Assembly Bill Could Cover Back Rent for Tenants Impacted by COVID-19

Gov. Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers agreed to extend the state’s eviction moratorium until Sept. 30 while increasing financial aid to tenants and landlords.

Assembly Bill 832 extends the rent moratorium for two more months than previously planned and provides $5 billion in federal funds to help tenants and small landlords protect vulnerable households from eviction, according to a news release.

“California is coming roaring back from the pandemic, but the economic impacts of COVID-19 continue to disproportionately impact so many low-income Californians, tenants and small landlords alike,” Newsom said in a statement. 

“That’s why I am thankful for today’s news from the Legislature – protecting low-income tenants with a longer eviction moratorium and paying down their back-rent and utility bills – all thanks to the nation’s largest and most comprehensive rental assistance package, which I am eager to sign into law as soon as I receive it.”

Under AB 832, tenants impacted by the pandemic would have 100% of their back rent covered.

Evictions were suspended at the start of the pandemic to aid California tenants who lost their jobs to the pandemic, but now 15 months later some residents owe more than $30,000 in back rent. 

“Though I feel that Gov. Newsom is late to the game regarding financial relief for landlords, it’s the small mom and pop landlords that have been forgotten during the COVID crisis,” said local realtor Robin Salzer. “About 45% of all rental units across the country are owned by individuals who are most likely to own single units, single homes and duplexes. These property owners are the mom and pop landlords.”

During the last 16 months, financial aid was given to the homeless, to renters, and to small and large businesses. The only thing that government gave the landlords was a renewed extension of the eviction moratorium, Salzer said. 

Renters could live in the unit for free while the landlord had to figure out how to pay the mortgage, taxes and utilities. The large majority of media coverage centered on renters relief while practically ignoring the plight of the landlord, he said.

According to a recent study by the UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy, about 365,000 renter households in Los Angeles County are in danger of being evicted once the moratorium is lifted. 

Nearly 450,000 of those people live in 365,000 units of rental housing, and 558,000 children live in those households.

The study also found that people in 120,000 households in L.A. County will become homeless soon thereafter.

In Pasadena, on any given night about 527 people experience homelessness, according to the 2020 homeless count. 

Homelessness has risen in L.A. County for the third time in four years, driven in part by more and more people unable to afford the region’s high housing costs.

“It’s about time that government is finally understanding the extreme hardships and the plight of mom-and-pop landlords,” Salzer said. “Many of these small family operated mom and pop businesses are one missed mortgage payment away from losing their rental property, their life savings and their retirement funds. The renters weren’t the only ones suffering through the pandemic.”