allows Las Vegas residents facing summary evictions to fill out legal documents without visiting the Regional Justice Center in person. In Nevada, individuals like Rhonda Manuel, Jean Woodman, Jimmy Marks, and Pamela Pierce are facing eviction and uncertainty as the expiration of the CDC eviction moratorium approaches. Updated: November 13 Nevada’s state eviction moratorium expired on October 15. Nevada residents report receiving eviction filings, despite submitting a declaration for the CDC eviction moratorium. Updated: October 30 Local nonprofits are preparing to protect tenants, once the state’s eviction moratorium expires on October 15. Updated: October 8 In Nevada, legal groups reported some landlords and property managers—the Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada specifically named Siegel Suites—are defying eviction protections and still attempting to evict people. Clark County commissioners approved $20 million in CARES Act funding for a housing assistance program. The program paused in August after receiving more than 25,000 applications. The Sparks City Council voted to allocate $85,000 of coronavirus relief funding to go toward creating an eviction mediation program, stepping in while a state effort to establish a similar program is still being ironed out Updated: September 25 Nevada's eviction moratorium ends on September 1. The Guinn Center for Policy Priorities estimates that 118,000 to 142,000 households could struggle to pay September rent, most of which are in the Las Vegas area of Clark County. In Clark County, about 47% of households rent. The state and county allocated $60 million to rental assistance programs. On August 17, after receiving 25,000 applications they stopped accepting them. So far, $2 million has been disbursed to applicants. Updated: September 3 The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports on the city’s looming eviction crisis. According to a report by the Guinn Center, a Las Vegas research group, and the COVID-19 Eviction Defense Project, an estimated 249,700 people in Clark County – more than 10% of its population – are at risk of eviction starting in September. Updated: August 28 Up to 142,000 Nevada households may face eviction once the statewide eviction moratorium expires on September 1. The Nevada Senate passed a bill that would provide an alternative dispute resolution for renters. The bill would allow tenants facing eviction to remain in place for 30 days while they work out a mediation with their landlords. Updated: August 12 In the third week of July, 33.6% of adults in Nevada reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, over one hundred thousand renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment. Researchers estimate 272,000-327,000 tenants in Nevada will be at risk of eviction by September, with a surge in evictions when the state moratorium expires on August 31. Low-income individuals, people of color, and undocumented people most at risk. Updated: July 29 Experts in Nevada expect a flood of evictions when the moratorium is lifted. According to a weekly survey by the Census, 28% of adults in the state either missed their last housing payment or have little/no confidence of being able to make next month’s housing payment. Updated: July 16
So far this year, there have been 412 landlord-tenant writ cases filed in New Hampshire, and 328 writs of possession. Updated: March 15 Some renters facing eviction amid the coronavirus pandemic would get extra time to come up with cash under a bill before a state House. The measure sponsored by Rep. Casey Conely, D-Dover, would require courts to pause eviction cases for 30 days if the renter has applied for help from a federal, state, or local housing assistance program. The New Hampshire Circuit Court will pilot a free, voluntary mediation program to resolve eviction disputes. The circuit courts in Concord and Claremont will serve as the initial pilot sites for the voluntary program with trained mediators. Updated: February 26 New Hampshire Legal Assistance and the Legal Advice and Referral Center are offering weekly Eviction Clinics. Attorneys and paralegals with the organizations will provide information about tenants’ rights during the eviction process. The housing program, run by the Governor’s Office of Emergency Relief and Recovery (GOFERR) and funded through the CARES Act was only able to spend $13 million before the program stopped taking application on December 18. Last month’s stimulus package wiped out that end-of-the-year deadline, so the state was able to keep the funds, but GOFERR said it was too late to reinstate the housing program. Despite a federal eviction moratorium that has been extended through the end of January, evictions in New Hampshire have been rising since the statewide ban ended this summer. Stats from the New Hampshire Judicial Branch show about a 10% drop in evictions between 2019 and 2020, likely a result of the eviction moratorium. The 2020 State of Homelessness in New Hampshire report, which came out in December, found 4,400 people experienced homelessness last year. New Hampshire is the second-most vulnerable state in the country, with a little more than 63 percent of its adult population living in an unstable housing situation. As of mid-December, community action agencies had distributed about $9.7 million of this year's federal CARES act to more than 3,200 individuals and families in New Hampshire. Manchester had at least 35 documented homeless encampments as of October 2019, but the unhoused population has risen since the pandemic began. Despite this, the state has not revamped its plan for homelessness since 2006. A report released in December 2020 by the New Hampshire Coalition to End Homelessness (NHCEH) found that the number of unsheltered unhoused people in Manchester ballooned from 170 in July to 480 in late November of that year. Nearly 40 percent of the state’s homeless population and 60 percent of the unsheltered population reside in-and-around Manchester.
Updated: February 5 Local warnings of an eviction tsunami are now intensifying because other types of evictions, like for renovations and building sales, have been steadily increasing New Hampshire eviction court filings back to pre-COVID-19 levels ever since the state’s moratorium expired in July. Updated: December 18 In the past month, there has been a weekly average of about 50 evictions, which is about a third lower than the weekly number of evictions happening prior to the pandemic, according to an attorney with New Hampshire Legal Assistance. So far about 2,300 households have received about $6.7 million from the state’s $20 million housing relief fund. Since the pandemic, more families have been reaching out to homeless shelters around the state, indicating a likely increase in homelessness. Although data is not yet available about how the pandemic has affected the number of homeless Granite Staters, experts say it is likely the number has increased. Updated: December 3 According to the U.S. Census, 20.03% of the adult renters in New Hampshire have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. Updated: November 20 Governor Chris Sununu has authorized the allocation and expenditure of $35 million from the CARES Act funding to support people in need of housing assistance as a result of COVID-19. $20 million will be initially expended and $15 million will be held in reserve for rent stabilization and housing support. Updated: November 13 The number of evictions statewide is back up to where it was before the pandemic. Most weeks since August have seen about 100 eviction proceedings and the week of August 10 almost 200 landlord-tenant writs were filed in courts across New Hampshire. Some landlords in New Hampshire say they are trying to work with tenants by directing them to rental assistance programs, assisting them with rental assistance paperwork, and offering them payment plans. John Hartigan, his wife, and two children were evicted from their home between the time that the New Hampshire eviction ban was lifted and the federal ban from the CDC took effect. They are now living in a homeless shelter. Updated: October 30 Since the end of June, New Hampshire courts have approved 673 orders to evict tenants. Nearly half of those are just from the month of August. This summer, Gov. Chris Sununu set aside $35 million of federal relief money for New Hampshire’s Housing Relief Program. As of September 3, about $2.2 million of that money had been distributed to roughly 900 people in the state. John Manning, CEO of Southwestern Community Services, said that Community Action Programs around the state are working to streamline the application, which initially slowed down the distribution of funds. Manning says there may also be challenges for tenants who don’t have internet access, a printer, or a scanner to put their applications together. Updated: September 25 As of Aug. 13, Elliot Berry, an attorney with New Hampshire Legal Aid said, more than 4,000 people had inquired about getting that housing aid, but just 429 people had completed the applications. He said he has heard from renters who have received eviction notices and tried to apply for the funding but have not been able to complete the process. Updated: August 28 New Hampshire’s rental assistance program has received 4,701 inquiries and sent out 4,503 applications. Yet only 1,385 completed applications have been submitted and only 139 applications have been approved. But 30 days since the moratorium expired has now passed. Housing advocates worry that tenants who applied for assistance could potentially be evicted before they receive assistance. Updated: August 12 In the third week of July, 14.9% of adults in New Hampshire reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, 28,282 renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment. Updated: July 29
When the coronavirus pandemic swept across the state last year, the number of families seeking help from Family Promise of Hunterdon County increased ten-fold. In addition to the moratorium on evictions, the state has aided 17,000 households by paying back rent to save them from imminent eviction and helping those already experiencing homelessness by providing temporary rental assistance to as many as 1,200 households. Updated: March 15 The legislation (S2340/A4034) that is designed to prevent mass evictions of renters who have been unable to pay because of the COVID-19 pandemic was resoundingly passed by the Assembly last July, then amended and sent back to the Senate where it has been since November, with no plans for a vote anytime soon. There were 2,772 ejectment cases filed in 2019 throughout the Garden State and 1,591 in 2020, according to data from the New Jersey Judiciary. Jersey City officials announced that 1,638 households were selected to receive up to $1,500 in rent relief and utility assistance and that more aid is coming. Nearly 3,000 households applied to the city’s COVID-19 Hardship Assistance Program, owing an average of $6,350 in back rent. Hamilton Township’s Department of Community and Economic Development has secured more than $650,000 of its federal Community Development Block Grant - CARES (CDBG-CV) funds to provide utility, rent, or mortgage payments. Updated: February 26 More than 317,000 New Jersey households are in arrears on rent payments, according to a U.S. Census Bureau survey over a two-week period covering late November to early December. About 40% of those families are Hispanic, despite Hispanics' making up 21% of the state population. Landlords have filed close to 50,000 eviction notices with courts from March through November, according to the Administrative Office of the Courts. New Jersey also set aside $25 million for a Small Landlord Emergency Grant Program to help landlords with three to 30 units with tenants who could not afford their rent due to the pandemic. But landlords say the process was complicated and cumbersome, and the state did not receive as many applications as anticipated. New Jersey ended up giving out less than $4.7 million in grants to cover about 2,000 units, according to the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency. In November, there were 355 eviction filings in Hudson County about one-third of the number filed in November 2019. As one of the most populated and renter-heavy counties in the state, Hudson County could see among the most concentrated eviction crises in New Jersey when state and federal moratoriums expire. Mayor Steven M. Fulop joined the Jersey City Economic Development Corporation (JCEDC) to launch the latest round of emergency funding to provide over $2.5 million in direct aid and support to Jersey City’s neediest residents, regardless of immigration status, who have fallen on hard times amid the pandemic. The new Jersey City COVID-19 Hardship Assistance Program will utilize $2.5 million from the Mayor’s COVID-19 Relief Fund and Community Development Block Grants to provide residents with up to 3 months of utility and rent relief. After her home-health client died of COVID-19, Deyan Alfred fell behind on rent for the tiny, unheated, one-bedroom attic apartment in Orange that she shares with her daughter and, intermittently, her husband of 19 years. But, like thousands of New Jersey residents imperiled by the pandemic and widespread unemployment, Alfred is protected against eviction, for now, by New Jersey’s eviction and foreclosure moratorium. Updated: February 5 Under a state executive order, no one can be kicked out of their home in New Jersey during a public health emergency — or for 60 days after. Still, landlords have filed more than 45,600 eviction notices with courts from March through October, according to the Administrative Office of the Courts. Kerrie Welch of Trenton, a mother of a four-year-old, lost her job in food service when the pandemic started. She missed rent in November, and her landlord has told her he intends to file for eviction when the CDC moratorium expires. Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop announced Monday in his State of the City address — the seventh of his tenure — that the city will distribute $1,500 checks to renters facing economic hardship because of COVID-19. Updated: December 18 According to the U.S. Census, 9.9% of adults in New Jersey either missed last month’s housing payment or have little to no confidence that they can pay next month’s housing payment. Tenants who have been unable to pay rent during the COVID-19 pandemic would have up to 2 1/2 years to repay their arrears without fear of eviction under a controversial bill now before the New Jersey Senate. The so-called People’s Bill would give renters 6 months to repay each month of unpaid rent and require all arrears to be paid within 30 months. Courts are backlogged and a delay in carrying out evictions is inevitable. There are approximately 1,000 eviction filings in Morris County and 50,000 throughout New Jersey. Despite federal and state eviction moratoriums, Annis Nanton, a Jersey City resident, was evicted from her home. asked to pay her rent or leave. The landlord, who needed a tenant who could pay rent so she could cover her mortgage, filed an eviction notice in July against Ms. Nanton who owed over $10,000. Updated: December 3 According to the U.S. Census, 29.72% of the adult renters in New Jersey have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. Updated: November 20 The New Jersey Pandemic Relief Fund (NJPRF), which was established after the COVID-19 pandemic, has raised over $37 million from over 60,000 donors to address the economic crisis that New Jersey has experienced. The NJPRF Housing Stability Project grant awarded $465,000 to Volunteer Lawyers for Justice, which will be used to hire four additional full-time attorneys who will be dedicated solely to tenancy cases. Updated: November 13 There have been 26,000 evictions in New Jersey since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Lawmakers introduced a bill in the state assembly that will keep eviction court records confidential during the pandemic. Newark’s Office of Tenant Legal Legal Services (OTLS) teamed up with NJ SHARES SMART program to provide $372,000 in funding overall. NJ SHARES will pay up to $2,000 a year to landlords for low-income renters who qualify. Updated: October 30 On October 1, applications opened for rental assistance in Camden County. The program will make up to six months of back rent available to residents who may be facing eviction. Updated: October 8 During New Jersey’s eviction moratorium, landlords can still initiate eviction proceedings in court. Records show landlords filed 5,000 cases in August, bringing the total number of eviction filings since April to 26,000. The state has launched a $100 million rental assistance program, a bill in Congress estimates New Jersey needs $3 billion in rental aid. The New Jersey Pandemic Relief Fund is providing $2.35 million for free legal and counseling services to more than 10,000 tenants at risk of eviction. Updated: September 25 New Jersey’s new grant program is expected to help small residential property owners who are often the most vulnerable in an economic crisis. There have been more than 15,000 evictions filed during the pandemic, and advocates expect that this number will grow in the coming months. Updated: August 28 Despite New Jersey’s eviction moratorium, more than 15,000 renters are facing eviction. Another 450,000 households across the state -- 40% of renters -- will be unable to afford August’s rent payment, and New Jersey could see as many 304,000 eviction filings in the next four months. Updated: August 12 In the third week of July, 27.8% of adults in New Jersey reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, 471,722 renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment. Local housing policy experts predict that close to 40% of renters won't be able to pay their August rent, resulting in 304,000 evictions over the next fours months---a 600% increase from previous years. 49% of Black renters in New Jersey were unable to pay the last month's rent, in comparison to 18% of white renters. 61,000 households applied for New Jersey's $100 million rental assistance program, which can only support 8,000 households. Updated: July 29 According to a weekly survey by the Census, 28% of adults in the state either missed their last housing payment or have little/no confidence of being able to make next month’s housing payment. Updated: July 16
The state House of Representatives passed House Bill 111 that would increase the rental protections during emergencies such as the COVID-19 pandemic. It also includes provisions not related to the pandemic such as extending the time permitted to pay unpaid rent, requiring longer time periods be given for nonpayment notices and prohibiting retaliation against a tenant who reports problems with owner-provided services or appliances. The City of Albuquerque has partnered with local nonprofits to help community members deal with the financial impact of COVID-19. The project creates navigators who can connect callers to rent and mortgage payment assistance, eviction prevention, utility payment assistance, food stamps (SNAP), unemployment insurance payments, Medicaid or ACA health insurance (beWellNM), childcare and childcare assistance payments. Updated: March 15 A new report presented Wednesday night to the City Council’s Quality of Life Committee by the nonprofit Chainbreaker Collective provided a sobering look at the potential tsunami of evictions that might hit the city if the situation stays the same. The report found about 5,700 Santa Fe renter households — about 31 percent — are at risk of losing their housing when evictions resume. Sponsored by Democratic Reps. Andrea Romero of Santa Fe and Angelica Rubio of Las Cruces, House Bill 111 would give tenants more time to get current on rent, to prepare for court proceedings, and to move out and secure other housing if the court rules against them. Updated: February 26 The New Mexico Supreme Court will not be expanding its eviction moratorium order despite calls from legal advocacy groups. Co-sponsored by Rep. Angelica Rubio, D-Las Cruces, House Bill 111 addresses the time frame for evictions, increasing the current three-day notice to 10 days and allowing courts more flexibility by lengthening the time for an eviction hearing. Rubio said the changes would give people who are struggling financially time to make arrangements that would allow them to stay in their homes. As families cope with unemployment, pay cuts, and the threat of eviction because of the coronavirus, state homeless agencies say they are seeing a surge in homelessness and housing insecurity. Joe Jordan-Berenis, executive director of the Interfaith Community Shelter at Pete's Place, said the shelter typically can house 123 people, but with capacity reduced by 25% due to COVID-19, only 35 people can stay there. In the past nine months, the city of Albuquerque’s Health and Social Service Centers have provided 953 households with assistance paying rent, utility bills, or some combination of both, but almost 400 people are on the city’s waiting list for help. That is compared with 257 helped over the same span in 2019. Albuquerque used their CARES Act funding on direct economic relief, including $11.2 million for business grants and $2.5 million in emergency grants for vulnerable residents, and $1 million for nonprofit grants. The money helped the city avoid employee cuts and service reductions and expand operations, including eviction prevention, meal delivery for homebound seniors, and operating costs associated with increased use of city parks.
Updated: February 5 Once both moratoriums preventing evictions – the CDC or New Mexico Supreme Court moratorium – are lifted the results in this state could be staggering. A Stout report estimates that the number of New Mexicans unable to pay their rent could be as high as 80,000 and suggests that number could lead to 50,000 evictions. Updated: December 18 Despite New Mexico's statewide moratorium on evictions, some landlords are finding ways to get them out of their residence. As more renters are having difficulty paying rent, some landlords have found legal ways to get people to move out. A legal advocacy group is working to close a loophole that allows landlords to evict tenants despite the State Supreme Court’s moratorium on evictions. So far, 392 Santa Fe residents have received a collective $415,000 in relief to pay for basic needs and stop evictions, according to a city document. Updated: December 11 According to the U.S. Census, 12.3% of adults in New Mexico either missed last month’s housing payment or have little to no confidence that they can pay next month’s housing payment. Updated: December 3 According to the U.S. Census, 35.41% of the adult renters in New Mexico have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. The New Mexico Mortgage Finance Authority announced a new $12.3 million fund to help New Mexicans pay back as much as $4,500 in unpaid rent. Between March and November, according to Santa Fe County, the number of requests for assistance through CONNECT nearly quadrupled during the COVID-19 pandemic — from 443 in 2019 to 1,523 this year. 29% of assistance requests so far this year have been for housing and shelter. Updated: November 20 The New Mexico Mortgage Finance Authority announced a new $12.3 million fund to help New Mexicans pay back as much as $4,500 in unpaid rent. The finance authority believes 60,000 to 80,000 renter households in New Mexico are unable to pay their rent and risk eviction. According to recent Census Pulse Data, the likelihood of eviction and foreclosures are highest in the following regions: District of Columbia, Indiana, Florida, Iowa, Texas, Wyoming, Massachusetts, New Mexico, North Dakota, and Arizona. Updated: November 13 Eviction claims in Santa Fe rose from 16 in April to 40 in July and 32 in August. Cathy Garcia, a lawyer with the Chainbreaker Collective’s Rental Assistance Hotline said landlords will sometimes attempt to evict renters for failing to comply with other aspects of the lease, such as hanging personal items on a balcony. Advocates fear that the impending wave of evictions could damage an already burdened rental market in the city. Updated: September 25 Despite the New Mexico Supreme Court’s suspension of evictions due to non-payment of rent, Mirisa Lucero’s family was evicted from their house in northern New Mexico and moved into a cramped room at the Rodeway Inn & Suites. Thomas Prettyman, managing attorney for New Mexico Legal Aid, said, “If the case had gone as it should have, they should be in their home. What should have happened according to the Supreme Court rules, the magistrate judge would have said ‘yes, you owe rent’ – if the landlord was right, the magistrate judge would have entered a judgment for the money and said no eviction.” Updated: September 18 More than 100,000 New Mexico households have been unable to pay rent during the pandemic, and advocates estimate that 71,000 evictions will be filed in the next four months. Updated: August 28 While the temporary eviction moratorium ordered by the New Mexico Supreme Court and the city of Santa Fe remains in place, housing experts warn of a looming eviction crisis. Updated: August 12 In the third week of July, 29.8% of adults in New Mexico reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, 66,818 renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment.
| Albuquerque | A local community organizer and her family were evicted from their home on July 6 for non-payment of rent even though the State Supreme Court currently prohibits the execution of evictions for that reason. She was not properly informed that she had to provide written evidence of her inability to pay her rent in order to be protected from eviction. “If this was a real tool that the courts were trying to use, then they would have been sending out this information [about requiring evidence of inability to pay] to families that were being evicted,” she said. | July 22 |
Updated: July 29 According to a weekly survey by the Census, 1 in 5 adults in the state either missed their last housing payment or have little/no confidence of being able to make next month’s housing payment. Updated: July 16
Eviction cases can return to courts March 1, but tenants who submit their hardship declaration forms remain protected until May 1. According to the Office of Court Administration, 6,817 people in New York State have filed hardship declarations with the courts. From that, more than 5,000 were for pending eviction cases, and about 1,000 were to prevent cases that haven't been filed yet. Eviction notices are at least twice as high in Black and Latino neighborhoods compared to predominantly white neighborhoods. Also, the notices are being filed at a rate of at least five times higher in the New York City’s poorest neighborhoods compared to its wealthiest. Jennie Stephens-Romero, supervising housing attorney at Make the Road, a service provider and advocacy organization for immigrant and working-class New Yorkers, said: “We have seen a slight uptick in harassment based on immigration status during the pandemic. Landlords know that’s a vulnerable point.” After New York City established a right to counsel at eviction proceedings, 86 percent of tenants with representation were able to remain in their home. A New York landlord is out on bail after being arrested and accused of kidnapping tenants from his property in order to evict them. The two tenants accused landlord Shawn Douglas of kidnapping them while armed from their home at his property in the South End neighborhood of Albany. Queens resident Allilsa Fernandez owes nearly $20,000 in rent and described the last 11 months of the pandemic as "traumatic." Fernandez said it was a tough decision at the beginning of the pandemic to not start a new job as a home health aide, but their asthma and other medical conditions left them no choice. Updated: March 15 Following a recent report that New York City housing courts have received fewer than 2,300 “hardship declaration” forms from tenants and homeowners seeking to pause or prevent evictions or foreclosures, with just a few weeks to go before the end of the initial 60-day period, the elected officials and housing advocates convened the press conference to urge eligible tenants and homeowners to submit their hardship forms as soon as possible. New York’s eviction moratorium is meant to aid tenants at risk of losing their homes, but some families have to be sued for eviction before they can get help paying rent. The Legal Aid Society and the law firm Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP filed a lawsuit against New York State seeking to pause a requirement that families with children must face being thrown out before qualifying for city-issued rent vouchers. Updated: February 26 New York City’s rent-regulated tenants alone owe more than $1 billion in rent due to the pandemic, and across the state that number, for all renters, likely exceeds $3 billion. Allilsa Fernandez, who lives in the second-story apartment of a house in Jamaica, Queens, hasn’t been able to pay her rent since April and owes $16,200. Spencer Hanvik, who lost work as a dog walker and voice actor, hasn’t paid rent for their Bushwick apartment since April; they owe $20,000 in rent. Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a new eviction moratorium that places a halt on residential evictions until May 1 for tenants who endured a "COVID-related hardship." Tenants must show documentation explaining their situation to prevent evictions. Landlords can still evict people who do not show that documentation. The protections include, among other things, a general requirement prior to initiating a foreclosure action or eviction proceeding, among other impacted actions, including those filed before the time that the Governor proclaimed a state of emergency in response to the pandemic on March 7, 2020, which remain pending, that the foreclosing party or landlord provide the tenant or owner with a “Hardship Declaration” that allows the individual to attest to certain COVID-19 related hardships. New York landlords fear an eviction moratorium will lead them to foreclosure. The state currently offers the New York Forward Loan Fund for small business owners, non-profits, and small landlords. New York senators have asked the state Office of Court Administration to issue additional guidance on the eviction moratorium for local courts as lawmakers receive multiple reports of judges disregarding the law and regulations on the books. The letter notes lawmakers heard reports of eviction proceedings going forward in Oswego, Poughkeepsie, Schenectady, Syracuse, and Yonkers as well as foreclosure proceedings moving forward in Kings, Queens, and Suffolk counties. The Division of Housing and Community Renewal, the agency charged with distributing the state's rent relief funds, announced a new expanded set of requirements and reopened the program's application window on December 18. The relief program does not cover full back rent owed but can supplement part of a household's income for April to July 2020 to keep a tenant's rent burden the same. A report, based on a survey by the firm PropertyNest, found that 23 percent of 1,000 tenants polled said they faced difficulty paying rent, with more than 6 percent saying they were at risk of becoming homeless. The federal government directed nearly $4 million from the CARES Act to Syracuse and Onondaga County to aid tenants who are not able to pay their rent because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Only $72,000 of that has made its way to those tenants since the program began in September because the money comes with tight federal restrictions that make it nearly impossible to get to people.
Updated: February 5 Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he might reopen the emergency assistance program, which was set up over the summer. Of the $100 million in CARES Act funding set aside for the program, $60 million went unused and will expire at the end of the year. Buffalo’s Housing Court was closed for most of the last eight months and is only now starting to work through a huge backlog dating to March and even earlier. Some landlords are growing tired of waiting, and are taking matters into their own hands to carry out illegal evictions. A New York City marshal has executed the first residential eviction in Queens since the start of state-imposed coronavirus restrictions nearly nine months ago, city data shows.
Updated: December 18 $60 million of federal rent relief in New York has yet to be allocated, with a deadline of December 30 for its distribution. Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that he would reopen the rental assistance application window and extend the eligibility requirements to help more New Yorkers. Even as a pandemic eviction moratorium shields many New Yorkers, the city’s housing agency has ejected scores of tenants from basement apartments and other unauthorized dwellings, records show. Department of Housing Preservation and Development inspectors issued 95 vacate orders for illegal occupancy between March and October of this year. In late June landlords were allowed to start the eviction process. Since then, the Office of Court Administration says 23,395 non-payment petitions were filed as of the end of November. In Rochester, 88 eviction warrants have been filed between October 1 and November 30. 60% of the housing stock in Rochester is rental units and City Hall estimates in October have varied from 4,500 households being behind on rent to as many as 8,800 or more. Updated: December 11 According to the U.S. Census, 16.1% of adults in New York either missed last month’s housing payment or have little to no confidence that they can pay next month’s housing payment. On November 20, marshals carried out the first legal residential eviction in New York City since the start of the pandemic. Housing advocates are calling for additional measures to help keep people from being evicted from their homes during the pandemic. Specifically, advocates are calling on the State Senate to pass legislation that would provide relief for homeowners, small businesses, and renters amid the pandemic. Updated: December 3 According to the U.S. Census, 34.09% of the adult renters in New York have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. In New York, renters affected by the economic downturn say they received threatening documents and had their rents raised. Governor Andrew Cuomo put out another executive order, which has exceeded a dozen since March, creates a new 60-day window (starting November 3) for tenants to respond to pending nonpayment cases that have been filed against them. Under the Tenant Safe Harbor Act and a related order of the Governor, tenants who have experienced financial hardship anytime on or after March 7, may not be evicted through January 1 for failing to pay rent. Updated: November 20 Evictions officially resumed on October 12 and nearly $2 billion is owed in back rent. Updated: November 13 There are roughly 14,000 outstanding evictions in New York City, and 1,500 landlords have filed a motion to evict tenants. Nearly 600 of those cases are in the Bronx. In a memo released October 9, Administrative Judge Lawrence Marks said that residential evictions, including those for non-payment of rent and for breaking lease terms, can go forward, but the proceedings are expected to take longer than usual. Default judgments will resume November 3, which means that an eviction could proceed if a tenant failed to appear in court. Updated: October 30 Gov. Andrew Cuomo extended the residential eviction protections through January 1. Rather than extending the statewide pause on residential and commercial evictions that expired on October 1, the order temporarily broadens the scope of the Tenant Safe Harbor Act. That bill allows renters suffering financial hardship during the pandemic to use that as a legal defense against eviction. Updated: October 8 Governor Cuomo provided additional protections for residential renters from charges for late payment of rent, and allowed tenants to use security deposits to pay rent for residential tenants by Executive Order. Updated: September 25 New York's Office of Court Administration does not plan to extend the eviction moratorium past October 1. In order for an extension on the eviction moratorium, Governor Andre Cuomo or the Legislature would need to act. Updated: September 3 Curbed NY reports that 14,500 New Yorkers have pending eviction warrants and will be the first tenants evicted when the state’s eviction moratorium expires in October. Behind those tenants, there are 200,000 pending eviction cases in New York City alone that were filed before March 17 that can begin to progress through housing court. Updated: August 28 As many as 400,000 families across New York City could end up in housing court as the state’s eviction moratorium partially expires on August 5. Governor Andrew Cuomo extended protections for tenants who have been impacted by the pandemic. Still, tenants must gather the necessary paperwork, find an attorney, and go to court to argue their case. The Wall Street Journal also reports that thousands of New Yorkers could be evicted in the coming weeks after the state’s eviction ban expires on August 5. Updated: August 12 In the third week of July, 33.9% of adults in New York reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, 1,638,031 renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment.
| New York City | In response to Governor Cuomo’s quiet rollback of eviction protections in early July, a move that is but one in a long line of increasingly conflicting eviction policies, the director of litigation and housing at Legal Services NYC exclaimed: “It’s ridiculous, I’ve been in the industry for 32 years, and no, I can’t think of anything ever like this.” (July 10) Local experts believe the 63 residential eviction cases that have been processed by housing courts in Brooklyn and Queens since Governor Cuomo’s broadest eviction moratorium expired on June 20 are simply taste of what is to come. A researcher and professor at the Graduate Center at CUNY predicts the coming wave of evictions “is likely going be as bad as the great depression and probably worse.” | July 27 |
Updated: July 29 According to a weekly survey by the Census, 37% of adults in the state either missed their last housing payment or have little/no confidence of being able to make next month’s housing payment.
| New York City | New York City expects 50,000 to 60,000 eviction cases. | June 22 |
The U.S. Treasury Department has awarded more than $10 million to the city of Fayetteville and Cumberland County to implement a local Emergency Rental Assistance Program. When the first round of CARES Act funding rolled out last year, Nash-Edgecombe Economic Development (NEED) helped 800 people within three months, but nearly 400 others had to be placed on a waiting list. North Carolina’s eviction moratorium is soon to expire on March 31 and the Latin American Coalition says the organization has been receiving an influx of calls from people asking for support. The Coalition’s Executive Director, Jose Hernandez-Paris, said despite the moratorium, some landlords are not waiting to evict tenants. President and CEO Laura Marx of United Way of North Carolina said the 211 line is receiving more than 2,500 calls each day, that’s around 300 calls every hour. A team of 30 staff members answers the 211 line, which added up to 16,000 calls in February. The North Carolina General Assembly passed on March 4 the 2021 COVID-19 Response and Relief Bill (HB 196/SB 172). The housing provisions in the bill impact the administration of new rental assistance funding administered by the NC Office of Recovery and Resiliency. The North Carolina Housing Coalition is concerned that the provisions will greatly delay and frustrate the state’s efforts to ensure that rental assistance reaches those most in need of assistance in a timely manner. Updated: March 15 Gov. Roy Cooper extended the state’s eviction moratorium through March 31. Nearly 30,000 households in North Carolina lost their water, electricity, or gas in November after the state’s shutoff moratorium expired. Nash County received $405,000 to prevent utility shut-offs and evictions. Guilford County launched an emergency rental and utility assistance program on February 8. The program is funded through $7.2 million in federal funding and an additional $747,000 from the county for the County Emergency Rental and Utilities Assistance Program, bringing the total to $8 million. Updated: February 26 In North Carolina, an estimated 485,000 adults in rental housing reported that they are not caught up on rent and nearly three million adults reported difficulty in covering usual household expenses, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Vashaun Williams, a 38-year-old Wilson resident, submitted a CDC declaration form to his landlord when his hours at the Coca-Cola plant in Clayton were reduced and he fell a few weeks behind on his rent. His landlord charged late fees on the overdue amount, and he could not pay off the total quickly enough to prevent an eviction action and he began staying with friends and family in November. After being laid off in July, Camillia Harvey, a military chef in Lumberton, began to pick up delivery shifts at Walmart. Her power was disconnected and she is doing her best to prioritize rent but is unclear on how the eviction moratorium works. Crystal Carter’s family owes over $2,000 in back rent and the family, including 15-month-old special needs twins Jasmine and Lily, are preparing for possible eviction. Carter has applied to rental assistance program, but many have fallen through because they are out of funding or require Carter to pay a larger portion of the rent than she can afford. Katrina Atkinson and her fiancé Douglas have been living at the City Inn motel for 1 1/2 years. When Douglas lost his job in October, Atkinson’s part-time job at Dollar Tree was not enough to cover their $280 weekly rent; the couple now owes $4,300. Rakeem Jones’ son was in the middle of virtual schooling when a sheriff’s deputy knocked on the door to evict the family in November. Jones went to court where his landlord claimed he did not know about the CDC’s eviction moratorium and the judge sided with the landlord. Jones said he received a grant from the state’s HOPE program, but his landlord did not agree to the state’s terms and rejected the money. While there have been changes made to the program to get more landlords on board, there are still residents waiting for their money to pay utilities or rent. The HOPE Program has given approved residents letters to give to companies and landlords. Isaac Sturgill, a lawyer with Legal Aid of North Carolina (LANC) for eight years, confirmed that the pandemic exacerbated the eviction crisis for Black women. “In the big metropolitan areas, especially in Greensboro, Charlotte, Durham, and Raleigh, it’s way out of whack,” Sturgill said. “We represent low-income tenants and try to help them prevent eviction and in those metropolitan areas, 90% of our clients are Black women and most of them have children too.” School social workers in New Hanover County are bracing for a potential surge of children experiencing homelessness when the federal eviction moratorium expires. The delinquencies on Wilson Property Management's 1,500 residences in Wake, Durham, and Johnston counties now total $231,000. Landlords with just one or a few properties have been hit especially hard. Chapel Hill is continuing its Housing Assistance Program, which uses community donations to help low-income residents receive emergency funding. The program allows for people to file for a one-time payment of up to $4,000. UNC Greensboro (UNCG) and the Foundation for a Healthy High Point (FHHP) are bringing the Eviction Mediation Project to High Point, to address a wave of evictions resulting from the pandemic as well as the city’s higher than average eviction rates in previous years. The mediation service is available to any Guilford County tenant or landlord involved in a case where a tenant is at risk of eviction or where eviction papers have been filed. Through a partnership with the Telamon Corporation, the county helps tenants and landlords cover rent shortfalls, resulting from a loss of income due to COVID-19. House Wake! pays 100% of up to six months of approved tenants' back rent owed from March through December 2020 and in return, the landlords must agree to forgive the remaining rent owed and offer to discount rent by 25% for January through March 2021. AdvisorSmith found that 9.6% of rental households in North Carolina are at risk of eviction in the next two months. In North Carolina, an estimated 485,000 adults in rental housing reported that they are not caught up on rent and nearly three million adults reported difficulty in covering usual household expenses, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. There were estimates that about 240,000 eviction filings could be submitted in January. Gov. Roy Cooper announced the signing of Executive Order 184, extending the NC eviction moratorium through January 31. The order also extends protections for individuals applying for assistance through the state’s Housing Opportunities and Prevention of Evictions (HOPE) Program, which has helped over 21,000 renters with rental or utility assistance. Executive Order 171 requires landlords to make residential tenants aware of their rights under the CDC Order. For eviction actions commencing after Executive Order No. 171, landlords must give residents the option to fill out a declaration form before starting an eviction action.
Updated: February 5 According to the North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency, the HOPE program received 55,916 applications, 42,681 of which were eligible for funds. So far, the program has assisted 2,641 households with $7.9 million in rental assistance and $1.7 million in utility assistance. Approximately 2,000 more households have been awarded funds and are signing agreements, totaling $8 million more set to go out soon. But even after their applications were approved, some renters said their landlords turned away the guaranteed rent. On November 9, Legal Aid of North Carolina (LANC) filed suit in Wake County Superior Court against Archie Smith, clerk of the superior court for Durham County, who has been ordering county sheriffs to evict tenants who are protected by the CDC moratorium. Durham County is one of the counties where the court still issues writs of eviction even if there is a CDC declaration on file, and there will likely be an increase when the CDC eviction moratorium expires. According to AdvisorSmith, South Carolina renters face the highest risk of eviction. In this state, 33.9% of households were behind on their rent payments, and of these households, 62.2% expected to be evicted in the next two months. Several Myrtle Beach families will try to figure out where they will spend the holidays after the Aquarius Motel announced it is in the process of closing and evicting all residents. The CDC eviction moratorium does not apply to motels. Updated: December 18 “The need is tremendous. People are losing their jobs, losing their homes and a lot of our local agencies are unable to help at this point. Basically, the well has run dry for a lot of these nonprofits that are supposed to be helping tenants,” said Dan Rose, of Housing Justice Now. Vicki Honeycutt and her husband, James, a disabled Gulf War veteran, lived in their house in China Grove, NC for almost 10 years. In March, Vicki was laid off and fell behind on rent, so she applied to more than 100 jobs and sought rental assistance from multiple local organizations, but Jones Property Management still moved to evict the family. Updated: December 11 From July through September, almost 25,000 eviction cases have been filed statewide according to data from the North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts. Almost 15,000 have been granted. Some North Carolina landlords are finding ways to evict tenants despite CDC eviction protections. Updated: December 3 According to the U.S. Census, 29.05% of the adult renters in North Carolina have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. In late October, Governor Roy Cooper issued an executive order that complements the CDC’s moratorium and increases protections for North Carolina renters, including requiring landlords to inform tenants of the CDC moratorium and prohibiting them from placing extra hurdles to renters taking advantage of the CDC’s protection. More than 37,000 applications have been submitted for assistance through the HOPE program. The application closed on November 11. Asheville will put nearly $900,000 in COVID-19 relief funds toward stopping evictions and helping Asheville residents affected by the ongoing pandemic pay their rent. Updated: November 20 Gov. Roy Cooper signed an eviction moratorium that will remain in effect through the end of the year. Updated: November 13 On October 15, Gov. Roy Cooper announced applications are now being accepted for the NC Housing Opportunities and Prevention of Evictions (HOPE) program. The HOPE Program will provide $117 million for rent and utility assistance for renters who have been affected by the coronavirus pandemic. Legal Aid of North Carolina anticipates that by the end of September 21% of North Carolina renters could face eviction. Chapel Hill, Carrboro, and Hillsborough put over $2 million into the Emergency Housing Assistance program, which helped over 700 people avoid eviction. Prior to the pandemic, she said the program helped about 10-12 people per month, but it helped over 300 people in September. The program is currently out of funds. The state is accepting applications for the NC H.O.P.E program, a $117 million program to help pay rent and utility bills. Updated: October 30 Across the state, landlords filed evictions against more than 18,000 tenants in between the state and CDC eviction moratoriums. Updated: October 8 In North Carolina, Marilyn Hoffman showed up to a hearing and expected to have her eviction case put on hold. But the judge refused to accept her signed CDC eviction moratorium declaration statement. Updated: September 25 More than 10,000 eviction cases have been filed. Since July 1, the Guildford County Sheriff's Office has received 321 eviction filings and served 237. Updated: September 3 Over 700,000 North Carolinians will be at risk for eviction soon after all government moratoriums and extensions on rent payments expire on Monday. Updated: August 28 Evictions are starting to pick up and the CARES Act moratorium has ended. And, so, you can be evicted says Pisgah Legal Services attorney David Bartholomew. Updated: August 12 In the third week of July, 23% of adults in North Carolina reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, 315,157 renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment. When the eviction moratorium expired in North Carolina on June 21, there were over 10,000 evictions pending.
| Wilmington | Due to the massive backlog in evictions, the small claims court had to double its capacity, scheduling 10 cases per hour. The recent expiration of the federal moratorium on July 25 strips protections from over 100 area apartment complexes, which local advocates say puts possibly thousands at risk of eviction. | July 20 |
Updated: July 29 After the eviction moratorium expired on June 21, landlords filed over 2,000 eviction cases statewide in April and May alone. The order preventing sheriffs from carrying out writs of possession, the physical task of removing people from their homes during an eviction, expired on June 30th. According to a weekly survey by the Census, 1 in 4 adults in the state either missed their last housing payment or have little/no confidence of being able to make next month’s housing payment. Updated: July 16
For more than five years, Bobby Delage and his 13-year-old son have called 81 Center St. in West Fargo home, but after being fired in October he Delage fell behind on rent. He applied to several jobs and sought rental assistance, but nothing worked out in time. Updated: February 26 In North Dakota, a total of 2,427 eviction notices were issued last year. Legal Services of North Dakota (LSND), a legal resource for low-income residents, says they only received 700 applications for housing issues in 2020. The state’s Emergency Rent Bridge program, which started in May, acts as a bridge between housing providers who still need an income, and renters who may have lost theirs. The program has helped over 1,300 renter households across the state, 54 percent of which have children under 18.
Updated: February 5 As of September 2020, the state’s Emergency Rent Bridge program issued payments to landlords to assist 539 rental households, with the average payment amount being $601.85. The agencies that comprise the North Dakota Continuum of Care reported assisting 1,697 individuals, 22% who reported needing services specifically because of COVID-19, at risk of homelessness or experiencing homelessness between March 21 to September 1. Updated: December 11 Eviction filings in North Dakota so far in 2020 are down 23% from 2019 as a result of state and federal eviction moratoriums. Updated: December 3 According to the U.S. Census, 17.94% of the adult renters in North Dakota have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. Updated: November 20 According to recent Census Pulse Data, the likelihood of eviction and foreclosures are highest in the following regions: District of Columbia, Indiana, Florida, Iowa, Texas, Wyoming, Massachusetts, New Mexico, North Dakota, and Arizona. Updated: November 13 Adele Page, deputy director at Legal Services of North Dakota, said they have seen cases where the tenant was facing qualified hardship, but minor violations were used as an excuse to go through with the eviction. Updated: October 30 North Dakota received an additional $3.1 million in rental assistance through CARES Act funding. Updated: September 25 Up to 21 percent of North Dakota renters are at risk of eviction. While there were fewer evictions overall in the state, in July of 2020 than July 2019. This doesn’t count dismissed cases that may have come back up later. Updated: August 28 In the third week of July, 15.3% of adults in North Dakota reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, 17,100 renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment. Updated: July 29 According to a weekly survey by the Census, 1 in 5 adults in the state either missed their last housing payment or have little/no confidence of being able to make next month’s housing payment. Updated: July 16
Finding a suitable place to move to that accepts MET Housing vouchers is not easy. “That probably is an issue right now. Because even on a regular day we serve more than 1,000 people in this area and now because of COVID and everything we’ve got a lot of people out there looking for housing. If more landlords come forward and start participating in the program then we can actually house more people,” said Anna Schnippel, executive director for Allen Metropolitan Housing Authority. Lakewood City Council President Dan O’Malley last week introduced a Pay to Stay ordinance that, if passed, will expand rental rights during the pandemic. The legislation specifically allows renters who tender their full rent, plus any additional late fees and court costs prior to an eviction hearing, to avoid removal from their home based on late payment. Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Ohio and the Mahoning Youngstown Community Action Partnership are helping Youngstown families who have fallen behind on their rent, mortgage, and energy bills amid the coronavirus pandemic. “Threat of eviction and mounting unpaid bills is bad for mental health,” said Shelia Triplett, CEO of the Mahoning Youngstown Community Action Partnership. “This grant gives 18 families in the Mahoning Valley the time they need to stabilize their finances while they recover from the economic impact of COVID.” Community Legal Aid is offering online programs in March to anyone who may need legal assistance, including related to evictions. Updated: March 15 Eviction Lab data shows that over 158 people are evicted across Ohio every day, despite the CDC eviction moratorium. As the state works to recover from COVID-19, organizations are also trying to prevent a rise in homeless numbers. Michelle Bonner is a mom of five and is now homeless because she didn’t know about her right to claim protections under the eviction moratorium. The state approved $100 million in federal funding – but with a moratorium on evictions set to expire March 31, many people said what they really need is more time. After losing her jobs and falling behind on rent, Willoughby resident Sandy Naffah struggled to get help from local agencies, including money to cover rent, because her landlord did not submit the proper paperwork. After about three months of missed payments, her property manager began calling and harassing her, so Naffah decided to break her lease and left her apartment to avoid having an eviction on her record. Updated: February 26 Ohio State Reps. David Leland, D-Columbus, and Jeffrey Crossman, D-Parma, introduced a bill that would require the parties to a foreclosure or eviction to work together to find solutions that do not involve families losing their housing during this pandemic. 50 eviction filings were made in Cleveland between December 27 and January 3. The Cleveland Housing Court, which hears nearly half of all eviction cases in Cuyahoga County, ordered 1,017 evictions between mid-June and December 16. Dayton Municipal Court recorded 1,642 new eviction filings through late December, which is down more than 36% from 2019. An Enquirer analysis of court records shows eviction filings in Hamilton County declined by more than one-third from 2019 to 2020. Almost 4,000 fewer eviction cases were filed in the county in 2020. In Hamilton County, 936 eviction cases are currently pending. Community Legal Aid Services has been inundated with requests for eviction assistance in the past few months and has seen evidence that illegal evictions are on the rise. The Cincinnati-Hamilton County Community Action Agency is currently assisting around 1,500 families with applying for rental assistance to avoid eviction. Mike McGlumphy, the CEO of the Jefferson County Community Action Council, said about $460,000 was allotted to the county. As of December 29, $348,000 had been used to pay back rent associated with COVID-19 hardships. There are already 146 people on the waiting list to get into Springfield homeless shelters. Many homeless shelters across Ohio are already at capacity and looking for ways to make room for others in the months to come as the deadline looms for protections on evictions. Paulette Clark, a mother of five from Avondale, was able to get rental assistance through Talbert House. Clark was laid off for several months due to the pandemic. She is caught up through December, but she is laid off for another two weeks. Shamone Kelly of Arlington Heights works as an EMT and has lived in her current apartment for almost three years, but she hasn't paid her rent since June because her hours were cut and she has no child care for her 10-year-old daughter. Shamone has been able to stay in her home because of a ban on evictions, but she was not able to get any rental assistance until earlier this month, but she still owes $3,000.
Updated: February 5 The Miami Valley Community Action Partnership, a Dayton, Ohio-based non-profit, received 76 applications for assistance in a single morning last week. The organization already paid out close to $6 million in rental aid in 2020, compared with $138,000 in 2019, and its 130-member staff is working nonstop to process claims and dole out the group’s share of Ohio’s federal stimulus aid in the next four weeks. Under House Bill 562, introduced by State Reps. David Leland of Columbus and Jeffrey Crossman of Parma, landlords could still file eviction actions, but courts would be prevented from acting on them while the state of emergency is in place, law enforcement officers could not carry out eviction orders either, and courts would not be able to conduct any business pertaining to foreclosures and must halt all pending foreclosure actions. Updated: December 11 Following a COVID-19 exposure in the Harold K. Stubbs Justice Center, Akron Municipal Court sent out a press release postponing all eviction hearings until January 1. But just days after the suspension went into effect, Akron Municipal Court said it would be resuming virtual eviction hearings, changing course from its original decision. Franklin County courts halted processing of non-emergency eviction filings from March 16 through June 1. As of the first week of November, Columbus reported 212 filings for the week, with a total of 6,669 filings since March 15. Hamilton County courts also halted eviction proceedings from March to June, though eviction filings were still accepted. Updated: December 3 According to the U.S. Census, 26.83% of the adult renters in Ohio have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. Ohio approved $420 million in the second round of funds that counties would allocate to their residents and public organizations based on need. Updated: November 20 As of last month, Ohio landlords were waiting on $345 million in back rent while 800,000 Ohioans were at risk of eviction. Since September, 1,774 eviction cases have been filed, far surpassing summer levels, according to Princeton University’s Eviction Lab, which tracks evictions. Updated: November 13 Combined, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Columbus have seen more than 10,200 evictions filed since the beginning of the pandemic in March, according to the Eviction Lab. IMPACT President and CEO Bo Chilton said last week that the fund can no longer accept online applications. The remaining $7 million is allocated for the 3,200 applications still being processed and to aid families who have cases filed against them and must appear in eviction court. Ohio allocated $50 million in CARES Act funding for mortgage and rental assistance to families making 200% or less of the federal poverty level. Updated: October 30 After Umu Conteh contracted COVID-19 and missed 2 months of work, she fell behind on her rent payments. Conteh and her 1- and 4-year-old daughters were among the 118 families who faced eviction cases in Columbus on September 30. Updated: October 8 In Ohio, at least 800,000 renters could be evicted by the end of the year. Angela Small and her two children were evicted in July. She lost her job due to the pandemic and now they are living in a motel, until she can find affordable housing. But Ms. Small says that it is nearly impossible because some landlords also will not rent to her because she has no job. Updated: September 25 Dozens of eviction judgements have been granted in Franklin County despite the federal eviction moratorium. Many residents who hear about the CDC’s eviction moratorium do not attend their court date and as a result, do not have access to immediate rental assistance or to demonstrate that they are eligible for the national eviction moratorium. Updated: September 18 The eviction case of a Cleveland single mother of two highlights the growing challenge among Americans to pay rent during the pandemic. Internal estimates from Cuyahoga County indicate that renters who have been unable to pay owe a combined $43 million per month since the pandemic started to spread in mid-March. Updated: August 28 Trying to hang on: Eric Heisig tells the story of a Cleveland woman trying desperately to avoid eviction to illustrate how many Americans are struggling to pay rent during the coronavirus pandemic. Latisha Gonzalez “is part of a growing group of Americans waiting for help in the form of a Congressional stimulus package to help families during the pandemic,” Heisig writes. Updated: August 17 The Legal Aid Society of Cleveland says requests in the last month for help in landlord/tenant issues are up 25 percent from the same time period last year. Updated: August 12 In the third week of July, 23.1% of adults in Ohio reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, over half a million renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment. Updated: July 29 Ohio never instituted a moratorium. The Census estimates 565,000 Ohio households didn't pay their rent in May, including 336,000 with children.
| Franklin County | Franklin County, Ohio is processing 100 eviction cases a day. In Columbus, Ohio, eviction hearings are taking place in a convention center in order to accommodate the number of cases and adhere to social distancing guidelines. | June 18 |
| Hamilton County | When eviction hearing resumed mid-June, Hamilton County had over 1,000 eviction cases pending. | June 15 |
| Cuyahoga County: | When their Housing Court reopened on June 15, 500 cases were pending and 125 were being accepted each day. Most hearings were being conducted remotely with no way for the public to observe. | June16 |
Tulsa’s biggest rental-assistance provider, Restore Hope Ministries, has distributed more than $3.9 million to local tenants since the pandemic began last spring, a 1,300% increase over 2019. And officials are making plans for an even bigger effort in 2021 that could provide another 1,000% increase in rental assistance. Denielle and Cody Hood and their two kids went to the Salvation Army for shelter after they were evicted in January. In January, the Oklahoma County Court Clerk’s office reported 1,172 eviction orders were filed. Updated: March 15 Nearly 20,000 evictions have been filed in Oklahoma courts since last March, according to Open Justice Oklahoma. Out of the 98 eviction cases in Oklahoma City on February 8, court records show 20 people failed to show up for their court date and will likely be evicted automatically. House Bill 1564, also known as the eviction bill, removes protections for renters from being evicted during the COVID-19 pandemic. HB 1564 creates stringent requirements for postponing an eviction and allows landlords to demand interest for late rent payments. Updated: February 26 On December 23, there were 136 eviction cases on the dockets for the Oklahoma County Courthouse. Earlier this year, Community CARES received CARES Act funds from the state, Oklahoma County and Oklahoma City and as of the end of December, the group says it helped about 7,000 families and payout more than $15 million. In Oklahoma County, since the beginning of the pandemic, more than 7,000 evictions have been filed, according to Open Justice Oklahoma, which has been tracking evictions. Only 2,000 evictions have been granted. In Tulsa, landlords rarely even have to show up in court themselves. But roughly 90% of tenants do not have access to legal counsel, according to a recent study from University of Tulsa’s Terry West Civil Legal Clinic. AdvisorSmith found that 11 percent of rental households in Oklahoma are at risk of eviction in the next two months. Updated: February 5 Eviction cases will proceed next week despite Tulsa County District Court postponing most other face-to-face proceedings until January, to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Upward Transitions, an organization working to prevent generational poverty, in Oklahoma City has seen record-breaking numbers this year. The organization has handled as many referrals in the last month as they would in a normal year. Oklahoma City shelters opened, at a lower capacity than normal due to COVID-19 restrictions, for several overnights this week as a winter storm hit the state. Advocates and service providers fear that there will be a spike in the need for shelter when the CDC eviction moratorium expires on December 31. According to Stout, more than 90,000 households in Oklahoma could be at risk of eviction. Updated: December 11 According to the U.S. Census, 38.24% of the adult renters in Oklahoma have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. In Oklahoma, 15,182 evictions have been filed since March, according to the eviction tracker at Open Justice Oklahoma — 6,446 have been granted. Many people in rural areas lack the resources cities have to get aid when facing eviction Some of Tulsa’s poorest zip codes have seen a slight increase in their share of evictions, suggesting that anti-eviction efforts might be helping the middle-class more than the underprivileged. Updated: November 20 Tulsa’s eviction rate is rising back to pre-pandemic levels. More than one-third of all eviction cases in Tulsa this year have been filed just since August 25. Updated: October 30 In Oklahoma, tenants and landlords urged the state to reform its eviction laws. Michael Figgins, the executive director of Legal Aid Services of Oklahoma, proposed allowing eviction records to be expunged after a certain period of time, extending how long tenants have to respond to an eviction notice, and giving tenants a right to legal counsel during an eviction hearing. Updated: October 8 In Tulsa, Oklahoma, the Landlord Tenant Relief Program offered to pay rent for anyone who needed help using public donations and unlimited funding from a private donor. In exchange, landlords had to agree not to evict tenants for the next three months. The Landlord Tenant Relief Program paid rent for less than 15% of the eligible eviction cases after landlords chose not to accept the funds. Updated: September 18 In one day, more than 660 people applied for emergency rent assistance totaling over $900,000 in Oklahoma. As many as 500,000 renters in Oklahoma could face eviction. Updated: September 3 The Oklahoma County Court Clerk says there are 91 eviction cases on its dockets for Monday the day after the eviction moratorium ends. It is usually limited to 75 per day. Advocates fear 130,000 potential evictions in Oklahoma if additional supports are not made available. Updated: August 28 In the third week of July, 31% of adults in Oklahoma reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, 146,263 renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment. Updated: July 29 According to a weekly survey by the Census, 1 in 4 adults in the state either missed their last housing payment or have little/no confidence of being able to make next month’s housing payment. Oklahoma never instituted a statewide moratorium.
| Tulsa County | The Tulsa County Courthouse reopened for hearings on June 1 with more than 1,200 cases pending. | June 19 |
Oregon experts and advocates anticipate a flood of evictions when the rent moratorium ends July 1. Oregon renters owe as much as $378 million in back rent, according to Stout, a global investment bank advisory firm. A new report by Portland State University’s Homelessness Research & Action Collaborative estimates that the short-term downstream costs of evictions could equal as much as $3.3 billion. Sponsored by state Rep. Wlnsvey Campos, D-Aloha, House Bill 2372 would ban no-cause evictions statewide to keep Oregonians in their homes in the pandemic. Under the bill, landlords would still retain the right to issue evictions if they wish to sell, occupy, or renovate the property with 90 days notice as laid out in the current moratorium. Landlords in Oregon whose tenants have fallen behind on rent during the coronavirus pandemic can now apply for relief from the state. The first round of applications for the money opened in February. So far, Oregon has received more than 1,600 applications from landlords who, in total, need more than $19.5 million in assistance to cover unpaid rent. Updated: March 15 Recent estimates show Oregon renters could owe up to a staggering $378 million in back rent as the pandemic and widespread unemployment rage on. According to the calculations, Oregon could spend anywhere between $1 billion and $3.3 billion responding to the aftermath of mass evictions if the state does not act to provide eviction support before the moratorium expires in June. Applications for Oregon’s new landlord compensation fund opened, nearly two months after state lawmakers allocated $150 million to seed the program. After Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action Agency distributed $6.6 million to 1,400 households, there are still 1,402 households on the waitlist to receive help and another 530 households waiting to be screened. The average household got $13,000 out of a pot of $6.6 million in state and federal funding meant to address those struggling to pay rent. Updated: February 26 The Oregon Legislature has extended the state’s COVID-19 pandemic eviction moratorium until June 30, but this time, the protection is not automatic for tenants who cannot pay their rent. Renters have to fill out and sign a sworn declaration of financial hardship and give it to their landlords in order to be protected from eviction. If the form is completed, renters will have until July 1 to pay back what they owe — without being charged any late fees or having debt reported to credit agencies. HB 4401 includes $150 million in funding for landlords from Oregon Housing and Community Services to help pay back up to 80 percent of owed rental income. The Multnomah County Board of Commissioners unanimously voted to extend the eviction moratorium to July 2, and provide a six-month grace period for repaying back rent. Community Services Consortium (CSC) —an agency providing assistance with housing, food, employment, education, utility bills, and more—is receiving a second round of COVID-19 Rent Relief funding to continue to support renters in Linn, Benton, and Lincoln Counties. Last year, CSC served over 700 households, more than 2,000 individuals, with COVID Rent Relief and provided $3,660,078 to local landlords on behalf of their tenants.
Updated: February 5 The City of Portland's eviction moratorium expires on January 8. Updated: December 11 Oregon lawmakers are considering a six-month extension to the statewide eviction moratorium, along with additional help for landlords. If passed, the new proposal would extend the eviction moratorium through the end of June. Rep. Julie Fahey, chair of the Interim House Committee on Housing, said they wanted to line up the expiration date with the end of the school year. Updated: December 3 According to the U.S. Census, 19.34% of the adult renters in Oregon have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. Data compiled by Multifamily NW, a rental industry group whose members include landlords and property managers, shows that between 12% and 15% of renters in Oregon have been unable to keep up with their rental payments during the pandemic. A survey conducted by Portland State University found the situation to be considerably worse with 36% of 460 Oregon tenants surveyed reporting they owed back rent. Updated: November 20 According to the National Council of State Housing Agencies, by January 2021, between 100,000 and 150,000 Oregon renter households will be unable to pay rent and at risk of eviction. Together, they will owe between $250 million and $378 million in rent by the end of this year, when the state and national eviction moratoriums are set to expire. Updated: November 13 The Portland Housing Bureau estimated that Portland renters would have collectively fallen behind on rent by over $120 million by the end of September. According to data compiled by RealPage, 87% of renters in Oregon, compared to 92% from 2019, made full or partial rental payments by October 6. Approximately 38% of the $60 million in CARES Act funding that the state allocated to provide rental assistance has been distributed to 7,431 households, while another 11% has been committed to specific households but not yet paid out. A survey of 460 Oregon tenants conducted by Portland State University found that 35% owed back rent. That number increased to 56% for people of color. Updated: October 30 On September 30, the Portland City Council voted to extend eviction protections for renters in the city through January 8. The moratorium allows a six-month repayment period for rent payments missed between October 1 and January 8. Multnomah County also extended its eviction moratorium through the end of the year. Updated: October 8 53% of Oregon tenants say they paid their monthly rent during the pandemic by cutting back on food and medication, according to a survey conducted this month by Portland State University and the Community Alliance of Tenants. More than 1 in 3 of the 460 Oregon renters surveyed have failed to pay their full rent during the pandemic and cannot afford to pay what they still owe. Updated: September 25 Mayor Ted Wheeler of Portland signed an executive order to extend the city’s eviction moratorium through the end of the year. Portland residents currently owe about $120 million in back rent. He also said the Portland Housing Bureau would reallocate $500,000 toward housing aid for East Portland residents who pay more than half their monthly income on rent. In order to keep people in their homes during the pandemic, the Portland City Council will consider requiring landlords to pay tenants relocation fees if they raise the rent by any amount. Current rules require them to pay fees if they increase rent at least 10%. Updated: September 18 In the third week of July, 17.4% of adults in Oregon reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, over one hundred thousand renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment. Updated: July 29 According to a weekly Census survey, 134, 741 renters in Oregon did not pay their June rent, with an additional 3,234 indicating they had deferred their June rent payment. Updated: July 16
About 5,000 Delaware County renters facing trouble paying their rent and even eviction will be receiving $37 million or six months' of rent plus utilities by the end of September through the Emergency Assistance Rental Program. Delaware County Council approved a $2.5 million contract with Philadelphia-based Capital Access Inc. to administer the $37 million Emergency Assistance Rental Program and to provide program management software for distributing those funds. On March 2, Pittsburgh City Council unanimously passed an eviction moratorium that will provide protections to tenants during the COVID-19 pandemic. The moratorium bans landlords from evicting tenants for unpaid rent due to pandemic-related income loss or increased medical expenses, and it will remain in place until the city’s health emergency order is lifted. A landlord organization has filed a lawsuit against Pittsburgh City Council over its passage of an eviction moratorium amid the COVID-19 pandemic before it has been signed into law. Cumberland County’s initial allocation for rental assistance from the state is around $9 million. Valley residents who lost jobs and income because of the pandemic and fell behind on rent and utility payments may be eligible for a share of $12.7 million in emergency aid. Valley counties were allocated the following: Montour, $1,198,992.63; Northumberland, $5,974,771.68; Snyder, $2,655,278.69; Union, $2,954,599.35. Just over 200 households in Pittsburgh have reached various steps in the eviction process since November, despite an ongoing Centers for Disease Control and Prevention order that temporarily halts evictions, according to Carnegie Mellon University CREATE Lab’s Eviction Rapid Response team. Just under 380 eviction hearings are scheduled through April in Pittsburgh’s 12 magisterial districts, according to the lab. The handwritten message on the top of Manisha Divecha's eviction notice reads, "You must be paid in full or moved out by March 15, 2021, at 11:00." A Chester County court judgment against the resident of The Haven at Atwater Village in Malvern says the tenant of the Bozzuto property owes $12,000; Judge Joanne V. Kline signed the eviction order, dated March 3. Amanda and her 12-year-old daughter are facing eviction from their Duncannon home. After a neighbor in the same duplex was behind in rent, her landlord decided to sell the property in order to avoid foreclosure. Updated: March 15 Court records show that in Allegheny County alone, 1,138 eviction cases have been filed since November 1. In 213 cases, judges ruled in favor of evicting tenants, and in 135 cases tenants were forced out of their homes. In Pittsburgh, there were 105 such filings in one week, with a total of 2,767 since last March 15, according to the Eviction Lab. Gov. Tom Wolf signed a $912 million COVID-19 relief package that will send federal stimulus money to Pennsylvania’s tenants, utility ratepayers, schools, and business owners. “The application process was burdensome, to have both a tenant part and a landlord part and having a lot of documentation required. I think [that] really made for challenges for those first few months in the program,” said Bryce Maretzki, director of the Office of Strategic Planning & Policy of PHFA. “Our office was inundated with calls from tenants and landlords who were expressing frustration with the program,” said state Rep. Sue Helm, R-Dauphin/Lebanon, who chaired the House Urban Affairs Committee last year. They put a $750 monthly cap on the assistance each family could receive. In parts of Pennsylvania, that is less than the median rent for a one-bedroom apartment. Harrisburg Mayor Eric Papenfuse extended the city’s moratorium on evictions for another 30 days. Landlords are more than twice as likely to file for evictions against Black renters in Philadelphia than against white renters. Based on the pre-pandemic trend, Black renters are more likely to be evicted when pandemic eviction moratoriums are lifted. Updated: February 26 It is estimated more than 230,000 Pennsylvania households are facing possible eviction. Haley Sundo waitressed through the pandemic summer, paying three months’ rent when she moved into her new place in August, but when her job disappeared along with the warm weather — and she was denied unemployment benefits — making the December rent became tough. She faces a $1,650 claim and an eviction hearing next month, court records show. Lakeysha Anderson, a mother of four and a person who formerly experienced homelessness, had her hours cut at work when the pandemic hit and she fell behind on rent. Chester County’s Eviction Prevention Court program helped her pay overdue rent and some of her electrical bills, which allowed her to stay in her current apartment without an eviction on her record. Union-Snyder Community Action Agency and Susquehanna Valley Mediation launched a mediation program for landlords and tenants aimed at stabilizing renter households and preventing evictions. Bucks County has helped 500 to 600 households avoid eviction since July. According to the Berks Coalition to End Homelessness, which received about $750,000 in federal money for homelessness prevention and rapid rehousing, estimates the need for aid in 2020 was five times greater than in 2019. A group of lawmakers in Harrisburg introduced more than a dozen pieces of legislation are included in the Safe at Home package, each aimed at addressing various issues surrounding rent, mortgage, and debt relief. One would extend the eviction and foreclosure moratorium for 60 days past the expiration state’s disaster declaration. A study from the National Council of State Housing Agencies found that at least 240,000 families will be at risk of being evicted when that moratorium ends compared to less than 100,000 evictions in Pennsylvania in all of 2019. 28,687 landlords and 46,282 tenants statewide applied for more than $121.6 million in rent relief through the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency (PHFA). Of the $150 million available, only $54.4 million made it into the hands of those that needed the help and the state took the remaining $95.5 million to balance the budget for the Department of Corrections. More than 800 faith leaders, spanning the religious spectrum, have called on Gov. Tom Wolf and state lawmakers to step in to prevent a looming eviction crisis that could leave nearly a quarter-million of Pennsylvania families homeless by month’s end. In one week in September, nearing the end of a state ban on evictions and before a new federal hold was put in place, 276 evictions were filed in court in Pittsburgh, according to the Eviction Lab. There were 469 hearings in landlord-tenant cases scheduled for one week before district judges in Allegheny County.
Updated: February 5 260,000 to 400,000 renter households (16%-25% of renter households in the state) are estimated to be falling behind on rent. By January, these households will have $697 million to $958 million in back rent, and 240,000 of those households will be so far behind on their rent payments that they face eviction. Over the last two months, 237 landlord-tenant mediations occurred in Philadelphia as a part of the city’s Eviction Diversion Program. Of those, 182 reached agreements--avoiding eviction filings--42 agreed to keep negotiating, and 13 did not reach an agreement. Updated: December 11 According to the U.S. Census, 13.3% of adults in Pennsylvania either missed last month’s housing payment or have little to no confidence that they can pay next month’s housing payment. “One of the big problems is that it capped the amount of rent a tenant and therefore a landlord could receive per month. It was a flat $750 per month for 6 months. What landlords were required to do is actually forgive the rest of the rent. There is a lot of landlords who are just not in that position,” said Phyllis Chamberlain, Executive Director of the Housing Alliance of Pennsylvania. A Philadelphia law mandates landlords to try mediation before immediately evicting a tenant. So far, 126 people have entered into agreements after mediation and others secured "graceful exits" without the hit of an eviction to their record. Several states ― including Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Vermont ― have secured CARES Act funding to expand tenant representation in eviction proceedings. Updated: December 3 According to the U.S. Census, 33.19% of the adult renters in Pennsylvania have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. A new investigation from Spotlight PA found “gaping loopholes” and inconsistent application of the CDC moratorium, with the result that many tenants face eviction notices without knowing or being able to exercise their legal rights. Landlords have found some ways to circumvent the CDC moratorium, for example by evicting tenants because a lease has expired rather than for nonpayment of rent, according to the report. A statewide rental assistance program meant to aid both landlords and tenants struggling due to the coronavirus pandemic still has more than $130 million left unspent, according to numbers released last week. More than 10,000 renters and close to 7,000 landlords had been approved for the program as of November 1, out of the more than 68,000 renters and more than 37,000 landlords who have applied for the aid. In Philadelphia, eviction filings have begun trending higher again. In Dauphin County, nearly 1,100 households, totaling over 2,000 tenants, are currently facing eviction. Updated: November 20 Loopholes and vague state guidance leave some Pennsylvania families out of home despite a federal ban on evictions. A review of 10 eviction cases in nine counties found tenants — many of them already distraught by the prospect of losing their home, and confused by a string of ever-changing rules — face pitfalls at every turn and a bureaucratic system that does not go out of its way to help. Updated: November 13 A Pennsylvania House Panel is considering tenants’ rights to an attorney. Even in cases that are likely to end in eviction regardless of whether a tenant has representation, lawyers can help them negotiate better terms that make the consequences of displacement less impactful. Gov. Tom Wolf signed an executive order extending the rental and mortgage assistance application deadline to November 4. The Pennsylvania Senate failed to pass a bill to make changes that would allow more people to take advantage of the $150 million rental relief program. As a result of the Senate’s inaction, the relief program will probably expire November 4 having distributed just a fraction of the money allotted to it. Updated: October 30 Gov. Tom Wolf declared that without more assistance, about 400,000 renters in the state, about 17% of the total renters, are “racing towards an eviction cliff.” In August almost 17,000 tenants applied for rent relief but only 1,800 tenants were approved. Updated: October 8 Pennsylvania is getting nearly $2 billion in CARES Act funding. A Philadelphia judge has extended a ban on evictions in the city through October 7. The order does not prevent landlords from filing new eviction notices, but it does mean that tenants will not immediately be locked out of their homes. In addition, landlord-tenant officers are required to notify tenants about the CDC’s eviction moratorium. Updated: September 25 Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf again called on state lawmakers to pass an eviction moratorium, as well as make changes to a statewide rent and mortgage relief program. Gov. Wolf said the program has not been working as intended and cited a $750-per-month cap on payments and cumbersome application as deterrents to participation. The Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency, which administers the program, said only 1,756 tenants were approved for $3.3 million in rent relief in August. Updated: September 18 With the eviction moratorium ending on August 31, thousands of evictions and foreclosures will commence. In Pennsylvania, 1 in 5 adults missed July's rent or mortgage payment and had little to no confidence that they could make August payments. In Philadelphia, landlord-tenant court will resume rescheduled hearings on September 3, and landlords can begin removing tenants on September 8. Updated: September 3 According to U.S. Census Bureau data, about 17% of Pennsylvania renters missed their payment in June, and a quarter had little or no confidence that they could pay rent in July. An op-ed in the Post-Gazette discusses the connection between the current COVID-19 housing crisis and systemic housing issues. The authors urge Congress to fund local housing work adequately and consistently - even after the immediate COVID-19 crisis has subsided. Updated: August 28 In the third week of July, 1 in 5 adults in Pennsylvania reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, 394,482 renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment. Updated: July 29 13,000 households applied for assistance, but the state’s $10M fund could only serve 4,000 households. According to a weekly survey by the Census, nearly 1 in 5 adults in the state either missed their last housing payment or have little/no confidence of being able to make next month’s housing payment.
| Philadelphia | One in 5 renters in Philadelphia doubt they can make July’s rent. | June 26 |
Rhode Island’s district court system is seeking volunteer attorneys to provide legal advice to tenants. United Way’s 211 call center has been inundated with questions and concerns from Rhode Islanders regarding the coronavirus pandemic, according to CEO Cortney Nicolato. The second-most common concern, she added, is housing, since many people have lost their jobs and can’t afford their monthly rent or mortgage payments. After having surgery last February, Sharon Perkins, of Pawtucket, was out of work and unable to pay her rent. While she was recovering, her apartment building came under new ownership and said she has since been evicted and is in the process of moving out. Updated: March 15 “My phone doesn’t stop ringing,” Terri Wright, an organizer at the Tenants and Homeowners Association (THA), said. “There are a lot of calls about eviction notices during this pandemic. We have folks who are housing insecure that are in hotels, and they’re wondering who’s going to pay the hotel bills in the upcoming week. It’s just an ugly mess right now.” Caitlin Frumerie, executive director of the Rhode Island Coalition for the Homeless, says the state has more than double the number of people experiencing homelessness than last year, some of whom have moved into their vehicles. Updated: February 26 In Rhode Island, more than 14 percent of its population are facing the “likelihood of eviction or foreclosure.’’ Rhode Island agencies doled out just shy of $5 million in rental assistance to 1,217 tenants since the pandemic hit in March. A total of 41% of the tenants to receive assistance through the United Way of Rhode Island’s Safe Harbor Housing Program were from Providence, followed by 14.3% from Pawtucket, and 11.5% in Woonsocket. Updated: February 5 Since June, Picerne Real Estate Group filed 44 evictions; The Bilotti Group, Inc. filed 40 evictions; Wingate Management Company filed 34; Ferland Property Management Company filed 32; Pioneer Investments LLC filed 26, Peregrine Property Management filed 17; Properties One K/Properties Two K filed 14; Pine Street Realty filed 13; Aimco Warwick filed 12; and Property Advisory Group filed 9. Updated: December 11 Researchers with Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere at Brown University found that since June, about 542 evictions have been filed in Providence alone. Landlords and property managers are prevented from actually removing tenants from their homes and apartments for nonpayment during the moratorium, but advocates see the filings as acts of intimidation and a warning of a bigger crisis to come. Updated: December 3 According to the U.S. Census, 23.61% of the adult renters in Rhode Island have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. Updated: November 20 The Rhode Island Attorney General's Office has heard "an increasing number" of reports in recent weeks about landlords trying to evict tenants without a court order. The Attorney General warned landlords that they will face civil or even criminal penalties if they attempt to evict tenants without an official court order. The states with the highest numbers of unpaid mortgages and rent are: Mississippi, Louisiana, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Arkansas, Connecticut, Missouri, and West Virginia. Updated: November 13 1,226 eviction cases were filed from June through August, including filings for non-payment as well as those for other reasons. That number jumped to 1,667 by the end of September, the fourth month in a row to show an increase since courts reopened. Updated: October 30 As the December 30 deadline to distribute much of the assistance approaches, the assistance programs have fielded thousands of applications but distributed little money so far. A total of 1,500-plus Rhode Islanders have applied to the Safe Harbor program. To date, $204,290 has been distributed to 56 applicants. Updated: October 8 Court records show SWAP, a 45-year-old nonprofit, filed eight evictions involving 14 people in early July when the CARES Act eviction moratorium was still in effect. A judge dismissed the cases, but SWAP filed for eviction again on September 4, during the CDC eviction moratorium. Updated: September 25 Eviction filings in Rhode Island rose once again last month to 1,226 total cases, up from 808 in July. Updated: September 18 In the third week of July, 1 in 4 adults in Rhode Island reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, 28,978 renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment. Updated: July 29 As of early July, 4,512 people have filed for rental assistance through the state’s Housing Help RI rental assistance program. Due to its significant restrictions and high barrier application process, many are excluded. So far, the program has only distributed funds to 25 applicants. The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston released a report in May that suggests 13% of renters and 33% of homeowners in Rhode Island are at risk of missing housing payments when federal unemployment aid expires at the end of July. According to a weekly survey by the Census, nearly 1 in 4 adults in the state either missed their last housing payment or have little/no confidence of being able to make next month’s housing payment. Updated: July 16
The SC State Housing Finance and Development Authority will be providing $25 million through its SC Stay program statewide. Of that $25 million, the Upstate, which includes Anderson, Cherokee, Greenville, Oconee, Pickens, and Spartanburg counties, was allocated $6.2875 million. A program to help South Carolina’s renters and mortgage payers catch up on payments is no longer taking applications after demand exploded in its first days. SC Housing spokesperson Chris Winston said within six days, the program received more than 7,000 applications and nearly 5,000 will be eligible; it is expected those 5,000 applicants will exhaust the funds. The National Council of State Housing Agencies estimated that by January, SC renters would be $163 to $266 million behind on their rent and when the moratorium is removed, 34,600 to 63,600 households would have been at risk of eviction that month. Updated: March 15 The Charleston Housing Authority is preparing the eviction paperwork for roughly 30 units despite the current moratorium on evictions. The South Carolina State Housing Finance and Development Authority launched a new rental assistance program with $25 million that can give eligible South Carolinians up to six months of rental or mortgage payments up to $7,500. Updated: February 26 South Carolinians are at higher risk of eviction than residents of any other state in the U.S., according to a new analysis by business insurance research website AdvisorSmith. In South Carolina, nearly 34% of households are behind on rent payments and of those households, about 62% expect to be evicted within the next two months.
Updated: February 5 South Carolina, whose eviction moratorium expired on May 14, left residents unprotected for 16 weeks and contributed to over 37,500 new COVID-19 cases and an estimated 1,090 fatalities. Updated: December 11 According to the U.S. Census, 15.8% of adults in South Carolina either missed last month’s housing payment or have little to no confidence that they can pay next month’s housing payment. According to magistrate courts, 704 evictions have been filed in Charleston County, 298 in Berkeley County, and 270 in Dorchester County since November 1. About 40% of households reaching out to Origin SC, a nonprofit organization that helps people with financial and housing stability, for assistance, already have an eviction notice filed. In Horry County, landlords have filed 685 eviction notices since September resulting in 170 writs of ejectment, court filings show. Updated: December 3 According to the U.S. Census, 46.13% of the adult renters in South Carolina have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. Charleston County is targeting renters on the verge of eviction with its next round of housing assistance, offering landlords cash if they drop eviction cases against their tenants. The county is putting nearly $1.8 million of federal stimulus money into the program, which officials expect to reach about 475 households. Updated: November 20 The states with the highest numbers of unpaid mortgages and rent are: Mississippi, Louisiana, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Arkansas, Connecticut, Missouri, and West Virginia. Updated: November 13 According to a recent report by the National Council of State Housing Agencies, it is estimated that there will be 120,000 evictions filed by January 2021 in South Carolina. The rent shortfall is predicted to be $329 to $429 million. Updated: October 8 Since the federal eviction moratorium ended, more than 2,000 evictions have been filed in Richland and Lexington counties. Updated: September 3 NBC examines South Carolina’s looming eviction crisis as a result of the pandemic. Before COVID-19, South Carolina faced a long-term housing crisis and had the highest eviction rate in the country. According to Stout research, 52% of renter households in South Carolina are at risk of eviction, and NLIHC research indicates that the state’s rental assistance needs will grow to nearly $835 million. Updated: August 28 In South Carolina, 52 percent of renter households can't pay their rent and are at risk of eviction. About 185,000 evictions could be filed in the state over the next four months. Updated: August 12 In the third week of July, 27.6% of adults in South Carolina reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, 292,410 renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment. Updated: July 29 South Carolina – already the #1 state for evictions – is bracing for a surge in eviction cases. According to a weekly survey by the Census, 27% of adults in the state either missed their last housing payment or have little/no confidence of being able to make next month’s housing payment.
| Charleston | By May 17, 120 evictions were filed in Charleston. “Self-help” evictions are increasing. | June 23 |
The application for rental assistance through the South Dakota Housing Development Authority (SDHDA) closes on December 18. Updated: December 18 According to the U.S. Census, 29.95% of the adult renters in South Dakota have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. Updated: November 20 The South Dakota Housing Development Authority has been awarded $10 million in CARES Act funding to assist state residents who need help paying housing expenses. The assistance may provide eligible South Dakotans with up to $1500 a month. Updated: November 13 State senators introduced SCR601, which allocates $10 million of the state’s unspent and unobligated coronavirus relief funds for use in housing assistance, including rent, utilities, and mortgage, in accordance with provisions of the CARES Act. Updated: October 30 More than twice as many South Dakotans have looked to taxpayers or charities to cover at least one month of rent in the first half of 2020 compared to all of 2019, and new surveys from the U.S. Census Bureau suggest the need for rent assistance will rise as the COVID-19 pandemic continues. The 211 Helpline Center, with locations in Sioux Falls, Brookings, and Rapid City, has fielded more than 7,000 calls from people needing help making a rent or mortgage payment during the first seven months of the year. This is more than double the number of rent-assistance calls the organization saw in all of 2019. Updated: August 28 In the third week of July, 18.8% of adults in South Dakota reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, 31,055 renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment. Updated: July 29 South Dakota never issued a statewide eviction moratorium, leaving it up to local discretion. According to a weekly Census survey, 46, 245 renters in South Dakota did not pay their June rent, with an additional 3,323 indicating they had deferred their June rent payment. Updated: July 16
The statewide assistance program, fully funded by almost $400 million in federal dollars, is estimated to help 25,000 to 30,000 households cover up to 12 months of rent or even utility payments. The Tennessee Housing Development Agency received $384 million to develop the program, which will cover 91 of the 95 counties in Tennessee; Davidson, Knox, Rutherford, and Shelby counties have established separate federally-funded rent relief programs. “There is no reason to wait. We opened the portal yesterday and we got 570,000 applications first day. That gives you an idea of how many people have been disadvantaged by all the COVID-related shutdowns,” Ralph Perrey, Executive Director at the Tennessee Housing Development Agency said. Rutherford County will begin accepting applications for the 2021 Rutherford County COVID-19 Rental Relief Program beginning March 8. From March 8-22, priority will be given to applicants with renter households at or below 50% AMI or those who have been unemployed for the previous 90 days; after March 22, applicants will be reviewed on a first-come, first-serve basis. Memphis and Shelby County received more than $28 million to help with emergency rental assistance. This money will help nearly 1,500 households/people a month. Hamilton County Mayor Jim Coppinger is encouraging residents who lost income because of the COVID-19 pandemic to apply for rent or utility relief through the Tennessee Housing Development Agency. General Sessions Court of Nashville-Davidson County Judge Rachel Bell launched the L.E.G.A.C.Y. Housing Resource Diversionary Court Program to help tenants avoid eviction through settlements with their landlords. The program uses CARES Act funds to provide rental assistance. There are over 1,800 pending eviction cases in the Nashville area. Updated: March 15 Housing advocates have feared 1,800 pending eviction cases would cause a backlog when cases begin to be heard April 1 in Nashville. Through a partnership with nonprofits and government organizations, Judge Rachel Bell created a new court to begin mediation and provide financial support to vulnerable tenants and landlords, seeking to resolve most of these cases before the end of the moratorium. Shelby County judges were directed by the Tennessee Supreme court that writs can still be issued, despite the recent order. There was some concern by local judges it was not allowed. The Shelby County General Session Court Clerk's office said right now, they only have about 60 "writs" that need to be issued, but they are expecting to be flooded with requests now that the word is out. Tennessee has received roughly $458 million in federal funding under the COVID-19 Rent Relief Act. More than $383 million of that would be administered by Tennessee Housing Development Agency and distributed to help tenants in most parts of the state. Updated: February 26 The latest government estimates show 67,000 people could be evicted in Nashville. After losing both of her jobs, Nicole Noe and her seven children, received rent assistance from the Housing Authority to cover one month’s rent. According to the Eviction Lab, almost 10,500 evictions have been filed in Memphis since March 15. Since the pandemic has started, Memphis Area Legal Services has partnered with the Eviction Settlement Program and has used more than $1.8 million to help 1,200 families avoid eviction. The Eviction Settlement Program would need $1.3 million more to get all of the tenants in its portal relieved from eviction. 10,000 evictions are currently pending in Shelby County.
Updated: February 5 In a September report, the National Council of State Housing Agencies estimated that between 220,000 and 310,000 households are at risk of eviction in Tennessee and that renters owe between $457 million and $599 million in unpaid rent to landlords. The Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth nearly one in four households with children reported being likely or very likely to face eviction or foreclosure within the next two months. A new report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation found the number is much higher for Black households. Richard Kennedy, executive director of the Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth, said housing instability is linked to a host of negative health outcomes for children. Updated: December 18 The Private Equity Stakeholder Project has counted more than 20,000 new eviction cases filed since September by corporate landlords in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, Tennessee, and Texas alone. Updated: December 11 According to the U.S. Census, 36.66% of the adult renters in Tennessee have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. Updated: November 20 The states with the highest numbers of unpaid mortgages and rent are: Mississippi, Louisiana, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Arkansas, Connecticut, Missouri, and West Virginia. Updated: November 13 From early September to October 17, despite the CDC eviction ban, almost 10,000 eviction actions have been filed in 23 counties in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, and Texas by large corporate landlords. Updated: October 30 The Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency (MDHA) had the most eviction cases on the docket at the Davidson County General Sessions Court. Tenants were unaware that MDHA halted all evictions for nonpayment of rent through the end of the year. Updated: October 8 The Tennessee Supreme Court Administrative Office of the Courts, Tennessee Housing Development Agency, Tennessee Department of Human Services, and the Access to Justice Commission will host a first-of-its-kind virtual eviction summit to provide the latest information and help facilitate interdisciplinary solutions across the state that benefit both tenants and landlords. Corporate landlords, including private equity firms, filed more than 1,500 eviction actions in large counties in Arizona, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, and Texas since the CDC announced it was imposing a moratorium, according to Private Equity Stakeholder Project, an advocacy group. Updated: September 25 According to global advisory firm Stout, in Tennessee, there could be more than 280,000 potential eviction filings over the next few months. Legal Aid Society Housing & Consumer Attorney Kerry Dietz says landlords have tried taking matters into their own hands and evicting people, but she wants people to know that is illegal. Updated: August 28 In the third week of July, 31.1% of adults in Tennessee reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, 394,904 renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment. Updated: July 29 According to a weekly survey by the Census, 1 in 3 adults in the state either missed their last housing payment or have little/no confidence of being able to make next month’s housing payment.
| Shelby County | There are more than 9,000 eviction cases pending in Shelby County. | June 16 |
Lubbock County Justice of the Peace Susan Rowley has cleared dozens of eviction cases this month through the Texas Eviction Diversion Program, which allows renters and landlords- who agree- to use funds from the city’s Community Development to cover past and future rent payments. Their application must be approved for this process. The City of Killeen has announced it is offering rental assistance and eviction diversion assistance to residents who have been financially impacted by COVID-19. Assistance is limited and granted on a first-come, first-served basis. City of McAllen officials are seeking applicants for rental assistance for residents who have fallen behind on their monthly payment, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The award of $439,775.03, should be able to assist approximately 80-plus families for six months of rental assistance. More than 13,000 evictions have been filed since a CDC moratorium was issued, and more than 24,000 evictions have been filed in the Houston area since the start of the pandemic. Evictions skyrocketed during the pandemic and some have continued despite rental relief programs because many people who need help do not know how to apply. Several groups including the South Texas College of Law and the Texas Gulf Coast Area Labor Federation have banded together to help inform struggling renters of their options. Updated: March 15 Judges who handle evictions now have to make notifications about the Texas Eviction Diversion Program. The CDC moratorium does not protect holdover tenants who overstay their leases, leaving some North Texas families with nowhere to go when their leases end. Advocates, including Sandy Rollins of the Texas Tenants’ Union, are calling for local, state, and federal lawmakers to enact broader eviction moratoriums. The Houston City Council unanimously passed a “grace period” ordinance to help protect renters from eviction through the end of March. More than 24,000 eviction cases have been filed in the Houston area since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, compared to just over 850 cases in the Austin area, according to the Eviction Lab. The Texas Rent Relief program is funded by $1.3 billion in funds given by a national coronavirus rental relief bill. The city of Houston and Harris County are pooling together $159 million in emergency rent relief assistance. Fort Bend County received about $23 million in rental assistance. Alondra Carmona, 18, got accepted into her dream school, Barnard College, an Ivy League school in New York City, but used her college tuition money to prevent her mom, Martha Zepeda, from being evicted from their Houston apartment. Nadia Guardado and David Delacruz’s landlord has not sued for eviction, but the apartment complex did provide notice it would not renew the family’s lease when it ends on February 28. During the application process for a new apartment, their rental history did not check out since they owe their current landlord just over $7,600 in back rent and late fees, and the new apartment fell through. Updated: February 26 According to data from January Advisors, the CDC order has stopped only 9.6% of eviction cases in Harris County since the national moratorium went into effect. That means 9,386 evictions were not stopped by the order, out of a total of 10,383 eviction cases heard in Harris County since September. Nearly 1 in 10 Dallas-Fort Worth residents are behind on rent or mortgage payments or are worried they will not be able to make payments in the next month, according to recent surveys by the U.S. Census Bureau. Laura Ponce, executive director of Project Bravo in El Paso said 1,100 households sent applications to the non-profit for rental assistance. Last year, the rental and mortgage assistance program aided 369 households with a total of $650,000. The Texas Supreme Court also extended its emergency eviction relief program for tenants who are behind on rent through at least March 15—postponing the program’s expiration date by a month and a half. The Texas Eviction Diversion Program, which provides as much as six months of assistance to certain renters who have been hit hard by the pandemic, will roll out statewide in the spring. For now, it is only effective in 19 counties, including Harris, Bexar, and El Paso.
Updated: February 5 Communities of color are especially struggling to keep their homes. While more than half of white Texans are highly confident in being able to pay rent, only 21% of Black Texans and 14% of Hispanic Texans say the same. An estimated 718,000 Texas residents are facing foreclosures or eviction. Across the state, and the country, real estate lawyers are expecting a 50% increase in eviction filings, alone. When the moratorium on evictions are lifted, landlords who have already filed lawsuits against their tenants will actually start getting them heard, and set by a judge. DHA Housing Solutions for North Texas assisted 1,207 renters, but they had four times that many applications for rental assistance. According to CBS News, more than 17,000 evictions have been initiated in Houston during the pandemic, but they were temporarily halted by a court order. Anti-eviction protections implemented by Austin officials amid the coronavirus pandemic have been successful in keeping people housed and in reducing spikes in homelessness, a new study found. Austin is among the nation's cities seeing the fewest evictions of residents financially hit by coronavirus-spurred work slowdown as a result, according to data from the Eviction Lab. The Austin City Council voted to extend eviction protections to April 1. The Harris County Constable Precinct One Foundation, Constable Alan Rosen, the South Texas College of Law Houston, and Lone Star Legal Aid are hosting weekly free eviction drive-thru assistance clinics. Updated: December 18 An estimated 4,456 COVID-19 fatalities occurred in Texas due to evictions. Since March 1, more than 18,000 eviction cases have been filed in Harris County, where Houston is located, according to January Advisors, a local data science consulting firm tracking the caseload. Dallas Evictions 2020, a group of around 150 attorneys offering free legal help to North Texans facing eviction during the pandemic, has worked with around 4,000 renters so far. The Houston city council approved $30 million in CARES Act funding for direct aid to provide assistance to residents that will help pay rent and utility bills, buy groceries, and more. Applicants will receive a one-time payment of $1,200. Housing experts expect a wave of evictions when a national moratorium expires at the end of December. To get ahead of the surge, the City of Dallas is piloting a legal assistance program with Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas. The Private Equity Stakeholder Project has counted more than 20,000 new eviction cases filed since September by corporate landlords in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, Tennessee, and Texas alone. Updated: December 11 According to the U.S. Census, 9.7% of adults in Texas either missed last month’s housing payment or have little to no confidence that they can pay next month’s housing payment. In Cameron County, Come Dream Come Build found 301 evictions were filed from late March through August. In 2019, 473 evictions were filed during the same time period. Several states ― including Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Vermont ― have secured CARES Act funding to expand tenant representation in eviction proceedings. Updated: December 3 According to the U.S. Census, 30.73% of the adult renters in Texas have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. In Houston, hundreds of people lined up for pro bono eviction aid Updated: November 20 According to recent Census Pulse Data, the likelihood of eviction and foreclosures are highest in the following regions: District of Columbia, Indiana, Florida, Iowa, Texas, Wyoming, Massachusetts, New Mexico, North Dakota, and Arizona. A pilot program is underway in over a dozen Texas counties: Bee, Bexar, Brazos, Chambers, Deaf Smith, El Paso, Erath, Fannin, Grayson, Harris, Jim Wells, Kleberg, Montgomery, Palo Pinto, Parker, Potter, Randall, San Patricio, and Wise. The Texas Eviction Diversion Program, which will roll out statewide on November 9, is being administered by the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs. Updated: November 13 The Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs, the Texas Supreme Court, and the Texas Office of Court Administration launched a pilot program designed to help eligible Texas tenants who are behind on rent due to the COVID-19. The Texas Eviction Diversion Program pilot, funded with $3.3 million of CSBG CARES Discretionary funds, will be available in 19 counties through a group of approved administrators. From early September to October 17, despite the CDC eviction ban, almost 10,000 eviction actions have been filed in 23 counties in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, and Texas by large corporate landlords. Stop TX Eviction is a new online information portal providing a step-by-step guide to help tenants understand their legal rights and options to keep them housed. Stop TX Eviction is a collaboration of primary legal aid providers in the state: Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, Texas Legal Services Center, Lone Star Legal Aid, and Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas. Updated: October 30 On September 25, the Texas Supreme Court issued an emergency order that established the Texas Eviction Diversion Program and Gov. Greg Abbott allocated $171 million in CARES Act funding to be used for rental assistance and legal aid for tenants who are behind on their rent. Out of these funds, $167 million will go to rental assistance and $4.2 million will be allocated through the Texas Supreme Court to help the state's legal aid providers. Updated: October 8 In the Houston area, more than 9,000 eviction cases have been filed during the pandemic. Houston is one of the ground zero cities when it comes to evictions. And less than 4% of those renters facing eviction have a lawyer. Houston Public Media sent a reporter to four different courthouses last week to observe about 100 eviction cases and found that only one renter was able to use the CDC order to block eviction. In Houston, judges are not asking landlords if tenants sent them CDC declarations. Many tenants that appear at eviction cases do not know about their rights under the CDC order and the judges do not ask them about it. Corporate landlords, including private equity firms, filed more than 1,500 eviction actions in large counties in Arizona, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, and Texas since the CDC announced it was imposing a moratorium, according to Private Equity Stakeholder Project, an advocacy group. Updated: September 25 Despite the CDC eviction moratorium, Brandi Rodriguez and her seven children are leaving their home in Houston. Rodriguez received an eviction notice a few weeks ago stating that she owes $4,500. "The longer I stay here, the more debt I'm going to be in," Rodriguez said. Rodriguez tried to apply for rental assistance, but the website did not work. In order to participate in rental assistance in Houston, landlords must apply along with the tenants. Mayor Sylvester Turner recommended that tenants apply regardless of if their landlord has. Updated: September 18 Since the state-level eviction moratorium ended in mid-May, Fort Worth has seen more than 2,000 eviction cases filed and Houston has seen more than 6,400. In Austin, which is included under Travis County’s eviction moratorium, 226 cases have been filed since mid-May. Updated: September 3 Hilda Ramírez says she’s never missed paying rent. Even when the pandemic started and she couldn’t work for two months in the kitchen of a Houston restaurant, she managed to cobble together enough money from her siblings to pay for her two-bedroom apartment in Gulfton. Last week, Ramírez got a letter from the management company telling her that she owed more than $2,000, including late fees, and that she had to leave. On Thursday, staff from the building came to her apartment. In Harris County’s Precinct 5, about 100 people last week protested the evictions in the court of Justice of the Peace Russ Ridgway, who is one of two judges for the judicial district. Ridgway’s court has more evictions scheduled and handles cases for immigrant neighborhoods like Gulfton. According to numerous reports, nearly 40% of Houstonians could not pay their rent or mortgage by July 30. By June, Harris County began eviction proceedings for nearly $29 million worth of unpaid rent. Justices of the Peace enforce eviction proceedings in Harris County, and according to local news reports, offices have been accepting filings, processing them, and granting the evictions. According to January Advisors’ Harris County, TX Eviction Tracker, from June 1-August 18, there have been 5,454 eviction cases filed for $10,453,562 worth of unpaid rent. Only 3.14% of the defendants were assisted by attorneys. There was a significant spike in eviction filings in Harris County on August 10. 41 evictions were filed on 8/7, 117 were filed on 8/10, 201 on 8/11, and 120 on 8/17. There have been more than 400 evictions filed in Travis County, TX since March. According to the Travis County Eviction Solidarity Database, since March 13, there have been 464 evictions filed, 107 judgments issued, and 9 hearings are scheduled. According to the database, it seems that eviction filings have plateaued since June. Updated: August 28 Since March, there has been more than 400 evictions filed in Travis County, and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton says local governments should not stop or delay evictions due to the pandemic. Updated: August 12 According to a weekly survey conducted by the Census, in the third week of July Texas had the highest rate of housing insecurity of any state in the nation. 35.7% of adults in Texas reported they had missed their previous housing payment and/or had little confidence they would make their next one. In the same survey, 1,514,791 renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment.
| Harris County | More than 5,100 evictions have been filed since the beginning of the pandemic in March. Harris County has seen a 500% increase in COVID cases since its eviction moratorium expired May 18. On July 25, when the federal eviction moratorium expired, one legal aid clinic in Houston received 1,358 eviction applications, a 36% increase from the same day last year. 40% of Houstonians currently cannot pay rent due to COVID-19. | July 28 |
| Dallas | A legal aid lawyer in Dallas recently commented that they were “Trying to avoid a mass homelessness event here in Dallas. The situation is pretty dire.” | July 24 |
Updated: July 29 According to a weekly survey by the Census, 1 in 3 adults in the state either missed their last housing payment or have little/no confidence of being able to make next month’s housing payment.
| Harris County | In Houston, a $15 million rent relief fund was depleted within 90 minutes of opening. About 40% of renters in Houston doubt they can make July’s rent. 2,300 evictions were filed in Harris County in June. An estimated 7.5% of evictions filed in Harris County last month violated the CARES Act by not having an affidavit on file. | July 8 |
| Dallas | About 23% of renters in Dallas doubt they can make July’s rent. | June 26 |
Utah does not require landlords to disclose all the fees tenants must cover on top of rent. Rep. Marsha Judkins is now seeking to change that so tenants don’t wind up with unexpected bills by sponsoring HB68. Utahns who want to apply for rental assistance will have to wait until Utah launches its new application process later this month. At the same time, state officials said the new applications have also been paused to “ensure that new federal guidelines are met.” Updated: March 15 47% of Utahns believe the state should have an eviction moratorium, according to a new Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics poll. For the week ending January 18, more than half of white renters (54%) said they had high confidence they could pay the next month’s rent, compared to only 29% of Latino renters. Among those who said they had “no confidence” they could pay rent the following month, only 6% of white renters responded that things were so bleak compared to 11% of Latino renters. The Utah Apartment Association opposes translating key pieces of eviction law information into Spanish, Vietnamese, and Arabic to help communities of color disproportionately impacted by evictions. This article is part of a series on Utah evictions and the state’s leading landlord law firm. On January 7, Doug and Pam Henderson emailed Salt Lake City’s 3rd District Court, filing a motion for more time to find a new apartment that would accept vouchers from Section 8, the federal program for low-income, disabled and older people. A supporting note from his doctor said if forced to leave, Doug Henderson, who has asthma, diabetes, and chronic lung disease, could suffer medical difficulties or even death. Updated: February 26 Despite a federal moratorium on evictions, 1 in 3 Utahns behind on their rent or mortgage payments believe they will be evicted in the next two months. Despite a majority of individuals being able to remain in their homes, the Utah Housing Coalition found 50 people in Salt Lake County shelters were renting a property right before transitioning to the shelter. As the state rental fund dwindled, Melanie Rangel resorted to baking and selling banana bread to cover the rent in her West Jordan home. The state ultimately dug up more federal relief money for nonprofits to parcel out, including $7 million for January.
Updated: February 5 While federal and state protections have dramatically reduced the number of evictions, hundreds a month are still occurring in Utah. Evictions in Utah have decreased during state and federal moratoriums, dropping from a monthly average of 518 during the March-September time frame the past two years to 327 during a comparable period this year. According to Stout, more than $120 million in back rent has accrued in Utah since the pandemic began. If the moratoriums are allowed to expire, up to 40,000 eviction cases could be filed beginning in January. In Utah County, Community Action Services has received an average of 500 calls a week seeking housing assistance, utility aid, or down payment help. Between July 1 and December 2, over 5,400 renter households have received over $8 million in rental assistance through the state’s community action network. United Way of Salt Lake says 228% more people are calling for rental assistance than this time in 2019. Ogden-Weber Community Action Partnership (OWCAP) has handed out about $1.89 million in rental assistance to 832 households, but demand is greater than the funding available. 47.5% of those who have received help from the Lantern House since March 1 — were experiencing homelessness for the first time. Updated: December 18 Funds available for Utahns who need help paying their rent due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic are already running short and will be gone by the end of the year. “We’re still accepting applications but we have right now currently more applications than we have funds for,” Jonathan Hardy, director of the Utah Department of Workforce Services housing and community development division, said during a virtual meeting of the Utah Housing Coalition. Ogden-Weber Community Action Partnership has given out $1.7 million since May to help 786 households in Weber County pay rent and other expenses. Out of Utah’s $20 million allocated to the state's rental assistance program, $15 million has already been spent. Updated: December 11 According to the U.S. Census, 23.86% of the adult renters in Utah have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. Updated: November 20 So far, the state has paid out $2.1 million in federal coronavirus relief money to help Utahns cover rent. The average amount of aid is $1,327 to 1,582 households. Updated: October 30 In August, there have been 569 eviction filings in Utah. Updated: September 3 In the third week of July, 14.4% of adults in Utah reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, 46,653 renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment. Updated: July 29 In the first month after the eviction moratorium was lifted on May 15th, 224 eviction cases were filed. Somewhere between 45-70% of rental units in Utah are covered by the CARES Act eviction protections, which expire at the end of July. According to a weekly survey by the Census, nearly 1 in 5 adults in the state either missed their last housing payment or have little/no confidence of being able to make next month’s housing payment. Updated: July 16
A charter change proposal that impacts tenants and landlords passed on Burlington’s Town Meeting Day. Item 5 on Burlington's Town Meeting Day ballot asked voters if the city's charter should be amended to include protections from evictions that do not meet the standards of "just cause." The new eviction protections will require changes to the city’s charter — meaning that they must be approved by the state Legislature before they can take effect. Updated: March 15 On March 2, voters will decide whether to change Burlington’s charter to include new protections for tenants against no cause evictions. The mayors of Burlington, Barre, Montpelier, Newport, Rutland, St. Albans, Vergennes, and Winooski are calling on the legislature to prepare for crises like housing and food insecurity to worsen before they get better. The coalition wants free legal clinics for Vermonters who find themselves in that situation so they can avoid going to court, as well as an extension of rent and mortgage support. Updated: February 26 In 2018 and 2019, approximately 150 eviction cases were filed every month. After the moratoriums went into effect, that number dropped to about 40 cases per month. Several states ― including Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Vermont ― have secured CARES Act funding to expand tenant representation in eviction proceedings. Updated: December 3 According to the U.S. Census, 14.81% of the adult renters in Vermont have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. Updated: November 20 The Burlington Charter Change Committee has approved a resolution to enact a charter change that would keep city residents from being evicted without cause. Updated: November 13 Ten weeks after it began, the Rental Housing Stability Program has paid $5.4 million in rental assistance to 2,291 households in all 14 counties. On average, that is $108,000 and 46 households per day, with landlords receiving an average of $2,364. Updated: October 30 In the third week of July, 12.3% of adults in Vermont reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, 13,775 renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment. Updated: July 28 According to a weekly Census survey, 18, 651 renters in Vermont reported they had not paid their June rent, with an additional 867 indicating they had deferred their June rent. Updated: July 16
Virginia will award $2.6 million in grants to help prevent evictions in highly needed areas, Gov. Ralph Northam. The funding will go to the 14 localities the state identified as having the highest eviction rates, including the cities of Hampton, Newport News, Norfolk, and Richmond. As of mid-February, Virginia had doled out more than $83 million in rent and mortgage relief to keep people safely housed. Aniya, a 24-year-old mother, fell behind on rent for her Richmond apartment when her Amazon warehouse job was no longer practical because her children's daycare and school were canceled. Aniya was able to avoid eviction with the help of a lawyer and emergency rental assistance, which covered all of the rent she owed, plus future payments, but she was surprised when she got a letter saying that her lease would not be renewed and she had to vacate the apartment by February 28. Updated: March 15 A bill that would expand Virginia renters’ right to settle outstanding balances and keep their housing and another measure that would expand foreclosure protections are headed to Gov. Ralph Northam’s desk. Renters in Virginia will receive at least another $160 million in relief from the federal government. Under the new federal funding, Gov. Northam said renters will be able to get help with rent going all the way back to last April and up to three months into the future, for a total of 15 months of assistance. To date, the state program has distributed more than $83.7 million in 24,294 rent and mortgage payments for Virginia households. A new Virginia law requires landlords to help tenants obtain rental assistance before they can proceed with an eviction, but that mandate is a sticking point for some landlords. An estimated 880,000 Virginians now face eviction because of the coronavirus pandemic. In the lawsuit filed last year, attorneys for tenants alleged that in 2020, Senex filed 3,891 eviction cases in 2020 up to September, despite a federal eviction moratorium. Virginia Beach residents who reported being at risk of homelessness during the 2020 pandemic more than quadrupled compared to the prior year. Black residents and families with children made up the majority of people who reached out to the city for housing assistance. Updated: February 26 Virginia’s state eviction moratorium expired at the end of December. Landlords will still have to tell tenants about Virginia’s rent relief program, but they can move forward with eviction if aid is denied. As of December 30, the Virginia Rent and Mortgage Relief Program has paid out more than $53.7 million in rent and mortgage payments for 16,762 households. As illegal evictions persist in Virginia, members of the General Assembly are moving forward on legislation that would provide more legal recourse for tenants and increase penalties for landlords that perform self-help evictions. After being evicted from their Hampton home, Margaret and John Eaddy resorted to living in their car, which they parked next to Darling Stadium near downtown Hampton. Eaddy's husband, a truck driver, had been impacted financially through the pandemic and previous eviction notices from the couple's past made it hard to find permanent housing.
Updated: February 5 At least five Virginia cities have some of the highest eviction rates in the country. The Alexandria City Council approved $1 million in funding for the extension of food security and eviction prevention programs in 2021. Sami Bourma, his expectant wife, and their two children are about $11,000 behind on rent. He is now back to working part-time, but has not fully paid for his $1,515-a-month one-bedroom apartment since March. He got a couple of months of it covered through city resources, but now has to go back to court in January to seek a third extension from eviction. Updated: December 18 Last year, Area Congregations Together in Service (ACTS) gave out roughly $183,000 in rental assistance to about 350 households. By comparison, it has paid out more than $4.2 million in relief through the state’s rent and mortgage relief program to more than 1,600 households as of December 2. 18,000 Virginians have applied to the state’s Rent and Mortgage Relief Program so far. Over $33.6 million has been dispersed to 11,200 households. Updated: December 11 Governor Ralph Northam announced that he signed a revised state budget that imposes a moratorium on evictions through the end of the year and puts new limits on evictions starting next year. A moratorium on utility disconnections was also extended and requires Dominion Energy - the state’s largest electric utility - to forgive $127 million of customer debt. Property owners and renters are expected to work together and apply for the Virginia Rent and Mortgage Relief Program (RMRP) that the Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) runs. To help provide resources to tenants at risk of losing their homes, Fairfax County formed an eviction prevention task force with representatives from various county agencies, the county sheriff’s office, and the nonprofit law firm Legal Services of Northern Virginia. The Fairfax County Redevelopment and Housing Authority has suspended evictions for rent nonpayment and associated charges or fees for residents of its properties. Virginia officials paid out $23.9 million to people for their rent through November 4, according to the most recent data from the state Department of Housing and Community Development. That is about 38% of the roughly $63 million in the federal CARES Act money state officials can give out to renters, which has to be spent by December 31 or returned to the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Updated: December 3 According to the U.S. Census, 24.06% of the adult renters in Virginia have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. The Virginia Poverty Law Center plans to expand their Eviction Legal Helpline so that more Virginia tenants can get free legal advice and referrals to attorneys and rental assistance during this difficult time. Updated: November 20 Gov. Ralph Northam also proposed changes to a bill that protects some renters who have been financially hurt by the coronavirus pandemic. One of the changes says adverse actions cannot be taken against tenants based on payment history or an eviction for nonpayment of rent that occurred during the pandemic. Updated: November 13 Both chambers of the Virginia General Assembly passed legislation that requires landlords to provide payment plans for tenants before they can proceed with evictions. Eviction filings in Northern Virginia were down 85% earlier this year compared to 2018, according to the RVA Eviction Lab, likely because the state’s high court issued a series of temporary eviction bans through September. This data does not capture evictions that take place outside the courts. According to the RVA Eviction Lab, Virginians owe between $169 and $211 million in missed rent, but the state only allocated $50 million in CARES Act funding for rental assistance. Virginia’s new budget assigns $100 million in federal funding to utility relief and includes protections against evictions through December 31. A previous ban on evictions in Virginia expired on September 7. Gov. Ralph Northam signed House Bill 5115 which expands eviction protections for Virginians who experienced a loss of wages due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Gov. Northam added an emergency clause to make this legislation effective immediately upon passage. Updated: October 30 Despite the CDC eviction moratorium, 61 evictions have been carried out in Richmond, Chesterfield, and Henrico counties over the past two weeks. Legal aid attorneys report that few tenants facing eviction know about the CDC declaration, and those who do have, in some instances, encountered unnecessary obstacles or outright pushback when they sought to assert its protections. Updated: October 8 Advocates say the Virginia Rent and Mortgage Relief Program is picking up speed thanks to changes in the guidelines. Many landlords who originally were deterred by the original guidelines, have chosen to participate under the new no-strings-attached guidelines. Updated: September 25 The Virginia Poverty Law Center estimates that more than 200,000 eviction cases could be filed by the end of the year.
Updated: September 3 Housing and homelessness organizations in Virginia are struggling to provide shelter for people experiencing homelessness during the pandemic. Although the Virginia Supreme Court reinstated the lapsed eviction ban on August 7, over 15,000 eviction hearings were heard in court, and more than 3,000 families were evicted across Virginia in July. 3,000 evictions have reportedly been filed in Virginia since its moratorium expired on June 28. According to the Legal Aid Justice Center in Charlottesville, VA’s eviction tracker, there have been 20,289 eviction hearings and 4,131 families have lost their homes since Virginia’s eviction moratorium was lifted on June 28. The Virginia Supreme Court issued a temporary eviction moratorium, which will last through September 7. In the next eight weeks, however, there are 7,052 eviction hearings scheduled across Virginia. This tracker shows the total number of eviction hearings in counties/cities that are scheduled between now and October 5. Updated: August 28 On August 7, the state Supreme Court granted the governor's request to halt evictions for non-payment of rent until Sept. 7. This order prohibits the issuance of writs of eviction, but does not prevent a landlord from filing or a court from hearing eviction cases. There is also no retroactive language to keep safe tenants issued a writ of eviction between the expiration of the June 28 moratorium and the reinstatement of the new moratorium on August 7. Legislation is in place that allows for a 60 day continuance of an eviction if the tenant can prove they were impacted by COVID-19. Updated: August 10 3,000 evictions have reportedly been filed in Virginia since its moratorium expired on June 28. In the third week of July, 1 in 5 adults in Virginia reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, over a quarter of a million renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment.
| Alexandria | 100 eviction cases were heard on Wednesday, July 15--prompting a protest at the Alexandra courthouse. | July 15 |
Updated: July 29 Given historically high levels of evictions, experts are predicting tens of thousands of Virginia families will face eviction without emergency rental assistance. Some 30% of the 1.67 million renter households in Virginia have little or no confidence in their ability to pay rent on July 1. According to a weekly survey by the Census, 1 in 5 adults in the state either missed their last housing payment or have little/no confidence of being able to make next month’s housing payment.
| Richmond | Over1,900 households in Richmond face eviction. | June 23 |
More than 134,000 Washington households are behind on rent. State lawmakers advanced a proposal requiring payment plans and other protections for tenants who have fallen behind on rent during the pandemic. Sen. Patty Kuderer, D-Bellevue, said Thursday her bill is designed “to keep tenants housed and to help landlords pay their bills,” warning that if the state does not act, “evictions will skyrocket. The homelessness problem we have in our state will get much worse.” Anyone facing eviction in Seattle would be entitled to an attorney, at no cost, under a new City Council proposal. A not-yet published study from the Housing Justice Project on Seattle evictions in 2019 found that 52% of tenants with lawyers during their evictions were able to stay in their homes, while only 8% of those with no representation stayed in their homes. Pierce County will begin offering rental assistance to county residents who are behind on rent and at risk of eviction due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A judge has rejected a landlord group’s challenge to several Seattle laws meant to protect renters from eviction once the coronavirus pandemic moratorium expires. In Washington state, nearly 135,000 people, or about 10% of renters, were estimated to have fallen behind on their rent as of mid-February, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey. Deseray Hendrickson owes $4,000 in back rent to Spokane Housing Ventures, the owner of the 55th Avenue Apartments. But she's not the only one. The low-income housing provider has been grappling with $450,000 in unpaid rent. Updated: March 15 This week, the state Legislature passed a COVID-19 relief package that included $365 million for rental and housing assistance, and Gov. Jay Inslee announced the Department of Commerce would distribute an additional $43.5 million in emergency rental assistance. In December and January, landlords in Spokane County filed notices of an impending eviction on 550 households that are behind on rent, about half of which are in the city of Spokane. Communities of color are disproportionately rent-burdened, particularly the state’s Hispanic/Latino population — which is 16% of the total population, but 27% of those who reported falling behind on rent payments. If passed, Senate Bill 5160 would ban landlords from ending a lease or refusing to renew a lease until two years after the end of a declared public health emergency on the basis of unpaid rent. This would not apply to landlords who live in the same space as their tenants, nor to landlords who plan on selling the rental property and also give their tenants at least 60 days’ notice. In December and January, landlords in Spokane County filed eviction notices on 550 households. The Spokane County Bar Association estimates the county could see more than 2,000 eviction filings a month when the moratorium ends. Updated: February 26 Gov. Jay Inslee extended the state's eviction moratorium through March 2021. State legislators introduced a bill to limit rent increases after expiration of the governor's eviction moratorium. A federal judge has rejected an attempt by Seattle landlords to suspend a temporary ban on evictions during the coronavirus pandemic. The ruling means the city and state bans can stay in place while the legal fight plays out. 8,321 people applied for rental aid through Pierce County last year, 6,925 households received it and a total of $16.74 million was distributed. As part of the Eviction Resolution Program (ERP) earlier this month, Volunteers of America Dispute Resolution Center (DRC) was working on 85 eviction cases in Snohomish County. Two of those cases are landlords with a total of 279 tenants owing back rent. After suffering an accident that required spinal surgery, Antonio Salazar could potentially lose his housing when the eviction moratorium expires. His landlord had tried to evict him before the moratorium and a King County eviction prevention program brokered an agreement, covering six months of his $1,422 monthly rent in exchange for the owner forgiving three months that he owed last year, Salazar said.
Updated: February 5 In Washington, some tenants and landlords are slipping through the cracks of the current eviction moratorium. Arianna Laureano and her roommate, both hourly workers, fell $4,000 behind on rent and their landlord tried to evict them; they successfully sought out help from Be:Seattle, a tenant advocacy group. Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan issued an order officially extending a moratorium on evictions for residents through March 31. Updated: December 18 Washington state landlords and tenants are demanding financial relief as more property owners challenge Governor Jay Inslee's authority ahead of his eviction moratorium's expiration by the end of the month. Clark County is working to keep countless people in their homes as federal and state moratoriums on residential evictions near an end. The Clark County Superior Court adopted the Eviction Resolution Program. Updated: December 11 Dispute Resolution Centers (DRC) have long dealt with landlord-tenant issues, but under the new Eviction Resolution Program, landlords will be required to participate in a mediation session before filing for eviction. The plan, developed by the Superior Court Judges Association along with representatives from Rental Housing Industry associations, civil legal aid lawyers, and advocates, aims to strike a compromise that avoids court entirely. Right now six counties are participating: King, Pierce, Snohomish, Spokane, Thurston, and Clark. More than 21,000 King County households so far have asked for relief through the program, according to the county's online data dashboard. In Snohomish County, the Dispute Resolution Center at Volunteers of America Western Washington usually handles about 1,700 cases per year that need mediation between landlords and tenants and 350 cases focusing on financial assistance. Since March, the organization's caseload has increased to more than 5,400. Updated: December 3 According to the U.S. Census, 22.24% of the adult renters in Washington have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. Despite the moratorium, commonly referred to as an “eviction ban,” renters are still being evicted. Last month, nearly 40 people were evicted through the court system in King County, up from just eight in April. More than eight months into the moratorium, Gov. Jay Inslee's office is considering scaling back the reach of that eviction ban. Under pressure from landlords, the state could ask tenants to prove their financial hardship is due to COVID-19. Spokane is one of six counties statewide that are part of a pilot program intended to get tenants and landlords to start talking about possible solutions to unpaid rent during the eviction moratorium expiring December 31. Two firms in Spokane County have received federal assistance funds to promote mediation for the estimated hundreds of renters who might otherwise be taken to court due to unpaid rent. Updated: November 20 The state’s eviction moratorium includes protection for people living in non-traditional dwellings like cars and RV’s. Updated: November 13 Gov. Jay Inslee extended the eviction moratorium to December 31. Updated: October 30 The state eviction moratorium is set to expire on October 15. The Spokane office of the Tenants Union is urging Governor Jay Inslee to extend the moratorium to March 2021. Seattle’s eviction moratorium goes through the end of this year and another bill creates a six-month period in which tenants who submit a declaration of financial hardship to the court can use rent nonpayment as a defense in eviction proceedings. Updated: October 8 In total, Kitsap County has received more than $4.1 million to help renters and homeowners impacted by the pandemic. Updated: September 25 In the third week of July, 1 in 5 adults in Washington reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, over a quarter of a million renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment. Updated: July 29 According to a weekly survey by the Census, 1 in 5 adults in the state either missed their last housing payment or have little/no confidence of being able to make next month’s housing payment.
| Seattle | One in 5 renters in Seattle doubt they can make July’s rent. | June 26 |
When the Council unanimously voted to grant an extension of the public health emergency, members also voted to extend protections for residents and businesses that are tethered to it. The moratorium on evictions, from notices to removals, was extended to at least late May, as was the moratorium on utility shutoffs. DC Attorney General Karl Racine said property management firm Lenkin will pay more than $17,000 to DC for threatening to evict tenants at Ward 1’s Yorkshire Apartments during the pandemic. Jewel Burgess, 40, first applied for emergency rental assistance last year, after being furloughed from her job delivering meals for the city’s Office on Aging. She never heard back about whether she was approved or denied for the rent help, like a few of her friends have, she said, and has not been able to afford her $1,002 rent, utility bills, and other basic needs on the few hundred dollars she receives in unemployment benefits. Updated: March 15 District landlords filed 1,854 eviction cases in Landlord & Tenant Court between March 11 and December 1. Through a new program, DC Water aims to help low-income renters whose water bills are reflected in their monthly rent. The DC Water Cares program will provide discounts to landlords who would then pass along at least 90% of that to qualifying tenants’ rent. Updated: February 26 Attorney General Karl A. Racine is appealing a D.C. Superior Court judge’s decision striking down the moratorium on eviction filings enacted by the Council during the COVID-19 public health emergency. Rochelle Woody and her grandson, Omari Scott, missed an eviction hearing after the court order was marked “return to sender,” and she was not made aware of the court date. As a result, she missed the hearing, where a judge granted the Housing Authority permission to proceed, but under the district’s current moratorium, evictions are on hold until late May.
Updated: February 5 The D.C. Council voted unanimously to grant Mayor Muriel Bowser the authority to extend the city’s public health emergency to March 31. The council’s emergency measure also includes an extension of a moratorium on both evictions and disconnection of utility services until March 31. The District has the nation’s highest rate of homelessness, with 93 people experiencing homelessness out of every 10,000 and the number is only expected to increase once the eviction moratorium ends with the public health emergency. People in District shelters are three times more likely to test positive for COVID-19 than other D.C. residents and three times more likely to die due to COVID-19. The Aspen Institute Financial Security Program and the COVID-19 Eviction Defense Project earlier this year projected up to 131,000 renters in the District were at risk of losing their homes in 2020. More recent data suggests that those worst-case predictions are on track. The District’s eviction moratorium, designed to last through the duration of the coronavirus pandemic, now looks to be in jeopardy. A D.C. Superior Court judge ruled that the moratorium on filing new eviction cases, put in place by the D.C. Council, violates the constitutional rights of landlords. Updated: December 18 A new D.C. program lets landlords apply directly for $10 million in government grants to cover tenants’ missed rent payments during the coronavirus pandemic. $9 million will go toward affordable housing projects in the District and the remaining $1 million is set aside for small landlords. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that 26.7% of adults in the District live in households not current on rent or mortgage payments, where eviction or foreclosure is at least somewhat likely. Updated: December 11 The Legal Aid Society of DC is predicting the city to experience 20,000 to 30,000 or more filings once the local eviction moratorium expires. The filings are likely to be concentrated in areas where families are already financially strapped. In past years, 60 percent of all filings, as well as 60 percent of all evictions, took place east of the Anacostia River in Wards 7 and 8. Updated: December 3 According to the U.S. Census, 16.97% of the adult renters in Washington, DC have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. Updated: November 20 Mom-and-pop landlords own as much as a third of the city’s rental housing stock, but many of them fear that rental assistance is not enough to keep them afloat. The city has allocated about $14 million to help tenants pay rent, but residents have been slow to apply for funds, and Brookings estimates it will cost $5.2 million a month to cover rent for those most in need. Updated: November 13 Mayor Muriel Bowser extended the city’s public health emergency order and eviction moratorium. The D.C. Council unanimously approved a measure that requires landlords to provide photographic evidence that tenants have been given notice of eviction cases against them. In D.C., landlords are barred from evicting tenants for any reason while the city remains under a state of emergency, but these measures only prevent legal evictions. D.C. lawmakers say some 39,000 evictions are in line to be filed in District Superior Court as soon as the state of emergency’s moratorium lifts. Starting January 1, courts will seal eviction cases more than three years old. The bill also restricts landlords from using past evictions when deciding whether to rent to a prospective tenant and suggests the federal government raise the fee to file an eviction with the Superior Court. Updated: October 30 In D.C., Brookings estimates it would cost $5.2 million a month to cover rent for those most in need. The District is requiring landlords to consider alternative payment plans, but payment plans could increase the amount of debt. Updated: October 8 According to the Urban Institute’s review of Census data from May and June 2020, 1 in 4 renters of color in D.C. deferred or missed paying rent. By the city’s own admission, rental assistance is not reaching enough people. The Legal Aid Society of D.C. has already heard from many tenants whose landlords have tried to illegally evict them by threatening to lock them out or intimate them into leaving. Updated: September 25 In the third week of July, 23.1% of adults in D.C. reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, 24,253 renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment. Updated: July 29 According to a weekly Census survey, 27, 319 renters in D.C. had not paid their June rent, with an additional 4,180 indicating they had deferred their June rent. Updated: July 16
The Taylor County Commission supports a potential Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) through the Taylor County Relief Fund, which would address homelessness in the county. Residents who had been financially impacted due to layoffs, work stoppages, or reduced work hours and wages would be able to apply for assistance to help pay their rent or mortgages. Updated: March 15 The Greater Kanawha Valley Foundation Board of Trustees approved the distribution of a $20,000 grant to Legal Aid of West Virginia, Inc. The Lawyer in the School program stabilizes the lives of Kanawha County students by providing free legal assistance to families facing eviction and many other issues. West Virginia Governor Jim Justice and the West Virginia Housing Development Fund announced the launch of the Mountaineer Rental Assistance Program, which will be funded through the Treasury Department’s emergency rental assistance program.
Updated: February 5 According to the U.S. Census, 11% of adults in West Virginia either missed last month’s housing payment or have little to no confidence that they can pay next month’s housing payment. Updated: December 3 According to the U.S. Census, 26.23% of the adult renters in West Virginia have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. Updated: November 20 The states with the highest numbers of unpaid mortgages and rent are: Mississippi, Louisiana, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Arkansas, Connecticut, Missouri, and West Virginia. Updated: November 13 New data out this week shows that two-thirds of renters in West Virginia are facing eviction and thousands of unemployed workers are nearing exhaustion of their unemployment benefits, said Kelly Allen, executive director at the West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy. Updated: October 30 Ellen Allen, executive director of the Covenant House, a non-profit organization working to fight homelessness and evictions stated that they are receiving twice the number of calls regarding potential evictions as previous years. In West Virginia alone in July, 106,000 children lived in households that were behind at least one month on the rent and/or did not know where the next meal was going to come from. Updated: September 18 In the third week of July, 1 in 5 adults in West Virginia reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, 36,554renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment. Updated: July 29 Utility shut-offs resumed on July 1. According to a weekly survey by the Census, 29% of adults in the state either missed their last housing payment or have little/no confidence of being able to make next month’s housing payment.
| Charleston | A Charleston-based resource center for homeless individuals reported a 25% increase in their caseload since March, with many individuals and families facing homelessness for the first time. | June 5 |
As families in Rock County face job loss or lose their homes, the pandemic has led to a waitlist for Family Promise of Greater Beloit's shelter program. Despite the moratorium, Legal Action of Wisconsin attorney Heidi Wegleitner says there have been 7,163 eviction cases filed across the state since September 4; 424 of those were in Dane County. Data from Wisconsin Circuit Court records show in 2020, the county had 7,918 pending eviction cases. In 2019, that number held at 12,164. In 2018, it was 12,244. Normally, 35.4 percent of the eviction filings in Wisconsin are against Black people; since last March, that share is up to 37.2 percent. Black people make up only 12 percent of all renters in the state. Updated: March 15 Despite the moratorium, Legal Action of Wisconsin attorney Heidi Wegleitner says there have been 7,163 eviction cases filed across the state since September 4. 424 of those were in Dane County. Northwest Wisconsin Community Services Agency distributed a total of $252,978 in assistance to 113 households before the program wrapped up in November. In Eau Claire County, the eviction moratorium has cut the number of evictions in half compared with 2019 eviction cases. S2 Real Estate currently has more than 40 open evictions in the circuit court. Since September, the company has evicted 82 tenants, despite the federal moratorium against such actions due to the pandemic. Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Pedro Colon, who now presides over Small Claims Court for a second time, says he is often haunted by how many families face eviction because they fall short on rent by just a couple of hundred dollars — and often less than that. And though the owners of two or three rental properties, or those who rent one floor of their duplexes, do file for evictions, landlords representing larger numbers of rental units are more frequently in his court. Chris Larson was preparing lasagna for Christmas Eve dinner last year when someone knocked on the door of the mobile home he owns with his fiancée, Kirsten Brokaw, and three kids in Superior, Wisconsin. An apologetic man dressed in jeans and a jacket stood at the door, handed him a stack of papers, and said he was being evicted; the family had to leave by January 20. More than $320 million will help pay overdue rent in Wisconsin to cover missed payments dating back to March 13, 2020 qualify for this program. Under the first rental assistance program that started in the summer, Western Dairyland helped 550 families pay their bills. During housing court in Dane County, a tenant, who is non-verbal and facing eviction, did not appear at his virtual hearing. “He doesn’t know American Sign Language,” Commissioner J. Alberto Quiroga reported to the landlord’s attorney, who was displayed in a square underneath the commissioner’s in the Zoom meeting. “The only way he responds is either, ‘No’ or ‘I know.’ So the court’s concerned with his competency.” Updated: February 26 The Tenant Resource Center says this year, it has dispersed about $11 million in rental assistance in partnership with Dane County. The state gave Community Action Inc. of Rock County more than $1 million to help families struggling with rent. After just 12 weeks and 700 families assisted, the money was gone. The Helping Hands for Housing Coalition estimates Wisconsin's rent shortfall could be upwards of $465 million. According to the Dane County Clerk of Court’s office, 136 evictions have been filed since November 15; between September 15 and November 1, 140 were filed. Those numbers represent a significant uptick compared to 31 filings between April 1 and June 1. Evictions in Milwaukee County are moving forward, with 130 eviction filings for the week of January 4 through January 8.
Updated: February 5 In Racine, a total of 1,006 households were provided with rental assistance at a total of $1,711,052, while 702 households in Kenosha received $1,234,657. Updated: December 18 Data shows there were 51 evictions in Dane County over the first two months of a pandemic-prompted federal moratorium on evictions. In November, there were 567 evictions filed in Milwaukee County with a majority, 158, filed during the holiday week of Thanksgiving. As temperatures in Wisconsin drop, homeless advocates and state government officials are preparing for increased demands on homeless shelters across the state. Housing Strategy Director at Community Advocates Deb Heffner says the eviction crisis is something Milwaukeeans have been struggling with for a long time even before the coronavirus pandemic. However, the pandemic has resulted in large numbers of unemployment and severe economic losses for more people across the region that has exacerbated the eviction and affordable housing crisis in the city. State Rep. Evan Goyke said there have been steps in that direction between Governor Tony Evers and Republican leaders in the Wisconsin legislature, however, he said extending the moratorium on evictions in the state of Wisconsin is not one of those steps in the direction of compromise yet. The Rental Housing Resource Center, a collaboration billed as a one-stop-shop for renters and landlords who need help in providing or maintaining stable rental housing, launched this week. When the center is fully up and running on January 1, a tenant could call or fill out an online form that would go to an intake specialist who would help determine if the renter needs financial assistance, legal advice, or a mediator if the landlord is also willing to sit down and try to work things out. Updated: December 11 The Milwaukee County Eviction Prevention Program has prevented 1,730 evictions, but as 2021 approaches, their funding is running out. Using funds from the CARES Act, Milwaukee County has distributed $9 million to Community Advocates and Hope House of Milwaukee. Updated: December 3 According to the U.S. Census, 18.15% of the adult renters in Wisconsin have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. Updated: November 20 Since the CDC eviction moratorium took effect, Milwaukee County sheriff's deputies have evicted 109 people and landlords filed about 249 new eviction suits. According to the Eviction Lab, since March 15, landlords in Milwaukee have filed for more than 4,100 evictions. As of September 23, about 727 eviction actions have been filed statewide. Updated: October 8 In Milwaukee, Terrence and Jamie Holmes’ family of four with one on the way was evicted from their home, despite the national eviction moratorium. The Holmeses did not know about the CDC eviction moratorium and the declaration form that tenants need to submit to their landlord to qualify for it. Updated: September 25 According to a study by the Aspen Institute, eviction filings are disproportionately impacting Black residents across the country, including in Milwaukee. Milwaukee’s state rental assistance program has been unable to keep up to match the level of assistance needed. Before the statewide eviction moratorium ended, Gov. Tony Evers allocated $25 million in federal pandemic relief into the Wisconsin Rental Assistance Program (WRAP). The agencies selected to distribute the funds could not start processing applications until June 8, nearly two weeks after landlords could resume evictions. WRAP through Aug. 6 distributed about $7 million to about 4,000 households statewide. In Milwaukee, Washington, and Ozaukee counties 24,000 residents applied to rental assistance through the Social Development Commission. The cost of fully funding those requests would be $72 million, nearly three times what Gov. Evers earmarked statewide. Updated: September 18 Milwaukee landlords filed for 1,447 evictions in June, 17% higher than pre-pandemic June averages, data from Princeton University’s Eviction Lab show. The city’s 1,347 eviction filings in July were 9% above averages from 2012 to 2016. More than two-thirds of those filings hit Black-majority neighborhoods, according to Eviction Lab data, although Black residents make up just 39% of the population. The disparity highlights Milwaukee’s status as the nation’s most segregated metropolitan area, home to stark racial inequality created and maintained by decades of neglect from business and political leaders, according to research. Updated: August 28 Evictions in Milwaukee were down in the final months of 2019 before the pandemic. The last number recorded for 2019 was 873 evictions per month filed, but with current trends, that number is estimated to surpass more than 1,450 for some months in 2020. Updated: August 12 In the third week of July, 12.3% of adults in Wisconsin reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, 98,494renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment.
| Milwaukee | According to the Princeton Eviction Lab, Milwaukee recorded 1,966 evictions in the seven weeks following the expiration of Wisconsin’s state-wide eviction moratorium on May 26, an 89% increase from the seven weeks leading up to the moratorium. | July 23 |
Updated: July 29 Eviction filings are up 40% in Wisconsin compared to last year. Applications outpace available assistance. Updated: July 16
Wyoming 2-1-1, which works to connect people with essential health and human services in the state, saw a 285% increase in rental assistance requests and a 95% increase in utility assistance requests in 2020, according to a report from the governor’s office. “This spike in demand has further increased in 2021, with requests received by 2-1-1 in the first six weeks of 2021 amounting to more than double the six-week average of requests received in 2020,” the report adds. The Wyoming Legislature’s Joint Appropriations Committee advanced legislation that would help facilitate an additional $200 million in rental relief to Wyoming residents facing economic hardship from the COVID-19 pandemic. Updated: March 15 The Wyoming Emergency Housing Assistance Program was originally funded at $15 million, but by December the program distributed only slightly more than 10% of the funding – $1.5 million – and returned the rest of the funds to the governor for reallocation. The CARES rental assistance program rejected one-third of the applications it received, in part due to its stringent qualification. Updated: February 5 According to the U.S. Census, 35.97% of the adult renters in Wyoming have no or slight confidence in their ability to make next month’s rent payment. Updated: November 20 According to recent Census Pulse Data, the likelihood of eviction and foreclosures are highest in the following regions: District of Columbia, Indiana, Florida, Iowa, Texas, Wyoming, Massachusetts, New Mexico, North Dakota, and Arizona. Updated: November 13 Some officials in Wyoming worry local governments will not receive funding before the December 30 deadline set by Congress. A portion of this funding includes homelessness prevention and rental assistance programs. Updated: October 30 According to the Natrona County Community Action Partnership, during the gap between the CARES Act and the CDC eviction moratoriums, a handful of families have either been evicted or threatened with the action. So far the Wyoming Emergency Housing Assistance Program has spent just under $700,000 of its $15 million in CARES Act funding. One reason for the wide gap is the program’s early eligibility criteria. Since the new rules were instituted in August, the organization is receiving twice as many applications a week. As of Sept. 11, it had received 1,133 applications and declined 17% of those. Updated: September 25 In the third week of July, 1 in 4 adults in Wyoming reported they had missed their previous housing payment or had little confidence they would make their next one on time, according to a weekly survey conducted by the Census. In the same survey, 17,080renters reported they had not paid their previous rental payment. Updated: July 29 Wyoming never issued a statewide eviction moratorium, allowing localities to decide for themselves. According to a weekly Census survey, 28,931 renters indicated they had not paid their June rent, with an additional 2,231 reporting they had deferred their June rent. Updated: July 16