Rental relief's lagging system may lead to 'tsunami of evictions,' activists say
Out of her the five tenants in her small rent-controlled building in Boyle Heights, Anne Rochier is the only one to receive any back rent from the state's Housing Is Key program.
"Since pretty much the beginning of the pandemic, our landlord has been indicating that he intends to evict us," said Rochier.
The Housing Is Key program is California's rental assistance program. The program gives free financial assistance to landlords and renters who need help with unpaid rent or utilities. The deadline for the program will expire at 11:59 p.m. on March 31.
Despite a new law extending the eviction moratorium, activists are still concerned that the obstacles and lagging system are going to cause a massive wave of evictions.
"Like my neighbor, Isabel who is in her 70s and doesn't have a computer [and] who doesn't speak English," Rochier said. "Has been in his back-and-forth limbo for nine months."
In Los Angeles County, 256,449 completed applications have been submitted but only 113,753 have been paid out for a total of over $1.3 billion in back rent.
"And so that means we have hundreds and hundreds of people still awaiting their rent assistance and they have no idea when it's going to come," said Coalition For Economic Survival executive director Larry Gross.
While the state has extended the eviction moratorium for three months, if a tenant has not applied to the program, they will not be protected by the moratorium. Also, the new state moratorium will now preempt most local rental protections — some of which are stronger. Activists believe that this will leave some renters vulnerable.
"So we anticipate that the long-anticipated tidal wave of evictions that have been put off, we may start to see that as early as tomorrow," said Gross.
UCLA's Institute on Inequality and Democracy estimates that half a million residents, in LA County alone, are behind on their March rent. However, the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles said that landlords are struggling too, with 80% of the state's landlords being small mom-and-pop organizations.
"It's not the responsibility of private property owners to provide welfare to citizens," said the association's CEO Daniel Yukelson. "There's no reason for service providers and people who own rental housing to have to provide their services for free. IT was the only industry attacked by the government in that matter."