More than 1,500 Lexington renters — more than 220,000 statewide — face eviction
Housing advocates are asking Gov. Andy Beshear not to lift a moratorium on evictions, arguing that more than 220,000 households in the state and at least 1,500 renters in Lexington are at risk of being evicted.
Earlier this week, the Kentucky Supreme Court ordered evictions could be filed starting Saturday.
Yet, Beshear’s moratorium —which means law enforcement cannot serve eviction notices — is still in place, creating confusion for landlords and renters alike. Beshear initially took action to prevent people from being forced out of their rental homes and apartments because they couldn’t pay rent as COVID-19 business closings led to layoffs.
“We’re getting a lot of families who are calling completely panicked about what’s going to happen to them next week,” said Art Crosby, the executive director of the Lexington Fair Housing Council. “And at this point, we’re just not sure what to tell them.”
In letters to Beshear, housing advocates ask Beshear to keep the moratorium in place until funding from the federal CARES Act set aside for rental assistance is approved. Louisville has $22 million that can be used for rental assistance. That money has not made it to Louisville’s bank accounts, housing advocates said. The city of Lexington has $500,000 set aside for rental assistance.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has not yet released the money.
“Lifting or loosening the prohibition on evictions based on nonpayment of rent right now would not only endanger hundreds of thousands of Kentuckians by forcing unnecessary evictions in communities across the state, it would also undermine the efforts of local officials and countless nonprofits to build efficient programs to distribute millions of dollars in federal funding designated precisely for the purpose of rental assistance,” according to a letter from the Kentucky Equal Justice Center, a nonprofit that advocates on various issues.
The letter was signed by six housing groups from across the state.
A group of Northern Kentucky landlords sued Beshear in federal court in early July, challenging the legality of his moratorium on serving eviction notices for nonpayment of rent. The lawsuit alleges some tenants are taking advantage of the eviction moratorium, putting those landlords at risk for bankruptcy.
A mediation in that case is scheduled for Thursday. Given the state Supreme Court order earlier this week, many housing advocates are concerned the Beshear administration will agree to lift the moratorium as part of the settlement of that federal court case.
Housing advocates said they understand the moratorium cannot go on indefinitely. But allowing evictions to resume before federal money for rental assistance is approved will mean hundreds of thousands of Kentucky renters could face needless evictions during a pandemic and at a time when the number of new COVID-19 cases is rising in Kentucky.
Affected landlords will also not be able to get money for back rent, the advocates argue.
Lexington Fair Housing and other Lexington nonprofits established a one-stop renter and landlords clearinghouse in May in anticipation of federal rental assistance funding. Louisville established a similar program. Those programs were created so the courts would not be overrun with eviction cases once the moratorium was lifted.
“On the covid19renterhelp.org program, we currently have over 1,500 families in Lexington who have contacted us because COVID-19 has impacted their income, they are behind on rent, and they are eligible for eviction,” Crosby said.
But that’s likely just a small portion of the Lexington households that may be behind on rent, Crosby said. The program is still waiting for funding. Once that is obtained, the number of applications will likely skyrocket, he said.
“I expect those numbers would drastically increase when the eviction courts reopen. I also think those numbers will be dramatically affected as the federal government stops the $600 unemployment payments,” Crosby said.
Congress is currently debating whether to continue the additional $600 in unemployment payments that were part of the original federal coronavirus relief package.
A recent study released by the National Coalition for the Civil Right to Counsel estimates 221,000 Kentucky households— 44% of all households that rent homes — are unable to pay rent and are at risk of eviction sometime in the coming months.
Nationwide, the COVID-19 Eviction Defense Project based in Denver and the Aspen Institute estimated that more than 29 million Americans in 13 million households could be at risk of eviction by the end of the year given the still high rate of unemployment across the country.
This story was originally published July 29, 2020 at 12:26 PM.
