The California Judicial Council on Thursday voted to end the statewide eviction moratorium next month, open landlords’ courts and put pressure on Govin Newsom and lawmakers to tackle a possible housing crisis.
Courts will be allowed to process evictions after midnight on September 1, although a patchwork of more than 100 local laws could prevent abusive tenants from being evicted. Most Bay Area counties and cities have provided tenant protection during the coronavirus pandemic, although many are scheduled to expire in August.
Lawmakers are pushing the judiciary for more time to come up with a legislative solution, and the council has delayed its decision by several weeks.
But the panel of state judges insisted on Thursday that a permanent solution would come from both the governor and the legislature.
“The judiciary cannot assume the long-term responsibility of the other two branches to deal with the devastating effects of the pandemic,” Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye said in a statement Thursday. “The duty of the judicial department is to resolve disputes under the law and not to legislate. I urge our sister branches to act quickly to resolve this difficult crisis. ”
MEP David Chiu (D-San Francisco) was grateful for the council’s decision to extend the deadline beyond the planned end to the August 31 legislative session. “This gives the legislature enough time to provide a solution to prevent evictions and progress without a loophole in protections,” said Chiu, chairman of the Committee on Housing and Community Development.
The Covid pandemic has hit many low-income tenants and their landlords hard. Researchers from the Terner Center for Housing Innovation found nearly 1 million rental homes in California have experienced job losses due to the health crisis. Nearly three-quarters of those apartments include a person of color.
Bay Area county and city law is expected to move slowly, but housing advocates say many poor, immigrant families simply pick up and move before dealing with the courts.
Landlords and tenants are also worried about the decline in federal unemployment benefits, a $ 600-a-week boost that helped tenants pay bills but ended in July.
One Chiu proposal would ban evictions for unpaid rent during the emergency. Nine California mayors supported the plan Thursday, including Sam Liccardo in San Jose, Libby Schaaf in Oakland, and London Breed in San Francisco.
The bill, AB 1436, would allow landlords to incur debt, and remove tenants if they continue with payments after the crisis has passed. The ban would end 90 days after the pandemic state of emergency was lifted or on April 1, 2021, whichever comes first.
The proposal would also allow small-scale owners to delay mortgage payments between 6 and 12 months on certain loans that are not supported by the federal government.
But landlord groups have attacked the proposal, saying it amounts to free rent for tenants and not much help to landlords. The proposal could mean that landlords will not receive a rent compensation from a unit for a maximum of one year, which would place an unfair burden on owners of small property. Many could lose their properties, landlords say.
“In many cases, rent payments are the sole source of owner’s income,” a coalition of landlords and developers wrote to Chiu last week. “Without a source of funding to help tenants and landlords, it is highly unlikely that tenants will be able to pay the back rent that is owed.”
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