COVID-19 vaccines are almost ready to be distributed

10 min readNov 20, 2020

Landlords skirt COVID-19 eviction bans, using intimidation and tricks to boot tenants,

Cash-strapped renters nationwide say their landlords tried to skirt COVID-19 eviction moratoriums by changing locks, removing trash containers so waste piled up and — in one case — attempting to unbolt the front door right off an apartment.

They told state attorneys general that they were kicked out of their homes after landlords accused them of violating tenant rules, like smoking cigarettes inside their units or failing to take the hitches off of their mobile homes.

Like Heidi Stach, who lost her job due to the pandemic and fell behind on rent, they assumed they were protected. But Stach says her landlord found an end-run to Wisconsin’s eviction ban: Instead of starting a court process, he sent her a notice to vacate this summer because he was not renewing her lease.

That type of informal or “extrajudicial” eviction is a work-around to the patchwork of emergency state and federal rules created this year to prevent landlords from ejecting tenants into unstable or crowded living arrangements during the health emergency.

What once was a fringe concern has become a quiet scourge across the nation, said Eric Dunn, director of litigation at the National Housing Law Project, feeding housing instability concerns among the millions who have missed rent payments.

“Since the pandemic started, and courts froze their dockets or had moratoriums, we’ve seen a huge spike in tactics from landlords to get people out,” Dunn said, “including changing locks, cutting off utility service, refusing to make repairs, making threats, providing misinformation and any other creative way to accuse someone of a lease violation that fits an exception in the moratorium.”

Tricks and intimidation behind the scenes add to more overt efforts by landlords to legally evict tenants. With statewide bans largely expired and federal protection from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention moratorium nearing its final days, tenant advocates like Dunn fear things will only get worse.

USA TODAY reviewed hundreds of complaints about landlords filed through the summer by consumers with attorneys general in seven states, including Maryland, Missouri, Ohio, Washington state and Wisconsin.

Story from Humana
Why social connection so important right now
Did you know that we observe that lonely patients experience a four times greater risk for hospital readmission within a year of discharge?
See More →
Landlords, they told the state agencies, hiked rents even as the tenants lost their jobs and missed utility bill payments. They skipped out on basic maintenance and let conditions deteriorate, leaving renters a choice between leaving on their own or living with mold outbreaks or infestations of bed bugs, roaches and maggots.

While the complaints offer a window into the problem, tenants often found their efforts to enlist state help went nowhere since wrongful evictions typically must be fought in court.

Tasha Tavenner said she and her four children camped in the woods after she lost her job, fell behind on rent and then watched as two men tried to pull the door off the front of her apartment.
From elderly residents on Social Security to single mothers struggling with unemployment, some reported that they were pushed into homelessness, where they could not take basic steps to protect themselves from the virus.

That threat was a driving force behind the moratoriums, and a group of epidemiologists found this month that the measures have helped stem COVID-19’s spread, particularly in poorer neighborhoods where court-ordered eviction is more prevalent.

Get the Coronavirus Watch newsletter in your inbox.
Stay safe and informed with updates on the spread of the coronavirus

Delivery: Varies
Your Email
Stach, the mother of a 15-year-old daughter with disabilities, came up short in April on her $850 rent. Her lease was up but she assumed she could renew it. Instead, she came home to the notice to vacate.

“It was devastating. I was confused and crying and felt like I was having a panic attack,” Stach said. “I lost my job and now I had to basically beg someone to let us live somewhere else instead of a homeless shelter.”

Stach complained to Wisconsin’s consumer protection agency, which intervened as a mediator, but did not manage to resolve the dispute. Eventually she located a new apartment, but it’s more expensive and in a different neighborhood of La Crosse, requiring her to transfer her daughter to another school district.

Finding a place to live came with added challenges because Stach has a criminal record tied to past drug use. But, armed with a new job at a cheese manufacturer, she was able to get a lease — with an additional rider that says she will be evicted if she has a drug relapse.

“In the middle of this, it’s a lot to pay for rent plus a new security deposit on such short notice while everyone is freaking out about the pandemic,” Stach said.

Her previous landlord at Reliant Real Estate Services said he couldn’t discuss specific tenants but he said none had faced non-renewals or eviction proceedings since late spring. He added that those with looming lease expirations can negotiate move-out dates or month-to-month extensions.

“Evictions and lease non-renewals are never a desired outcome,” Reliant President Aaron Wickesburg wrote in an email. “We will continue to do whatever we can to help keep our tenants in their homes.”

Eviction bans and moratoriums are full of holes
Eviction moratoriums under the federal CARES Act expired on July 25. Many state bans also ended over the summer, or in the fall. The remaining CDC order, enacted Sept. 4, has a simple goal: prevent evictions for non-payment of rent during the pandemic.

But the CDC’s rules are full of exemptions and tricky legal definitions, leaving openings for unscrupulous landlords.

The current CDC order, set to expire Dec. 31, specifies that evictions for non-payment of rent can be prevented if renters fill out a form declaring that they make less than $99,000, are trying to make partial payments and would likely be homeless if evicted. Rent still accrues and is due eventually.

The CDC order comes with criminal penalties, but neither the agency nor the U.S. Department of Justice answered questions on whether a single landlord has been prosecuted.

The order also offers five other reasons evictions can move forward: criminal activity, threats to other residents, damage to property, violation of building codes or violation of any other aspect of a lease.

Dunn said landlords can find subtle ways to use those exemptions to evict a non-paying renter, say when adding a satellite dish turns out to be a lease violation, or when a boyfriend stays over more nights than allowed in the guest portion of the lease. Non-renewals of leases that lead to eviction are a gray area in the CDC order.

Story from Purina Pro Plan LiveClear
Cat owners and allergen sensitivities don’t have to go hand in paw anymore
Backed by more than a decade of research, new cat food reduces allergens in cat hair and dander
See More →
“If a landlord truly wants to evict someone, you know they can find a reason,” said Andrew Aurand, vice president for research at the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

Aurand and others have lobbied on Capitol Hill for a federal rent assistance program as part of a pandemic relief bill. Tenant groups favor such programs, which would cost as much as $100 billion, over extended eviction moratoriums.

“The real concern is what happens in January if we don’t find a rental solution,” Aurand said, “and the 30 to 40 million people that again will be at risk for eviction.”

Self-help evictions date back centuries
Extrajudicial or “self-help” evictions — in which landlords take matters into their own hands — date back to Roman law. They were part of English common law and then barred by U.S. courts to quell violence. Today, they refer to any method outside the legal court eviction process.

While self-help removals are by their nature impossible to measure, the usual number of court evictions offers a hint of the tsunami some advocates fear could be coming, obscured by the various COVID-19 restrictions.

The National Housing Law Project estimates about 900,000 legal judicial evictions take place in the U.S. each year. Research by the Eviction Lab at Princeton University indicates that, on average across 26 tracked cities, eviction filings have dropped by more than half during the pandemic, but now are steadily increasing.

Tenants facing an extrajudicial situation have few options, especially if all of their belongings are locked away by a landlord or they can’t afford legal representation.

With the help of free legal aid representation, Lena Jefferson of Washington, D.C., took her complaint to court in the fall, filing a wrongful eviction claim against her landlord.

She says her landlord moved her to temporary housing after her apartment flooded, but problems there led her to withhold rent until a better solution was found. Instead, her landlord locked her out.

“I’ve been living in a rooming house,” Jefferson said. “It’s another stress that’s constantly on your mind when you’re moving from place to place.”

In West Palm Beach, Florida, Legal Aid Society attorney Tequisha Myles said her program quadrupled its staffing for eviction prevention work after the pandemic began. Her program represents one couple that was evicted but is now countersuing because the landlord locked them out of a rental house without going through a formal court process.

“The laws are very clear even before the pandemic: Turning off electricity or water or blocking access to the property is prohibited,” Myles said. “I understand that many landlords are struggling and they haven’t been paid, but you have to follow the law.”

Attorney says everyone is ‘getting screwed’
Attorneys in Massachusetts challenged Gov. Charlie Baker’s blanket moratorium on evictions this summer, arguing it was overly broad and unconstitutional, said real estate attorney Richard Vetstein.

“The state ban was the strictest by far,” Vetstein said. “Unlike the CDC moratorium, it applied to every eviction case, including lease expirations, most behavioral issues, for-cause evictions and squatting.”

The case’s named landlord, Marie Baptiste, had a tenant who owed $18,900 for eight months of unpaid rent and was struggling to maintain her finances.

When a COVID-19 vaccine becomes available, it will be in short supply and rationed by the federal government.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has outlined a plan for fair distribution that’s being used as a framework by the Centers for Disease Control’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which soon will make the final decision on when certain groups of Americans will have access to vaccine.

The process could start very soon. The first COVID-19 vaccine is anticipated to be authorized by the Food and Drug Administration within the next month, with distribution to start in no more than 24 hours to every state in the union. A second vaccine could be authorized two weeks later. Enough vaccine for 20 million people is expected to be available in December, with more coming in 2021.

A “jumpstart group” will be first in line — people who risk their lives to care for the sick and keep society safe. That includes frontline health care workers, first responders, cleaners and ambulance drivers. There are three other priority groups before the general population. To reach everyone could take up to a year.

Here’s the tentative rollout plan:

COVID-19 vaccines are almost ready to be distributed

Written by Yecebir