Connecticut is about to go over a metaphorical cliff when it comes to evictions. March could end with the most evictions in one month since 2017.
The state could exceed 2,400 evictions.
So how did we get here and what's being done to help both families and landlords?
NBC Connecticut's Mike Hydeck spoke with Erin Kemple and John Souza about the issue.
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Evictions From the Perspective of Tenants
Kemple is the executive director of Connecticut Fair Housing Center Incorporated which is a nonprofit that helps families facing foreclosure eviction, or even housing discrimination.
Mike Hydeck: "So we know at the beginning of the pandemic, the state of Connecticut helped landlords get the money they were due and also avoid a housing crisis and the spread of COVID. What's the situation we're facing now?"
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Erin Kemple: "So I was just looking at the statistics for the month of March 2022. And as of Thursday, the 24th of March, we have had 1,860 new eviction cases filed. That's more evictions filed in the three weeks in March, than in every full month since 2017. And that's January of 2017, which is as far back as we have data. So the eviction tsunami that we have been afraid would happen is happening."
Mike Hydeck: "So Unite Connecticut was the pandemic program set up to help get the rent paid for thousands of families and the landlords who have their bills, as well. Property owners we've talked to from time to time said it was slow and bulky, but it eventually did work. What's your take on it?"
Erin Kemple: "So I would agree with everything that the landlords said. Unfortunately, it was a little slow, it was difficult for some landlords and a lot of tenants to apply in part because there was an online form that many people had difficulty filling out. And then the verification process, as well as the process of getting the money actually sent was a little slow, but the majority of people who applied have gotten paid. The landlords have gotten the money that they are owed. And unfortunately, what we're seeing is many of them are just turning around and filing a new eviction case. So they're not evicting anymore for non-payment of rent, they're just evicting for no cause."
Mike Hydeck: "And why do you think that is? If they're evicting for no cause, if they've already gotten paid, or there's got to be some sort of discrepancy between the landlord and the tenant, right?"
Erin Kemple: "No, there doesn't. Cause eviction really means no cause, it could be because the landlord is wanting to raise the rent or make some repairs so that they can raise the rent. We think that's the majority of the new cases that are filing. With people coming into Connecticut and the vacancy rates in the rental market being so low, we think that a lot of landlords want to take advantage of that by evicting tenants who may not be able to pay a premium rent and just raising the rent for the new people who are coming in."
Mike Hydeck: "So how does your organization help a situation like that? Does a tenant have any recourse?"
Erin Kemple: "So there is some recourse, you know, there are legal requirements, you have to send a notice to quit, you have to do it in the right manner, you have to file a case in court, you can't simply tell someone to leave and expect them to leave without further process. So there is some process that tenants are due. But ultimately, if the landlord follows the process, there really is almost no recourse for tenants, they will simply be evicted. And a lot of tenants want to avoid that because what they're finding as they're looking for new housing, and what we have found based upon surveys we've done of the market, is that many, many landlords will not rent to someone who has an eviction on their record. And so some tenants may just leave if the landlord asks them to because they don't want to have that record following them around for the rest of the time that they need to rent."
Mike Hydeck: "So does your organization help in a larger scope of things, too? For example, in Connecticut, we have a labor crisis right now. There are 110,000 open jobs, they can't find people for health care, defense, contracting restaurant work. Can you help some of these families with more income and maybe the eviction would be less likely?"
Erin Kemple: "So again, the eviction is not based upon income, is what we're hearing. What we're hearing is that what is happening is that landlords want to charge rent that is more than what someone could make in a minimum wage job or even at a job making $20 or $30 an hour. In fact, down in Fairfield County, it would take, someone would have to work 56 hours a week at minimum wage in order to be able to afford rent. So it's not a question of employment. It's really a question of how much rent tenant landlords are allowed to charge and in Connecticut, they can charge as much as they want. There's nothing that's preventing them other than the market. And what we know is that the market is going up. There are additional amounts that landlords can charge and can find someone to live there. It's just not many of the people who are being evicted, could live in many of these units."
Mike Hydeck: "Are there federal or state programs still available that some of these tenants can access to help them?"
Erin Kemple: "There are no state or federal programs that tenants can access. You started at the beginning referencing UniteCT. That program is not accepting applications at the moment and we found out last week that Connecticut will not be receiving any of the reallocated funds that Treasury recaptured from communities that were not using their emergency rental assistance. So we do not know if Connecticut is going to get any additional emergency rental assistance. And to date, the state of Connecticut has not created its own emergency rental assistance program."
Evictions From the Perspective of Landlords
So how are landlords viewing this influx of evictions?
The real estate market is still red hot in Connecticut. But with long eviction court proceedings, things are pretty much at a standstill when it comes to getting units ready to rent.
Hydeck also spoke with Souza, who's the president of the Connecticut Coalition of Property Owners and a landlord himself. The group lobbies on behalf of more than 400 landlords across the state.
Mike Hydeck: "So in the month of March, we may see possibly a total of about 2,400 evictions statewide in Connecticut. In your opinion, why are we at this point?"
John Souza: "Well, it's a long story; let's start with the pandemic. The policies during the pandemic put a cork in the flow of normal evictions. Obviously, for reason, in the beginning, we all understood that. And it's gotten worse and worse as things went along. And now that the policies are lightening up, and they'd stopped, that flow has got to start again, it's going back to the normal way. There are normally 20,000 evictions a year in Connecticut, mostly for non-payment of rent. That was the normal system operations. And then we're going back to that same amount, apparently, but it looks like it's a big spike. But let's be honest, this is just going back to normal. There's been a lot of pressure on landlords for the last couple of years and they're not in the mood unfortunately for tenants that aren't paying."
Mike Hydeck: "Exactly because you also have your own bills to pay as well. So during the pandemic, you alluded to it, the evictions were halted because they wanted to stop disease, the state did. And that program called Unite Connecticut was created to try to get rent money to landlords so they could pay their own bills, too. Did that program work in your opinion?"
John Souza: "First, I want to say that it was a Herculean task for the Department of Housing, to get it up and running in a very short period of time. I give them a lot of credit for that, you know, things were tough, and they work day and night. The commissioner, Dawn Parker, who was the program director, Mike Santoro, the operations guy behind the scenes, amazing people, great people. The system itself was designed to be paperless and quick, which is good. But there were a few problems with it. It was very tough for low-tech people. In other words, if you don't have a smartphone, never use a smartphone, a lot of my tenants didn't even have email addresses - it was very difficult to upload information. There was no paper accepted, you had to do everything electronically. Yes, landlords could help them. Yes, there were some landlords that had trouble, too, some old school people that don't use any of those things. That was a big problem, that hurdle to get over. They did have trucks going around, where people could walk up to him eventually, that helped. There were a lot of hoops to go through for a landlord and tenant, too many documents to require. I know some of it was federal, they could have made it a lot more streamlined, they did do it down the road. And that's a good thing. But again, you know, we need to get the money out to the people that need it to help the tenant and help the landlord. Everybody was struggling and unfortunately, there was a lot of hoops to go through [and] too much stuff. They could have done a lot simpler in a lot of different ways. But they could have just done it by, 'raise your right hand, both of you sign the same documents and send them in,' we could have been done in five minutes. The biggest problem I think was from the actual system working itself, was a lot of dead space, because they were backed up. So if you apply, there were like three or four months of nothing happening. And you know, the debt keeps racking up, you don't hear anything from the program, you know, you're taking that leap of faith that something's going to happen. And eventually, it happened if the tenant cooperated, everything, you know, got processed and a lot of people got paid. But unfortunately, if the tenants didn't cooperate, or they just decided to move, because they got a new job somewhere else or whatever, and they left, you know, the landlords are hanging, hanging dry without getting paid. That was one of the problems, a big problem. The other problems were there wasn't, to be honest with you, it was a $15,000 limit, which kind of sounds like a lot of money. And it is, but in some parts of the state, if you have a large apartment, it's not enough. And you know, these people, landlords had to make the decision, were they going to cooperate if they didn't get their full amount of money. You know, the state required, basically, landlords to house these people, they couldn't put them out even if they wanted to with the way the policies were. So you know, you had to make that decision. $15,000 wasn't enough for a lot of cases. So there were some hard decisions to be made. The last thing that was a problem was there some technical questions came up, often it was hard to get answers directly from UniteCT."
Mike Hydeck: "It was clunky, to say the least. When do you see this wave of evictions normalizing again? Do you think this will peter out over the next couple of months and it'll be back to a normal average in Connecticut?
John Souza: "Of course, I mean, Connecticut's always had for the last 10, 20 years had 20,000. I mean, unfortunately, a lot of times it's the same people that get evicted repeatedly. But not always, you know, there is no other system in Connecticut to resolve issues between landlord and tenant, we have to go to the courts. If somebody walks into the Whole Foods and walks out with a cart of food without paying, the police come and they resolve the issue, you know, it's a crime. Unfortunately, when a tenant doesn't pay whether they had problems or whether they just don't want to pay, the only system we have to resolve it is the court system. And it takes a long time, and it's getting worse, it's getting longer. And hopefully, it's going to go back to the way it used to be, but I don't see it happening any time soon. So it's gonna be a problem for a while."
Mike Hydeck: "Last question. In your mind, what's one or two big things the state can do to help us avoid this cliff in the future?"
John Souza: "The eviction cliff? Well, you know what, the state can write checks, it's really easy. That's the easiest thing they can do. If they want to help people, write checks. If it's a public benefit, they should use public money to solve these problems. Don't put the burden on the small landlord. They're just trying to make a living like everybody else providing a valuable service. If the eviction system works better, believe it or not, you know, I would give more people more chances. Because right now, most landlords look very hard before they rent to somebody because it's so difficult to get them out."
