Management Trying to Blunt Effects of End of Eviction Moratorium


Some lawyers have said they don’t expect a flood of new lawsuits to come out of nowhere, but do anticipate a steady increase as the weeks go on—with wide variations by state or even the county in which a tenant lives.

“I was in court in Mecklenburg County this morning and the judges were hearing eviction cases today,” said Isaac Sturgill, a housing attorney with North Carolina Legal Aid, referring to the county where Charlotte is located. “But it can look very different depending on the county you’re in.”

In Ohio, housing court judges in some counties have long acted as if the CDC moratorium never existed. In Cincinnati, some judges began this spring allowing landlords to evict tenants for not paying rent, after a federal judge ruled that the CDC moratorium was unconstitutional.

These judges began to halt evictions only after the Supreme Court rejected an appeal by the homeowners to a moratorium in June.

“Assays have been going on for several months and are closing,” said Nicholas DiNardo, executive attorney for the Southwest Ohio Legal Aid Association, which includes Cincinnati. He said court proceedings for evictions were filling up fast again, with about 75 cases a day in Cincinnati over the next three weeks.

But a chronic complaint from legal aid lawyers and landlords is that the process for applying for rent aid is too cumbersome, and Washington has underestimated the negative impact of creating a painstaking process to combat fraud.

Jacksonville, Fla. has a backlog of thousands of applications for rental assistance, making it difficult for other tenants facing eviction to apply for assistance.

“The time it takes to process these applications has not been adequately thought through and there was not enough trained staff,” said Mary DeVries, head of housing unit for Jacksonville District Legal Aid.



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