With eviction crisis looming, Pierce County tenants and landlords urged to talk it out
Depending on where you look — or to whom you’re listening — it’s either a cliff, a wave or a tsunami.
Either way, what’s coming isn’t good.
Almost exactly a year ago, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee issued his first eviction moratorium in response to the emerging COVID-19 pandemic. After numerous extensions, the emergency prohibition remains in place.
At some point — perhaps as soon as March 31 when the moratorium is set to expire — it will end.
The looming question is stark: What happens then?
According to Pierce County Human Services director Heather Moss, it could mean that thousands of local families are suddenly thrust into homelessness while a deluge of eviction filings creates a nightmarish backlog in the courts.
Or, if a combination of millions of dollars in rental assistance and the county’s eviction resolution program works the way she’s hoping it will, the coming crisis could be much less severe.
“It’s really important for us to stem the tide of people losing their housing,” said Moss, adding she’s “very worried” about what could happen in Pierce County if this doesn’t happen.
“We already have a big problem in our community around affordability and accessibility, so we don’t want to exacerbate that,” Moss said.
While interest in Pierce County’s rental and utility assistance program has been robust — generating thousands of applications in just 24 hours after $58 million in aid was released the week of March 8 — less is known about eviction resolution efforts.
Under an order issued by the state Supreme Court, Pierce County is one of six counties in the state that launched an eviction resolution pilot project last year. Before seeking an eviction, the program requires landlords to attempt to resolve past-due rent disputes with tenants through free help from local dispute resolution centers, like Pierce County’s Center for Dialog and Resolution. A provision in the broad eviction relief bill that recently passed the state House would require the expansion of such programs statewide until 2023.
The program — which is designed to settle pandemic related rental conflicts prior to reaching court — is important because the year-long moratorium has strained more than pocketbooks, according to Maralise Hood Quan, executive director of the Center for Dialog and Resolution, which is leading Pierce County’s pilot project.
Landlord-tenant relationships have been frayed, tensions are high, and even in cases where rental assistance is available, some property owners will likely be eager to turn the page as soon as the moratorium ends, Hood Quan predicted
When working it out will require more than money, the eviction resolution program is intended to foster communication, understanding and, hopefully, good-faith compromises, she said
According to Moss, the need for such a program in Pierce County is likely significant.
Moss said Pierce County has about 120,000 renters, with roughly 70,000 of them earning 80-percent of the area median income or less. Based on data available from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, she estimated roughly 25 percent of these households likely have been unable to pay some or all of their rent during the pandemic.
Moss said “about a quarter probably need something more than just a simple payment.”
“That could be as many as 5,000 renters across the county who would need this level of intervention — renters and landlords,” Moss said.
So far, according to Hood Quan, the Center for Dialog and Resolution is working with hundreds of renters and property owners in hopes of negotiating a repayment plan and avoiding evictions once the state moratorium ends. The nonprofit Tacoma ProBono is also offering legal assistance, she said.
Hood Quan expects the number of Pierce County participants to increase significantly now that the county has made additional rental assistance available, and potentially balloon once the state moratorium expires — whenever that happens.
For Garrett Schmidt, a special projects manager at the Center for Dialog and Resolution, it’s necessary, occasionally challenging, work.
Some landlords are skeptical about being required to go through the dispute resolution process — in fact, Hood Quan said some were originally “royally pissed off” — while many renters are initially fearful to engage.
Still, Schmidt, who has been tasked with overseeing the eviction resolution program, said the overall reception the pilot project has received so far has been largely positive.
The truth, he said, is that many landlords are in a tough spot right now and so are tenants.
Providing a way to alleviate more than a year of pandemic stress and uncertainty is often welcome.
“I kind of went into this thinking that landlords would be upset, and that this is going to be brutal on me. It’s gonna be a lot of angry people,” Schmidt recalled. “And although there’s a lot of frustration and emotion involved … it’s been completely the opposite. It’s them calming down and realizing that there are centers like ours to help them through this process.
“It’s making a big difference.”
