Special to the Vanguard
Washington, DC – 49 civil rights, affordable housing, and tenants’ rights organizations, including 25 national groups, called on the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to act immediately to end evictions in HUD housing and to do more to stop the national eviction crisis. View the letter here.
Many of these groups have already been urging HUD to do more for 20 months, since the pandemic began, during both the Trump and Biden Administrations. This latest effort is in response to HUD’s Interim Final Rule (IFR) that goes into effect today entitled, Extension of Time and Required Disclosures for Nonpayment of Rent. The rule aims to increase access to federal emergency rental assistance but does little to ensure that HUD tenants – who are primarily African- American and Latinx households with extremely low-incomes, households headed by women, people with disabilities, and older adults – have the appropriate resources to receive the funds.
“We are calling on HUD today to use its authority to prevent evictions in its own housing,” said Deborah Thrope, deputy director of the National Housing Law Project. “It is inexcusable that HUD is still allowing people to be put on the street during the pandemic, when there are billions of dollars in rental assistance still available. HUD should do everything in its power to make sure tenants and landlords are working together to apply for emergency funds.”
“Evictions risk lives and push families deeper into poverty,” said Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition. “While HUD’s latest rule aims to ensure HUD-assisted households are better able to access emergency rental assistance, HUD must do more to ensure the nation’s lowest-income renters – who remain at the greatest risk of eviction –keep a roof over their heads during the ongoing pandemic.”
A recent survey of legal services attorneys conducted by the National Housing Law Project revealed an alarming number of HUD evictions in communities across the country. For example:
- In Pennsylvania, a HUD-subsidized landlord evicted and subsequently locked out a mother and her two children while they were quarantining with COVID. They were waiting for the emergency rental assistance they had already applied for. The lockout was a surprise and the family was forced to leave medication and pets behind;
- In Hamilton, OH, five tenants have been threatened with eviction by a HUD-subsidized landlord who refused to accept emergency rental assistance or failed to cooperate with the agency administering assistance;
- In Atlanta, GA, a tenant in HUD housing was denied emergency rental assistance because the property manager did not respond to the required verification request. The tenant is now being evicted.
These evictions are occurring despite the billions of dollars the federal government has invested to keep Americans housed. HUD does not collect data on evictions which means no one knows the full scale of evictions currently facing HUD tenants.
HUD’s latest rule does little to help tenants. The rule would only require that housing authorities and HUD landlords provide additional notice to some tenants prior to eviction and to inform tenants about the availability of emergency rental assistance. It does not require landlords to cooperate with rental assistance applications, which is a huge barrier for tenants trying to access the funds.
With regard to the new rule, the letter asserts that the notice requirements are:
…completely disconnected from the reality of how most emergency rental assistance programs distribute funds on a local level and the barriers to accessing the funds faced by tenants. Only about 29% of all programs provide direct-to-tenant assistance and of those that do, most only allow it as a last resort after a landlord has declined to participate or not responded to program requests…. To actually help tenants access federal funds, HUD must require landlord cooperation in the emergency rental assistance application process and suspend any notice period during the application process….
HUD has provided no detailed legal explanation as to why the agency is not fully utilizing its authority to safeguard families. In a memo dated August 31, 2021, the National Housing Law Project outlined clear legal authority for HUD to implement a number of eviction prevention policies. In the meantime, evictions will continue.
The organizations are calling on HUD to use its authority to act more comprehensively to prevent evictions.
Jobs are out there, so many that our country now has a labor shortage.
It’s time to get back to work and pay your rent.
You wanted her to work: “In Pennsylvania, a HUD-subsidized landlord evicted and subsequently locked out a mother and her two children while they were quarantining with COVID. “?
For very case like that there are tens of cases where people are taking advantage of not wanting to work because they’re getting bailed out by the government.
In addition, there are still a sizable number of people who can’t work because they have serious health risks and the jobs available are generally in person, thus high risk jobs.
As I understand it, it’s impossible to get unemployment locally, not sure if that’s only a local problem or more widespread.
Keith O and David… it’s a matter of perspective…
When we moved to Davis, jobs in my field were “tight”… 1979 recession still real (particularly in my field), inflation was double digits, Prop 13 ripples were still causing layoffs in the public sector, which I was in, and we were just ‘starting out’, child on the way, no “job security” (you have to have at least 6 mos.-1 year with the City while you can be dismissed “without cause, maybe $1,000 total liquid assets, and a 0.25 % (yes, one quarter of one percent) vacancy rate for rental housing…
I can with certainty, assert that there was no way on God’s green earth, that had I been laid off, couldn’t meet the rent, that the government would have prevented our eviction… nor any government funds to ‘bridge us’ until I found another job of some kind…
So, Keith O, I get your point, to the extent someone has control of their employment, but disagree when they truly don’t. And David, what you are talking about in your rebuttal to Keith’s points, you must own as “charity”, not a “right”… maybe if I wasn’t a ‘white, “privileged” male’, I shouldn’t have been ‘at risk’ in 1979. But I was, my family was, in 1979…
So, in a sense, you are both ‘right’ (as in “correct”)… folk should do everything they can to take care of themselves… and when they can’t, due to circumstances beyond their control, there is a place for ‘charity’, but not necessarily government intervention/subsidy… a paradox… in your arguments, as presented on this thread, you prove “two ‘rights’ can make a ‘wrong'”… nothing ‘left’ to say…
My point had nothing to do with rights or charity, I was merely pointing out that some people cannot simply go back to work due to health risks.
BM, I worked for an airline and was laid off twice in my career, once for 4 years when the DC-10’s were grounded because of cracks found in the engine cowlings. I did what I had to do, I went out and worked jobs that I wouldn’t normally do that paid much less because I had to pay my house payment and put food on the table. Back then jobs were hard to find, but today jobs are plentiful and anyone can find a job if they’re willing to work. What David and this article are doing, as they always do, is citing a few extreme outlier cases which is not the norm.
It reminds me of their arguments against voter ID. They cite the blind grandma who lives alone on a farm 20 miles from civilization.
You are ignoring that you had a tremendous resource advantage over most of the people endanger of eviction. Second, you’re ignoring a large percentage of people who can’t go out and work without exposing themselves to huge health risks. You can vaccinate, but if you have immuno-compromised people, they can still die from COVID even if vaccinated. Third, enhanced benefits ended in most places in September. Fourth, I know because I have been trying to help several families in trouble now, it’s a huge and long wait to try to get unemployment benefits. I know people who have been out of work for six months, depleted their savings, and can’t work outside of their home.
Things aren’t great right, but these policies have worked at keeping people from falling into the abyss.