VTDigger is posting regular updates on the coronavirus in Vermont on this page. You can also subscribe here for regular email updates on the coronavirus. If you have any questions, thoughts or updates on how Vermont is responding to COVID-19, contact us at coronavirus@vtdigger.org
Shawn Straffin, of Lyndonville, works for a manufacturing company that just laid off 15 people and cut salaries for remaining employees by a quarter in response to the coronavirus pandemic. While he still has a job, Straffin is concerned about making his mortgage payments with his reduced income.
He is also worried the tenants in a rental property he owns won’t be able to pay their rent.
“And so I’m not sure exactly what to do because I rely on that income to help pay for the place in which they live,” he said.
Cities around the country — including New York, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles — are banning evictions during the outbreak. And the Trump administration announced Wednesday that it was suspending evictions and foreclosures on federally backed mortgages until the end of April. (This applies to loans insured by the Federal Housing Agency, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.)
Straffin said he wants to see a halt on evictions and mortgage payments as Vermonters grapple with the financial fallout from measures meant to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus. Vermont Legal Aid, among other groups, has issued a similar call to lawmakers and Gov. Phil Scott for an eviction moratorium.
For now, the Scott administration is not calling for a statewide eviction moratorium, saying housing subsidies are more urgently needed as a measure to prevent homelessness during the outbreak. And with the courts only hearing emergency proceedings, state officials and lawmakers say new eviction proceedings have effectively been halted.
“We are definitely going to look at this and make sure we are protecting vulnerable Vermonters, and making sure that people aren’t evicted,” the governor said at a Friday press conference.
Housing and Community Development Commissioner Josh Hanford said in an interview that he has heard calls both for and against an eviction moratorium.
“We’ve heard them, they’re being considered, we’re looking at what our best course of action is,” he said Thursday, adding, “The real issue is we need to find housing subsidies to help people pay their rents, so that’s the biggest focus.”
He added that evictions are not moving ahead in courts after the state Supreme Court declared a judicial emergency, suspending all non-emergency court hearings.
“We could be creating a challenge for certain property owners by putting that into effect without a program designed to capture the very folks that should be included in that moratorium … and the ramifications for all the landlords if they might have foreclosures,” he said. “This has to be considered carefully and (from) all sides.”
Judge Brian Grearson, chief superior judge for the Vermont Judiciary, told lawmakers on the Senate Economic Development Committee on a Thursday conference call that there was a “consensus” among the state’s trial judges that they would not treat eviction proceedings and other landlord-tenant issues as an emergency. But if a landlord or tenant filed to treat an eviction as such, it would be up to an individual judge how to proceed, he noted.
“In other words, at this point, the direction from the Supreme Court … is that an individual judge could view that in their discretion as an emergency or not,” said Grearson.
Vermont Legal Aid attorney Jessica Radbord told the committee that her organization wants the Legislature or the governor to issue a statewide eviction moratorium in response to the COVID-19 “public health crisis.”
“Vermonters need to engage in personal distancing, enhance their personal hygiene and stay at home as much as possible,” Radbord said. “That means that people need to have a home.”
National public health experts have said that people experiencing homelessness are at greater risk both of contracting and dying from the novel coronavirus.
Vermont Legal Aid also argues that a stay on ongoing eviction matters is needed. Even if each of the 32 superior court judges does not act on new eviction requests, courts are in some cases required to move ahead with ongoing matters, Radbord said. For example, if a tenant has to pay rent to a court and fails to do so, clerks are supposed to issue orders repossessing rental units, called “writs of possession.” Of tenants already subject to those writs, Radbord wrote in testimony that they were “only days — or even hours — away from homelessness.”
In an email Friday, Radbord said that a colleague had received a call from someone who has been evicted without cause and will be served a writ to vacate their home within a month.
“The caller has nowhere to go,” she wrote.
During his city emergency address on Monday, Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger called on Queen City landlords to suspend evictions “for individuals who can supply documentation of COVID-related economic hardship.” He also noted that city affordable housing organizations were not issuing evictions during the pandemic.
Unlike their counterparts in some other states, city officials in Burlington — and other municipalities around Vermont — do not actually have the authority to ban evictions as those are handled at the superior court level. The mayor’s office says that they’ve asked the courts to “consider suspending the enforcement of any existing orders” during the pandemic.
Chris D’Elia, head of the Vermont Bankers Association, said a mortgage freeze is not needed as banks are already responding on a case by case basis, as they did during the 2008 recession, after Tropical Storm Irene and during last year’s government shutdown. State and federal regulators have already given the industry the discretion to do this, he added.
“I don’t know of any bank that is going to throw a person out on the street and foreclose on their property because they’ve been impacted by COVID-19 — it’s just not going to happen,” D’Elia added. He also expressed some concerns that a blanket halt on mortgage payments could lead to some “bad actors” taking advantage.
D’Elia said individuals and businesses facing COVID-19 financial hardships should reach out to their lender proactively to “give them the ability to work with you.” He added that “the unknown of how deep and how long this is going to be is very troubling.”
Radbord also suggested lawmakers consider providing short-term rental assistance to address landlord concerns about not receiving rent. She added that doing so would be “less costly than motel stays and less costly than people taking trips to the emergency room.”
The Senate is reviewing an emergency legislation package passed by the House last week to address impacts of the coronavirus outbreak. Rental assistance is not part of that package, but the House Committee on General, Housing and Military Affairs has been working on a bill that would appropriate $5 million in housing assistance money, among other housing related measures.
Rep. Tom Stevens, D-Waterbury, the chair, said that amount is a “placeholder” as his committee, which does not yet have a set date to reconvene, sees what assistance is coming from the federal government. Stevens thinks both rental assistance and eviction-related protections for both tenants and landlords are needed.
“I agree that more rental assistance is going to be needed, but I also think that in the meantime, it doesn’t take long before legally a landlord can legally evict someone,” he said.
