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April 8, 2020

CT's big city mayors call for help for renters out of work during pandemic

By Jacqueline Rabe Thomas, CT Mirror

Connecticut’s big city mayors are calling on Gov. Ned Lamont and legislative leaders to help their constituents who are struggling to pay rent while out of work during the coronavirus pandemic.

“Many working people across Connecticut can’t afford to miss even a few days of work,” the mayors from Bridgeport, Hartford, New Haven, Middletown, Norwalk and Stamford wrote state to lawmakers Tuesday. “Our communities are likely to be disproportionately affected by the economic impact of coronavirus and our response to coronavirus, as many of our residents work non-salaried, hourly jobs to pay their bills. We need to make sure those families don’t lose their housing.”

The move comes a week after the Democratic governor announced that his administration had arranged for struggling homeowners to receive a 90-day suspension for paying their mortgage, but offered no assistance for those who rent.

Mortgage relief disproportionately benefits residents in Connecticut’s more affluent communities. For example, in Fairfield, 83% of the residents owned their homes, compared to 24% in Hartford. Renters’ income is typically less than half of homeowners.

In their letter, the coalition of mayors point out that the governor has the authority to override state laws to help renters during a public health emergency, and ask legislative leaders to step in and adopt robust housing protections.

Those protections include giving renters 90 days after the public health emergency ends to pay the missed rent, as long as half of any amount owed is paid back within the first 30 days of when the emergency ends. The mayors also want the state to give tenants who make partial payment of back rent within 30 days after the emergency ends another 60 days to catch up on their rent and keep their housing.

They also want to solidify in state law eviction protections Lamont ordered last month for any future public health emergencies.

The mayors write this will help ensure that “none of our neighbors are evicted just because they can’t work during a public health emergency, while still making sure that landlords can collect full rent once the emergency is over. … Keeping people in their homes is the right thing to do – from a public health perspective and from a humanitarian perspective.”

The governor and the Judicial Branch has already ordered judges not to issue any evictions of tenants, but that has not stopped landlords from filing the paperwork for judges to hear their case when the courts reopen.

During the first 14 days that the courts stopped hearing these requests to evict, 516 families have had lawsuits filed against them, court filings show.

While the protection from being thrown out of their rental homes during the pandemic protects people from becoming homeless now, tenants are still legally on the hook for paying rent even with the courts closed – and can face eviction when courts reopen for any rent they are unable to pay. The court filings also impact tenants’ credit scores.

Earlier this week, the Lamont administration’s website highlighting the state’s effort to address the pandemic was updated to outline more aggressive measures the administration was taking to help renters.

“… Governor Lamont has ordered that owners and lessors of residential and commercial properties may not evict or initiate an eviction until thirty days after the end of the public health and civil preparedness emergency. Owners and lessors must withdraw and/or rescind any action initiated since March 10, 2020. The order does not apply to owners of residential property of two units if the owner lives in one unit of the property and the owner believes the tenant is a serious nuisance.”

These actions, however, have not yet been implemented, and were taken down after the Hartford Business Journal asked about them. Lamont’s spokesman Max Reiss told the HBJ that the administration was working on additional rental protections, but he declined to provide further details.

“The administration has been working on steps to assist renters during this unprecedented public health crisis and our hope is to have those announced before the end of the week,” Reiss said.

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