At the beginning of the month, tenant and landlord advocacy groups alike were both surprised by the Center for Disease Control’s (CDC) federal order to temporarily halt evictions. Both scrambled to react, putting together helpful documents, organizing video calls and chatting over Facebook groups and forums.
The new moratorium allows for tenants that make no more than $99,000 annually (or $198,000 if filing a joint tax return) to give their landlord a form declaring their inability to pay full rent. Unlike the previous moratorium, partial payments are required, among other differences. Until Federal relief arrives, it’s up to local organizations like Community Advocates and the Social Development Commission (SDC), as well as state and municipal assistance, to hold back a tidal wave of evictions.
“I was pleasantly surprised that the Trump administration would take such a big step forward, but there is more that needs to be done. This is an incomplete policy approach,” says Mike Bare, a research and program coordinator at Community Advocates.
Bare went onto say, “The danger of just delaying things is that there’s also a possibility of an increasing amount of debt a tenant might have, which is a more difficult hole for people to climb out of,” come December 31 of this year when the moratorium expires.
How Will Anyone Get Paid?
This issue will affect both parties. Heiner Giese, an attorney with Apartment Association of Southeastern Wisconsin (AASEW) says, “The question is, how is that debt going to get paid? Will people lose their housing? What will landlords do in the meantime about municipal water bills, taxes, insurance or maintenance.”
Despite the lack of federal relief, organizations like Community Advocates and the SDC have been distributing rental assistance through the Wisconsin Rental Assistance Program (WRAP), other Allocated CARES Act funds and some private fundraising. Although Bare says that or the more than 4,000 applications filed since June 1 for rental assistance, only around a quarter have been processed. He went on to say, “we don’t know for sure, but at the current rate of usage, we would not make it to the end of the year.”
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However, George Hinton, CEO of SDC says that running out of money to distribute won’t be a problem for the organization. “We still have money in the pipeline. The state has put forward $6 million. I think the county put in another $7, and the city put out another 10 to 15 million. I think the biggest problem is getting out to them. We’ll be working hard to just get the money out before December 31,” he continues. December 31 is also the deadline for CARES Act funds to be spent.
Distributing millions of dollars is no easy task, especially given the levels of demand non-profits are facing. Back in May of this year, Community Advocates noted a 10-fold increase in calls for rent assistance. During some weeks, the organization alone was answering over 1700 calls.
Mediation Works
Jason Geils, an organizer from the newly formed Milwaukee Autonomous Tenants Union (MATU), says that as a smaller advocacy group, “Optimally we’re not geared up to be dealing with evictions at this level.” But both Bare and Giese say that the housing crisis is not as nightmarish as many worried in June and July, at least in Milwaukee. “There was an uptick in evictions in May and a downward trend in July and August, which is in a large part a result of the programs in place to help people pay their rent,” says Bare.
Bare and Hinton of SDC say mediation between landlords and tenants has been successful, with most being willing to work with both organizations. Efforts to bridge the gap between landlords and tenants have been improving for years through collaborative programs like the Rental Housing Resource Center (RHRC).
However, Geils says he hasn’t seen a significant shift in the landlord’s attitudes toward mediation. In a recent case, MATU almost had to protest at a landlord’s office before mediation was considered. But given the levels of demand for rent assistance, slow the dispersal of funds to landlord-tenant collaboration might not be enough to avoid eviction. The stipulation that tenants must be “using best efforts to make timely partial payments that are as close to the full payment,” under the order, means that it might not be as effective for keeping tenants housed as the earlier state-wide moratorium.
Giese says, “Who is going to determine what a partial payment is? What’s going to happen is that people are going to have to go to court.”
Levi Leppin, the legal officer at MATU, confirmed this, saying that disputes about payments are going most likely be decided by a judge or commissioner. Ultimately this will land some tenants back in the place they’ve been trying to avoid, the court system.
For more information about the CDC order and how it applies to tenants and landlords, click here or visit the Community Advocates FAQ. Visit Communityadvocates.net (414-449-4777) or cr-sdc.org (414-906-2700) to learn more about their rental assistance programs.
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