Let me just ask you, does this eviction
moratorium need to be extended? Absolutely.
I think it's crucial that we extend
the eviction protections before the
current protections expire on June 30th.
We still have countless Californians
who are in very significant,
and we still have countless Californians
that are in Sevier rental debt.
And at the moment,
the state has billions of dollars
of rent relief available to
struggling tenants and landlords.
So the idea that we might allow fictions
to start on July 1st when we have.
So much funding that's available
to assist these individuals would
be counterproductive at best,
and tragic at worst.
Let me
ask you about that funding.
It does seem to have been
coming pretty slowly.
Why is that? It takes awhile
for new programs to be set up.
We authorized this at the end of January.
It took a few months for the
state to prop up its new program.
Local jurisdictions also have
their own rent relief programs,
and many of those have just come
online in the last couple of weeks.
There have also been some complications
around just how difficult the
application process has been.
The state recently announced a
simplification of the process,
so the money has been slow to get out,
which is another reason why
I think it would be.
Tragic for us to allow evictions
to start again because we know
there are so many folks out there
who are in rental debt who could
be eligible for this funding.
And if we were to evict them before
giving them a chance to avail
themselves of this assistance,
we would be evicting people unnecessarily,
and it is a pretty
large pot of money that is going
to be available, but it seems.
Correct me if I'm wrong,
something only like 2% of
that money has gotten out.
Have we made any more headway?
It's, I think technically it's a
couple percentage that has actually gone now,
so if I recall about 40% of
the money has been applied for.
I think about 15% of the money has
been approved and less than 4% is
actually gone out in terms of like
hard cold cash back into the hands
of struggling tenants and landlords.
And again, that is why I believe
we need to extend the eviction
protections to give time for us to
get billions of dollars of financial
assistance out to folks to avoid.
Completely avoidable evictions
and an unlikely homelessness.
I also spoke with a landlord
who he said something that I I'm
not 100% sure, and I'm hoping
maybe you can clarify it for me.
He said that there are protections
in place currently that if the
moratorium were to expire,
tenants still couldn't be evicted
for the debt that they occur
during the pandemic. Is that true?
That is true, but imagine if you are
a tenant who is thousands of dollars
behind on your rent and the July.
First rent comes up.
It is true that if you have paid a
portion of your rent to the landlord,
you can't be evicted for prior months.
But if you don't pay your full July rent,
you could be evicted within a few days.
So part of what we're trying to do
is just help everybody catch up.
We have so many tenants who for reasons
it's not their fault due to this pandemic
due to shutdowns and shelter in place.
Orders lost their jobs,
lost significant income and we want
to make sure that folks aren't being
unnecessarily evicted for reasons.
That were not their fault,
particularly when there is so
much funding that's available
to help them erase that rental.
That and make sure that they are made
whole with their struggling members as
well, and how much more time do
we need? When would be the next
deadline essentially?
Well, there's, that's the discussion
we're having right now, and I would say,
you know we've been having lots
of conversations in recent weeks,
and I'm hopeful that we're
going to make progress on this,
but on that exact amount,
it's all discussions right now.
So I would say, stay tuned. OK,
and do you expect that the
state will extend? I'm hopeful,
I think that all of my colleagues
understand how important it is for
us to not see a wave of evictions.
It's in all of our interest to people.
It's in all of our interests to keep
folks housed in their homes and make
sure that landlords are being paid and
that we can really only do it if we
extend the eviction protections and
give people time to apply for this
money and to receive that money. OK,
that's all my question.