Williams, who is part of a lawsuit against Oakland and Alameda County over the bans, said his tenant stopped paying the $1,500 monthly rent when the pandemic started. John Williams, 62, hopes that three years of worry and stress are coming to an end. Haile says the tenants never asked for repairs. “We’ve had a lot of troubles in this house since we’ve moved in,” she said, adding that they are looking for a new place to live. She said the property management company has for years ignored their requests for repairs. Pinzon’s 19-year-old daughter, Brigitte Cortez, said the moratorium gave her mother “peace of mind” during the pandemic. Even now, she can’t afford the $1,875 monthly rent on her pay as a custodian at a homeless shelter. Reached by The Associated Press, the tenant, Martha Pinzon, said at the advice of a community nonprofit she stopped paying after she lost her hotel housekeeper job during the pandemic-triggered shutdown in March 2020. The property management company said they couldn’t ask because of the eviction ban. Haile doesn’t know why the family who rented the house her parents left her stopped paying rent in April 2020.
“We’ve never had a situation where you would have government-sanctioned freedom to not pay your rent.” “So this was my entire plan, and I’ve just kind of watched it go up in smoke,” said Hailey, 59. The artist figured the triplex would provide steady income as well as help fund her retirement. She purchased the property in 1999 after earning big for writing some songs included on the first Destiny’s Child album. The tenants moved out, but she has a stack of bills and can’t afford to renovate. Hailey, the triplex owner, considers herself lucky because she was able to recoup some money through a rent-relief program. She acknowledged that some people “took advantage of the moratorium,” but says most renters desperately needed the help. In Oakland, a city rich in Black history, some Black families who migrated from the South during World War II were able to purchase homes, despite redlining and other discriminatory practices by banks and government.īut a recession and subprime mortgage crisis followed by rapidly rising home prices and gentrification pushed out many Black residents, and homelessness escalated.Ĭarroll Fife, a Black city councilwoman and housing advocate, called for a housing overhaul that focuses on homes for people instead of profit for a few. That surpassed filings that averaged in the 300s before the pandemic in 2019.
In California’s Alameda County, filings topped 500 in May, compared to 65 in April before the ban ended. Nationwide, eviction filings have come roaring back since the bans ended - to more than 50% higher than the pre-pandemic average in many cities, according to Princeton University’s Eviction Lab, which tracks filings in three dozen cities and 10 states. They said low-income residents are still struggling from the pandemic and need protections from ruthless landlords. Moratorium backers called the bans a lifesaver that kept countless families housed and off the streets.
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