Small rental owners are also frustrated and worried
Luis Olivas is concerned because the owners of the house that lives in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood in Los Angeles County, gave him an ultimatum to vacate the place where he has lived for 11 years.
“It was not a notification from the sheriff but a letter that the owner gave to my wife for me to get out,” says Luis.
Due to the alarming threat posed by the possibility of evictions as a result of the serious economic crisis brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, The opinion will publish in the next three days a series of articles on different angles of uncertainty experienced by hundreds of thousands of tenants who, unable to pay their rent, do not know if they will end up living on the street.
According to the Luskin Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), there are 491,000 renters in Los Angeles County who have been unable to pay rent due to unemployment brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. Luis and his wife cannot pay the additional amount that the owner of the apartment they live in asks them below the table, since the rent is paid by the government through section 8, a program that assists low-income people for the rental of housing.
“Our communities are under threat from a tsunami of evictions. Elected officials have given us just a patch of legal protections. People are falling through the cracks of those provisions”Said Elena Popp, director of the Eviction Defense Network, a Los Angeles-based tenant legal advocacy organization.
For 11 years, Luis has lived with his wife and a son, now 16, in two rented rooms at the back of a house.
“My wife was a beneficiary of section 8, and the government pays the owners $ 1,500 a month. She only pays $ 2 because neither she nor I have a job due to the pandemic, ”she says.
However, Luis says that although the owners of the property always knew that he lived there, they never questioned his stay in the place, until the COVID-19 pandemic arrived.
“They asked us to pay them $ 250 below the water and above what Section 8 pays them.”
Luis and his wife refused to give them additional income due to being unemployed due to the coronavirus.
As a result, the owners gave him a letter with the ultimatum of 30 days to leave the property for being there illegally. “We have already told section 8 what is happening, and we have tried to find another place to go, but everything is very expensive“, He says.
Meanwhile they feel harassed by the owners.
“They repeat to us over and over again that they could be renting that place where we live for more money. That such a place costs more in the market. They really want us to get out to rent it more expensive”.
Luis went to the Pasadena sheriff’s offices for advice, and was told that the owners cannot remove him without first taking the case to court.
However, he acknowledges that he feels tied by his hands and to avoid problems he is looking for a place to stay, but in the absence of a stable job it is difficult for him to find a home.
“I don’t want them to accuse my wife of fraud or to kick us all out.”
Eviction requests drop
According to data from the Superior Court of Los Angeles, Last year 40,572 eviction requests were submitted, while this year due to the pandemic, between January and June they fell to 9,704.
In 2018, 42,472 eviction requests were filed; in 2017, 45,602; in 2016, 49,178; and in 2015, 52,924. In 2009, the year the economic recession hit the country, a record number of 71,530 were requested.
Attorney Popp, director of the Evictions Defense Network, laments the lack of protections under the Tenant Relief Act, the new state law AB 3088, which requires that they pay at least 25% of the rent between September 2020 and January 2021 in order not to be evicted.
“5.4 million tenants are at risk of eviction as of this month because the governor failed to use his power to protect them.”
It says the only thing that has protected Californians was Rule 1 enacted on April 6 by the California Judicial Council, which prohibited state courts from issuing eviction orders for the duration of COVID-19; and for 90 days after the state of emergency.
“This order is the only emergency moratorium in the state that reduced the number of evictions in Los Angeles County. In 2019 there was an average of 3,381 per month. Under Rule 1, this year we have had 350 ”.
Unfortunately this moratorium ended on September 1.
What can we expect?
Popp anticipates that we are going to see a flood of evictions that will potentially displace 491,000 families in Los Angeles County alone.
“This will increase homelessness, gentrification, and the likelihood of more COVID cases. This is more than a housing crisis, it puts public health at serious risk”.
The lawyer believes that the issue of rental income is life or death.
“We need legislation that preserves Rule 1 so that there are no evictions during the pandemic, and for 90 days afterward.”
It notes that on April 6, the Judicial Council put a tourniquet on the wound of a patient who was bleeding when it established Rule 1.
“Sadly the government did not take care of the infection – the debt -. The governor saw the patient – the tenant – and said: Wow, what a horrible injury in relation to the unpaid rent. Hey, local government I give you power to take charge – to solve the problem. The local government looked at the patient, the tenant who did not pay rent and put patches on top of the tourniquet. The Judicial Council warned the governor and the legislature in June and July that the turnstile was breaking. “
In sum, Popp argues that we need a turnstile in the form of an eviction moratorium that prohibits the filing of eviction requests.
Homeowners in distress
An analysis by the University of California at Berkeley estimates that nearly 1 million tenants have lost their jobs due to the pandemic, and 25% of small homeowners, those who manage fewer than 20 units, have had to borrow to meet the payment of your mortgages, services and other costs.
Agustín Pradillo has been renting a house in San Bernardino for several years for $ 2,000 each month. But he’s also a tenant in Orange County. So he is judge and party in housing matters.
“With the rent I pay the mortgage; and with what I have left over he helps me to pay my own rent “.
However, since the pandemic began, your tenant has paid your rent late.
“In August he only gave me $ 500; and this month, nothing, ”she says.
This situation keeps you truly distraught and frustrated.
“We tenants are not public charities. Some of us made an investment when buying a home to have an income during our adulthood, but when the tenant stops paying rent, it puts us in financial trouble”.
And it was launched against Governor Gavin Newsom for passing AB 3088 that authorizes tenants to pay only 25% of rent between September and January. “Shelter some and uncover others.”
He acknowledges that the banks with whom they have the mortgages have promised to wait and are not charging them interest or fees for late payments, but the debt is there. “Not only do we not advance with the mortgage payment, but we stop receiving an income to survive.”
He worries that when Newsom’s law ends on January 31, 2021, they will have to take tenants to court for non-payment. “How are they going to respond with the debt if they don’t have property?”
According to Pradillo, with the new law AB 3088 that forces tenants to only pay a quarter percent of the rent, everyone loses.
“I also do not agree that they make us owners of rental housing as evil and miserable. We are not in this business to evict anyone. I don’t want to get people out of my house, but what do you do if they don’t pay your rent in six months? There is the misperception that landlords are millionaires, but I need money just like tenants.
Under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (Cares Act), property owners with government-supported mortgages are entitled to 180 days of deferral of payments and a 180-day extension for a total of one year. This does not mean a debt forgiveness, but the charges for not paying on time are forgiven; and they do not need to submit documentation to prove their case.
Early in the pandemic, the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Housing and Urban Development found that more than a dozen banks with mortgages backed by the federal government were providing confusing and inconsistent information about the debt deferral plan.
Don’t miss out on the printed version: Living on the streets, a fear since before the pandemic next Wednesday, September 30. And on Friday, October 2: Immigrants, the most exposed to evictions.
