The eviction ban gave her and her fiancé Karel Williams more time – the moratorium expires on October 3 – but it did not trigger the $ 5,300 additional rent that she still gave to her landlord, Tom Taft Sr., the owners of the Taft family owed Ventures, a real estate development company based in Greenville, North Carolina.

"It was kind of a breath of fresh air, but I'm not sure it will save us," Matthews told CNN Business about the moratorium.

The existing postponement of evictions can prevent law enforcement from removing tenants from homes, but it doesn't prevent landlords from filing eviction requests, according to attorney Mark Fessler, head of the housing unit at South Carolina Legal Services, a nonprofit law firm specializing in civil litigation for low income communities.

"This is how the courts have interpreted the moratorium and the CDC has declared the previous moratorium in a briefing before a federal court," Fessler told CNN Business on Monday.

Even if tenants cannot be removed, eviction court records can tarnish a person's financial past for years.

"It can, certainly for low-income people, [make] harder to find another apartment and either [make] that housing more expensive or [force] they are in inferior apartments, "added Fessler.

Matthews recently applied for rent relief through an emergency county rent aid program funded by Congress for $ 46 billion, which was provided between the December stimulus plan and the Biden administration's US bailout.

However, by Monday afternoon, her landlord had refused to fill out a document agreeing to receive funds from the program and insisted that she pay a total of $ 3,600 in rent repayments in exchange for his cooperation.

"He's holding the process so I can help him get his money," Matthews told Taft on Monday.

Taft had his property manager withdrew his motion to the local housing court on Friday to evict Matthews' family when he said Matthews had paid him $ 1,600 additional rent. He said Matthews agreed to pay an additional $ 2,000 on Monday before signing their rental support papers.

In the past, Taft said it took six to eight weeks to get federal rental subsidies for Matthews and he fears that if she falls behind again, she won't have enough to pay the rent in the future.

"She will be in the same situation and I will have a lot less patience later," he said. "We work with tenants. If they do what they promise to do, then we work with them."

On Tuesday, Taft agreed to fill out Matthews paperwork, despite saying Matthews failed to give him the additional $ 2,000 she was willing to pay in exchange for his cooperation.

I agree, "he said." We will continue … We will do this today. "

Evictions hit colored communities

Shanta Matthews with her fiance and daughters in May 2020.

Researchers and housing assistance officials in South Carolina say this type of rental disputes has become more common during the pandemic.

Matthews and her fiancé are two of million Americans laid off in the spring of 2020 when U.S. state and local governments forced many non-essential businesses to shut down to help contain the spread of Covid-19.

The original eviction moratorium, which began last September, was extended several times before it expired on July 31. Today, nearly 6.4 million US households owe their landlords more than $ 21.3 billion in rents, according to an estimate by the National Equity Atlas by PolicyLink, a research institute based in Oakland, California. An estimated 19% of American households with children say they are behind on their rent, and around 15 million Americans are, according to a recent study by the Aspen Institute, a nonprofit policy study based in Washington, DC.

Black Americans like Matthews and their families will be disproportionately affected by impending evictions, the institute's researchers found. About 22% of black renters and 17% of Latin American and Asian renters say they owe their landlords in debt, compared with 15% overall, the report said.

South Carolina leads the nation, with 29% of adults reporting they are behind on rent.

According to Bob Pinnegar, president and CEO of the National Apartment Association, an industry group that represents property owners, the eviction moratoriums have put landlords and property managers responsible for providing housing to millions of US renters with insufficient funds.

Taft said the moratoriums and the government's rent assistance program left landlords like him in the balance.

"I was okay with it as long as it works," he said of the moratorium. "Many states are slow to make these payments and less than 15-20% of the allocated money has been spent. This is what happened in South Carolina. We don't have much confidence how much money we'll get." and whether we will get well. … It becomes a matter of business and you can't do it forever. "

Low wages, high rent

The trigger for the South Carolina eviction crisis is a combination of too many low-wage service and hospitality jobs and relatively high rental prices, according to Brian Grady, chief research officer at the South Carolina State Housing Finance and Development Authority, known as SC Housing.

Grady's agency manages home ownership and affordable rental housing programs for low and middle income South Carolinians. It is also responsible for distributing part of the $ 46 billion Congress allocated for rental aid.

Rents in South Carolina cities like Charleston, Columbia, and Myrtle Beach may not be high compared to markets like New York or San Francisco, but Grady says South Carolina is disproportionately populated by low-income residents.

"A quarter of tenant households are heavily burdened, which means they spend more than half of their income on rent and utilities," Grady told CNN Business. "South Carolina has many low-wage service jobs and these are the jobs that have been hardest hit by the initial effects of the pandemic."

The information gap

Matthews, who worked as a doctor's assistant in a doctor's office prior to his release, says not enough is being done to educate people about rental assistance programs. She only found out about the help after looking for solutions on the Internet.

"You're not promoting it enough," said Matthews. "Do you see [news] Stories about PPP more than you see emergency rental assistance. They talk about incentives … but they don't advertise that there is money out here to get help. These things should be plastered over so people know that there is help out there for you. All you have to do is apply. "

Matthews' fiancé, who was also fired in March 2020, found a job as a line cook at a local grill restaurant in May of that year. But her own job search has not been so successful, she says, even though she has applied for many positions. The couple used their previous rental allowance and a portion of their savings from the Stimulus Check to pay $ 11,000 in additional rent in March this year after receiving their first of two eviction notices from Taft.

She says she stopped receiving unemployment benefits that month. South Carolina Governor Harry McMaster officially ended the state's participation in federal pandemic-related unemployment benefit programs on June 30 to force South Carolina residents to return to work.

"Our governor is stopping unemployment, but he's not telling his people about the other programs that can help them with utilities, rent, and things that can help them stay in their homes," said Matthews.

SC Housing says it is sponsoring the rental housing emergency program through churches, plaques, community centers, local governments, landlord and broker associations, and a network of nonprofit nonprofits to educate people about the funds available.

"We have also advertised through direct mail, copywriting, TV and radio, and distributed materials at special community events," said Renaye Long, director of communications and public relations at SC Housing.

Lawmakers in states like South Carolina must pass suppression laws that would hide or delete eviction records for tenants affected by the pandemic, says Zach Neumann, executive director of the Covid-19 Eviction Defense Project, who co-authored the Aspen Institute's study.

"That would mean they wouldn't have to lug that anchor around for the next seven years," Neumann told CNN Business. "In a broader sense, I think you can talk about changing the way you do credit reports in America."

source https://seapointrealtors.com/2021/08/10/eviction-moratoriums-arent-enough-to-rescue-millions-of-americans-behind-on-rent-experts-say/

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