SAN JOSE, Calif.–Another forecast is predicting a wave of evictions in the near future.
An estimated 11 to 13 million renter households are at risk of eviction, according to Stout, an investment bank and global advisory firm. The company is predicting there could be as many as 6.4 million potential eviction filings by Jan. 1, 2021, if the CDC moratorium on evictions is lifted, according to CNN Business.
That CDC order did not cancel rent, and all of a tenant's back rent will be due come Jan. 1.
"The pandemic is not going away before the end of the year," Michael Trujillo, staff attorney with the housing program at the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley, in San Jose, told CNN Business, adding that if the CDC moratorium is allowed to expire without a replacement protection, a tsunami of evictions is possible, he said. "We're not out of the woods in terms of a huge wave of evictions in our country with the kind of rent debt that people owe."
CNN Business reported that in the 16 metro areas tracked by the Eviction Lab at Princeton University, filings dropped by about half right after the CDC order went into effect.
“But it did not stop the flow of new eviction cases. In the two weeks after the order went into place, there were 508 eviction filings in Fort Worth, 1,053 in Houston and Pittsburgh saw 337, according to the Eviction Lab,” CNN Business reported. “In other cities, eviction filings have begun trending higher again, including in Philadelphia, and Tampa, Jacksonville and Gainesville in Florida.”
The Biggest Problem
The biggest problem is that not enough people know about the order, Caitlin Cedfeldt, an attorney with the Housing Justice Project at Legal Aid of Nebraska, told CNN Business. "It works if we're involved and the court is involved or if the tenant has the wherewithal to invoke the order in the first place."
Because the order requires tenants to provide a signed declaration to their landlord, there has been some confusion around whether landlords have to accept the order and if evictions can actually be prevented, the report added.
Guidance released by the CDC in October allows landlords to challenge the truthfulness of a declaration and asserts they have no obligation to let tenants know about the CDC protection.
Landlord groups such as the National Apartment Association and property owners have joined a lawsuit brought by the New Civil Liberties Alliance, a civil rights group, aiming to strike down the order, CNN Business added.