Eviction cases still soaring in the Bay Area five years after COVID-19

Alameda County s eviction court was crowded on a modern Wednesday It usually is Tenants family members landlords and attorneys about people in all waited long hours to appear before a judge at the Hayward Hall of Justice Fifty-six people were slated to appear that day in a marathon of back-to-back sessions Various of the renters were nervous Desperate scared depressed filled with anxiety as you can see noted Chris his hands shaking A former utility engineer who rents an apartment in Alameda he appealed not to use his last name fearing it would further threaten his housing In eviction court state law requires that circumstance files remain confidential until days after judgments I can t sleep at night Chris commented Lost my job that s why I m here An eviction might force certain of those at the court to move in with family Landlords might be reluctant to rent to them in the future Or they might have to live in a tent or in their car another statistic in the Bay Area s dilemma of homelessness Crammed eviction courts are the new normal in the Bay Area Nearly four years after pandemic-era pauses on evictions began to expire landlords are seeking to evict tenants through the court system at a higher rate than they did before COVID- disrupted life and work for millions in the region That s the development in Alameda Contra Costa Santa Clara and San Mateo counties as well as San Francisco according to a Bay Area News Group analysis of superior court evidence Two years after the expiration of its eviction moratorium and a wave of evictions that followed Alameda County leads the region in eviction cases In the eviction process a landlord gives a tenant notice to move out or meet certain terms for instance getting caught up on rent If the tenant doesn t pay up or move out in time the landlord can try to evict them by filing a lawsuit In Alameda County tallied eviction cases filed per residents After its pandemic-era eviction moratorium expired in that spiked to cases per residents that year then filed per residents in Filings this year were on track to pass that high-water mark as of late April It turns out it s not a wave It s just the new normal of evictions filed every week every month explained Grant Kirkpatrick a staff attorney at the Oakland-based Centro Legal de la Raza which represents tenants in court The exact reasons for the continued uptick are unclear Landlords can take renters to court for missing rent payments violating their leases and more In the Bay Area local governments apparently don t track the causes of evictions According to attorneys for low-income tenants and advocates for landlords two groups usually at odds the majority tenants are being taken to court for failing to pay rent That stark reality is accelerating but it s nothing new in the Bay Area s notorious housing arena It s also unclear how numerous of the eviction filings consequence in an eviction If a tenant responds to their eviction notice in time and appears in court they may be able to reach an agreement with their landlord to stay housed Or they can take the event to trial But plenty of don t try their hand in court and completely move out when given notice attorneys declared When that happens it isn t reflected in the scenario filing figures It s expensive and time-consuming to move forward with evictions disclosed Whitney Prout executive vice president of legal affairs at the California Apartment Association which advocates for landlords It s not something our members like to do The main reason you do that is if someone isn t paying the rent Low-income tenants cannot sustainably afford the cost of rent declared Tristia Bauman directing attorney at the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley which represents low-income tenants in eviction court in Santa Clara County The high rate of evictions is persisting in spite of local rent control measures such as those in Berkeley and Oakland and protections for tenants In Silicon Valley the wealth divide has widened at twice the rate of the rest of the U S over the past decade with stark disparities in housing and other necessities for Black and Latino residents Eviction attorneys there and in the East Bay say the vast majority of their clients are people of color Plus a multitude of are seniors or disabled In April the typical renter in the San Jose area needed to earn per year to pay apartment rents at just of the median income the highest threshold in the U S that month In Oakland about half of all households are rent burdened and spend more than of their income on rent At the Hayward Hall of Justice veteran eviction attorney Anne Tamiko Omura sifted through a stack of files on a desk in the crowded hallway Every week her nonprofit the Oakland-based Eviction Defense Center represents about tenants at court for free Attorney Flavio Jimenez works at his desk in the offices of the Eviction Defense Center on Thursday June in Oakland Calif The Eviction Defense Center represents about people in Alameda County eviction court every week Aric Crabb Bay Area News Group She took a file and walked to a group of renters seated at a bench They communicated her they owed more than in payments but they could make progress on that debt if their landlord agreed to a monthslong repayment plan Omura recommended against it If you miss a single payment the sheriff comes and throws you out the door she explained them Do you understand that Nearby Chris anxiously waited for his appearance before the judge At one point he felt too dizzy to speak He announced he fell behind on rent after his partner left him and then he lost his job He too hoped his landlord would agree to a payment plan as part of a settlement That s my prayer he noted Two crucifixes hung around his neck Two legal aid attorneys conferred with Chris in the crowded hallway It s common for tenants to appear at court without an attorney and that day arrived without a lawyer including Chris Unrepresented renters tend to have worse outcomes in court studies show But selected cities and counties fund legal aid groups to cover that gap including Centro Legal de la Raza Between that organization and Omura s all the tenants would have an attorney by their side that day stated Kirkpatrick the Centro staff attorney State Sen Aisha Wahab an influential Democrat who represents a swath of the East Bay and Silicon Valley announced the high eviction rates are disappointing but not surprising She chairs the Senate Committee on Housing and has played a key role in top Democrats splashy campaign to make California more affordable this year A cornerstone of that push is Wahab s SB which would prevent landlords from charging fees that aren t spelled out in a rental agreement Democrats passed that bill in the state Senate on June Wahab and Democrats also advanced statute that would give tenants two weeks before a landlord could begin to evict them for nonpayment The status quo is now three days Wahab who is skeptical of developers announced the Bay Area can t only build its way out of its housing predicament The reality is we need to keep people housed longer she announced Prout of the apartment association doubts that Wahab s plan would reduce the eviction rate much What would she declared is a permanent and robust rental assistance campaign Currently the Bay Area is a patchwork of rent assistance particular cities and counties run such programs such as Santa Clara County and Oakland Elsewhere tenants facing tough choices must fend for themselves Bay Area News Group Records Reporter Jovi Dai contributed to this analysis