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Moving Boxes
With nearly 11 million households unable to pay rent nationwide and the sudden end of the CDC’s federal eviction moratorium, state eviction moratoriums matter. Research by UCLA found that COVID-19 death rates increased 1.6 times in states without their own moratoriums in place in 2020, and attributed over 10,000 COVID deaths to the early lifting of state moratoriums.
“The best protection folks have right now is staying in their homes and staying safe,” says Rachael Sterling, who started working as an eviction response coordinator for HOMELine MN, a nonprofit tenant advocacy organization, last fall. “It was obvious that this would get more complicated the longer it went on, the moratorium and the pandemic.”
In June, Minnesota passed legislation to gradually dissolve the state moratorium within a year. The off-ramp allows more time to distribute federal rental assistance funds and avoid a landslide of people losing homes. A handful of other states like California and New Mexico currently have temporary moratoriums in place, but Minnesota’s strategy looks different from the rest. “In most states, it’s an on/off switch,” Sterling explains.
Some of Minnesota’s pandemic protections already expired this summer, and landlords can now legally evict if tenants significantly breach their contract or refuse to apply for federal rental assistance. Tenants with unpaid rent due to COVID-19, however, are protected from eviction through June 1 2022, so long as they have a pending application with a federally funded rental assistance program.
Minnesota received $518 million to aid people through RentHelpMN, and will cover up to 18 months of back rent for approved applicants. “We’re not about to run out of money,” assures Jill Mazullo, communications director at Minnesota Housing.
But so far that money has moved slowly. Each of the more than 36,000 applications must be processed individually by a case manager working with a tenant and their landlord. “We're doing what we can to get people caught up as quickly as we can,” Mazullo says.
Applications in limbo often lead to tension between landlords waiting on compounding unpaid rent and tenants waiting to hear about their application. According to the National Association of Renters, more than half of back rent is owed to smaller landlords, defined as owning fewer than four units. “I’ve talked to tenants whose landlords give them a bill every week. It’s stressful for all.”
The federal chunk of change will relieve many renters and landlords across the state, but it’s a small band-aid on Minnesota’s persistent housing crisis that won’t cover everyone.
Tenants unqualified for rental assistance will fall onto harsher eviction law as protections disappear. Under the moratorium, most evictions require a seven day notice, and evictions for nonpayment of rent require a 15 day notice along with information about applying for aid. But those temporary notice requirements expire on October 12. Minnesota is one of only two states in the country that requires no notice before filing an eviction. Some cities, like Minneapolis and St. Louis Park, have jumped in to fill that gap.
Evictions stick on Minnesotans’ records for seven years, and Sterling says unexpected evictions blindside tenants. “Pre-pandemic, over 90% of evictions filed here were for unpaid rent,” she said. Minnesota’s affordable housing pool is small and competitive, and applicants with any eviction history are often disregarded, compounding financial and housing stress. “If someone doesn't have a perfect rental history, what are they supposed to do? Go and sleep on the street?”
For now, a patchwork of pandemic relief efforts and legal services like HOMEline exist in Minnesota for tenants and landlords in urgent need of funds. “Applying for RentHelpMN is number one because they have millions of dollars to help folks struggling to pay rent because of COVID,” advises Sterling. Landlords with tenants who haven’t already applied for RentHelpMN in Hennepin, Ramsey and Dakota counties can also request federal funds themselves through the Zero Balance Project.
Sterling also stresses keeping the line of communication open. Free mediation services like CMRS in Hennepin County, can also help facilitate tense tenant-landlord conversations.
The number of evictions filed in Minnesota has been steadily rising as the moratorium phases out. “We’ll be seeing the impacts of this for decades,” says Sterling, though hopefully not all negative. “Minnesota eviction law hasn’t been changed in decades, some of it hasn't changed since Minnesota was a territory.”
Maybe this year’s momentum will spur some reassessment. “It’s highlighting that some things that were thought to be too difficult are actually very doable.”
