California Eviction Moratorium Ends; Pasadena Moratorium Still in Place

Although the Pasadena eviction moratorium continues into the foreseeable future, the state’s moratorium ended Thursday.

In March 2020, the Pasadena City Council approved a moratorium on evictions for nonpayment of rent by tenants experiencing financial impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The moratorium was amended by the council the following  May to include additional provisions.

According to the amended moratorium, local residents will have six months to pay back rent after the local emergency ends. But that’s not the case statewide.

“The end of the eviction moratorium will expose significant vulnerabilities in our housing market,” said local activist Patrice Marshall McKenzie. “I fear for the rise in displacements, the rise in evictions, and the lack of affordable, safe options for housing. We need to address the cost and availability of housing from multiple fronts, including affordability, homeownership expansion, increasing availability of units, and supporting our unhoused community. The issue is complex, but the resources and expertise exist to develop solutions. Is there political will to do so?”

Leon Khachooni, director of the Foothill Apartment Association, said he has heard from a lot of people who do not know they can still receive rental assistance.

“I’ve heard from some people assuming that rent relief is ending today as well, and that’s not true,” he said. “The moratorium… means landlords can bring an eviction, but if it is for non-payment of rent and the tenant can show that they are applying for rent relief and that it is COVID related that they’ve either got to take care of kids or a sick loved one, or if they’ve been sick or if they have lost their job, they are still protected from that type of eviction.”

Under state law, tenants that have filed applications for relief cannot be evicted until April. 

Landlords can file eviction cases against those tenants, but the pending applications can be used as a defense in court.

Tenants that have paid 25% for their rent between Sept. 1, 2020 and Sept. 30, 2021, cannot be evicted. Tenants also cannot be evicted for back rent between March 1, 2020, and Aug. 31, 2020, provided they respond to eviction notices with a signed declaration of financial distress due to COVID-19. 

“My concern is that lots of people still don’t know that there’s rental assistance available,” said affordable housing advocate Ryan Bell. “Rental assistance will still continue to be available after Oct. 1st, all the way through March of next year. So even though the eviction protections are expiring in a day or so, people can still apply for the rent relief.”

Although there are some protections, so far there is no rental forgiveness, and property owners can collect in court starting in November.

The moratorium was put in place at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2020 to help tenants unable to pay rent due to the financial impacts of the pandemic. Landlords said many tenants have taken advantage of the moratorium. 

“I know firsthand most oftentimes the tenant can afford to pay the rent yet they won’t do it,” said local realtor Ann-Marie Villicana.

In one case, Villicana said they investigated a tenant who had not paid rent and found expensive alcohol and receipts for takeout food delivery. 

“What we are doing is we are eroding our societal fabric,” she said.  “We are allowing society to disintegrate. People used to have pride that they could pay for their things. They could work. They could make a living, they could pay for their car. They could pay for their home. And now, because we are telling people that they don’t have to pay for their rent, you don’t even have to make an effort. We will protect you at all costs. We are causing people to lose their self-worth, their integrity and their pride.”

A study conducted by the UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy revealed that about 365,000 renter households in Los Angeles County are in imminent danger of eviction.

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.