Crisis Looms With Statewide Rent Moratorium Set to End

Unless the Legislature steps in, statewide moratoriums on evictions will end on Sept. 1.

The Judicial Council of California on Wednesday voted 19-1 to end two temporary emergency rules governing evictions and judicial foreclosures.

The city’s eviction moratorium is unaffected by the Judicial Council’s action. Pasadena does not have any rules in place governing judicial foreclosures, a city official told Pasadena Now.

Sheriff’s deputies have already started serving households that were being evicted prior to the moratorium, including at least 11 Pasadena households.

“All these evictions we had in hand prior to [the moratorium],” Capt. Christopher Nee of L.A. County Sheriff’s Department told Pasadena Now. “In addition to that moratorium, there was also a stay at home order initiated. So the sheriff didn’t want to compound that problem and recognize the importance of maintaining people in their domiciles. So we put a hold on all evictions. That has been eased beginning May 19th, as society started opening back up again and the stay-at-home order was remanded. And now we have to act on those, because it was only good for 180 days.”

The pre-COVID-19 evictions, which will be enforced on Sept. 1 could hit like a tsunami, leaving thousands of people on the street.

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 imminent danger of eviction once an order halting evictions 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.

“The concerns are obviously for people who could not afford to pay rent during this crisis and now will be served with a 60 day notice,” said Allison Henry of the Pasadena Tenants Union.

The Judicial Council originally approved the temporary emergency rules staying eviction and foreclosure proceedings at a special remote meeting on April 6. California Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye then suspended a vote on June 10 to provide the governor and Legislature more time to develop policy proposals and solutions to deal with the potential impacts of evictions and foreclosures during the pandemic.

“The judicial branch cannot usurp the responsibility of the other two branches on a long-term basis to deal with the myriad impacts of the pandemic,” Cantil-Sakauye said in a statement.

“The duty of the judicial branch is to resolve disputes under the law and not to legislate. I urge our sister branches to act expeditiously to resolve this looming crisis.”