The government of California is prepared to pay off past-due rent accumulated during the coronavirus pandemic as the state’s eviction moratorium nears expiration.
Derived from several packages of financial aid distributed to states and localities by Congress, California has roughly $5.2 billion at the ready — an amount that Jason Elliott, a senior counselor to Gov. Gavin Newsom on housing and homelessness, said should be more than enough to cover unpaid rents, according to the Associated Press.
Newsom and lawmakers are set to hold meetings this week to discuss the state’s roughly $260 billion operating budget. One topic they are expected to broach is whether to extend California’s eviction moratorium beyond June 30.
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California’s rent relief program has come under criticism for being slow, with a little more than 2% of applicants or people who started applications receiving aid so far, according to a report by KQED.
Jackie Lowery, who lives in Antioch in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, said she and her extended family owe $11,000 in back rent after her husband, son, and daughter-in-law were all laid off the same day in March 2020.
“It’s just really scary right now,” Lowery told KQED. “My grandbabies — they’re 6 years old — they need a roof over their head. The whole family does. Everyone does.”
Some landlords are hesitant about the government continuing to cover people’s debts.
Property manager Keith Becker in Sonoma County said 14 tenants owe more than $100,000 in rent payments, noting protections were meant to be for the duration of the pandemic. California fully reopened last Tuesday, lifting almost all public health restrictions related to the pandemic.
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“We should do our best to get back to the starting point where we were in December of 2019,” Becker told the Associated Press. “Anything other than that is taking advantage of a crisis.”
