Calls for eviction ban spread as coronavirus threatens paychecks
3 min read
Local and state officials are calling for an eviction ban as the economy slows in response to the coronavirus pandemic and workers are quarantined or forced to stay home with their kids due to school closures.
“People must be able to focus on our community’s health — slowing the virus’s spread — and not on economic survival,” state Senate Housing Committee Chair Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, said in a statement calling for state and federal moratoriums on evicting both residential tenants and businesses as well as home foreclosures.
. “We need to support each other and give people leeway to focus exclusively on keeping healthy,” he said.
Wiener was one of at least two state legislators and numerous city officials around the nation calling for measures to provide relief for stressed tenants, according to news reports.
Los Angeles City Council members Herb Wesson and Mike Bonin are proposing a temporary hold on evictions, late fees and utility shut-offs due to lost wages caused by the coronavirus outbreak. The proposal includes a moratorium on evictions for small businesses under commercial leases.
The moratoriums would not relieve tenants or homeowners of their obligations to pay their rent or mortgages, Wesson said. It is meant to give them time to stay in their homes until they become financially stable again.
“With so many folks living paycheck to paycheck or relying on tips or gig work to pay their bills, we know there will be extra stress placed on Angelenos that many simply can’t afford,” Wesson said in a statement. “These common-sense measures will help us keep people in their homes and prevent the even greater public health crisis that mass evictions and foreclosures could create.”
Speaking at a Los Angeles Unified School District news conference Friday, March 13, Alex Caputo-Pearl, head of the United Teachers Los Angeles union, likewise called for a halt in evictions and foreclosures.
“We have hotel workers, the parents of our students, who are facing being fired because of lack of business at hotels,” he said.
Similar proposals cropped up in San Jose, San Francisco, Miami, Washington, D.C., and New York City, according to Curbed.com and the Bay Area News Group.
Bernie Sanders joined the chorus Thursday, March 12, during a speech in his home state of Vermont. According to news reports, the Democratic presidential contender called for an “immediate moratorium on evictions, foreclosures and on utility shut-offs.”
Landlords, meanwhile, argued any such bans should be accompanied by government assistance. Property owners should not bear the brunt of unpaid rents, they said, because they, too, have mortgages, utilities and bills to pay.
John Fiebich, the owner of a single rental unit in San Jose, said in a letter he was “shocked and disturbed” to hear that the city council there was mandating landlords to “shoulder the entire financial burden of a tenant that can not or will not pay the rent because of some loose connection to Covid-19,” the Bay Area News Group reported.
The California Apartment Association issued a statement saying rent moratoriums are OK provided they are “accompanied by public dollars to assist tenants in paying their rent or to assist property owners in paying their mortgage.”
A ban on affecting tenants who can’t pay their rent because of coronavirus should state that the rent is not waived, but merely delayed, the apartment association statement said.
“We’re all in this together,” the apartment association said.
But, it added, “any local or statewide law on this issue must take into account that when rent goes unpaid, there’s a chain reaction. Owners, especially moms and pops, may be unable to pay their mortgage or other bills. That’s especially true if they come down with the virus and can’t go to work themselves.”
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“People must be able to focus on our community’s health — slowing the virus’s spread — and not on economic survival,” state Senate Housing Committee Chair Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, said in a statement calling for state and federal moratoriums on evicting both residential tenants and businesses as well as home foreclosures.
. “We need to support each other and give people leeway to focus exclusively on keeping healthy,” he said.
Wiener was one of at least two state legislators and numerous city officials around the nation calling for measures to provide relief for stressed tenants, according to news reports.
Los Angeles City Council members Herb Wesson and Mike Bonin are proposing a temporary hold on evictions, late fees and utility shut-offs due to lost wages caused by the coronavirus outbreak. The proposal includes a moratorium on evictions for small businesses under commercial leases.
The moratoriums would not relieve tenants or homeowners of their obligations to pay their rent or mortgages, Wesson said. It is meant to give them time to stay in their homes until they become financially stable again.
“With so many folks living paycheck to paycheck or relying on tips or gig work to pay their bills, we know there will be extra stress placed on Angelenos that many simply can’t afford,” Wesson said in a statement. “These common-sense measures will help us keep people in their homes and prevent the even greater public health crisis that mass evictions and foreclosures could create.”
Speaking at a Los Angeles Unified School District news conference Friday, March 13, Alex Caputo-Pearl, head of the United Teachers Los Angeles union, likewise called for a halt in evictions and foreclosures.
“We have hotel workers, the parents of our students, who are facing being fired because of lack of business at hotels,” he said.
Similar proposals cropped up in San Jose, San Francisco, Miami, Washington, D.C., and New York City, according to Curbed.com and the Bay Area News Group.
Bernie Sanders joined the chorus Thursday, March 12, during a speech in his home state of Vermont. According to news reports, the Democratic presidential contender called for an “immediate moratorium on evictions, foreclosures and on utility shut-offs.”
Landlords, meanwhile, argued any such bans should be accompanied by government assistance. Property owners should not bear the brunt of unpaid rents, they said, because they, too, have mortgages, utilities and bills to pay.
John Fiebich, the owner of a single rental unit in San Jose, said in a letter he was “shocked and disturbed” to hear that the city council there was mandating landlords to “shoulder the entire financial burden of a tenant that can not or will not pay the rent because of some loose connection to Covid-19,” the Bay Area News Group reported.
The California Apartment Association issued a statement saying rent moratoriums are OK provided they are “accompanied by public dollars to assist tenants in paying their rent or to assist property owners in paying their mortgage.”
A ban on affecting tenants who can’t pay their rent because of coronavirus should state that the rent is not waived, but merely delayed, the apartment association statement said.
“We’re all in this together,” the apartment association said.
But, it added, “any local or statewide law on this issue must take into account that when rent goes unpaid, there’s a chain reaction. Owners, especially moms and pops, may be unable to pay their mortgage or other bills. That’s especially true if they come down with the virus and can’t go to work themselves.”
from News: Redlands Daily Facts https://ift.tt/2wQs2YV
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