By Aaron Allen, The Seattle Medium
Activist claim that despite eviction moratoriums put in place to protect renters, some landlords are making it difficult for those who may be struggling due to COVID or other major issues to continue renting without incident.
Washington State has a moratorium on evictions and rent payments until October 15, but if you ask Phoenix Johnson you wouldn’t know a moratorium existed.
Johnson, a veteran of the Air Force and a contractor for the Army National Guard for the last several years, claims that her landlord has made it very difficult for her family to continue living in their residence.
“We are trying to endure this world that often times shuts its doors in our faces,” says Johnson. “They make it clear that our lives really don’t matter and that our stability really doesn’t matter.”
Advocates like Clifford Cawthon, an organizer/policy nerd, and Amy Tower of the Tenants Union are calling on Johnson’s landlords “to withdraw their threats to evict Johnson and her family from their Ballard home.”
“They [Johnson’s landlords] have continued to make threats of displacement, despite the ongoing Covid-19 local and state moratoriums,” says Cawthon.
Johnson, who is of Native American descent, is not alone when it comes to struggling to keep a roof over her head due to the impacts of COVID-19, which is disproportionately impacting Black and Indigenous households in the state.
While data shows a rent crisis in Washington State, the breakdown of the data, according to the Census Bureau, shows sharp discrepancies between races. According to reports, 10% of White renters in Washington State were unable to make payments to their rent or paid late in July, while 58% of Black of renters were unable to do so or paid late. In addition, 12% of Latino renters who responded didn’t make rent or paid late in July, as well as 13% of Asian renters.
“This is a reflection of systemic racism and the community demands housing justice for Black, Native, and other marginalized renters across Seattle through abiding by the moratorium, ceasing the threats of eviction and returning an illegally seized deposit and fees to the Johnsons,” says Tower. “This is definitely a racial justice issue.”
As landlords try to find loopholes to circumvent the moratorium in order to rest rent from their tenants, the Tenants Union says that it has been inundated with calls from people under duress to avoid evictions.
According to Gov. Jay Inslee’s eviction moratorium extension on July 24,” landlords, property owners, and property managers are prohibited from seeking or enforcing, or threatening to seek or enforce, judicial eviction orders involving any dwelling or parcel of land occupied as a dwelling, unless the landlord, property owner, or property manager shows that at least 60 days’ written notice were provided of intent to one, personally occupy the premises as a primary residence, or two, sell the property.”
According to Towers, this 60-day loophole appears to be one of the primary tools that landlords are using to evict tenants.
“The Tenants Union are getting hotline calls from across the state, and the sixty-day loophole and landlords trying to get around the moratorium is something that we hearing a lot about,” says Tower.
Under pressure to move by her landlord, Johnson describes the methods in which she has been pressured to move as being “terrorized.”
“Enough is enough this has to stop,” says Johnson. “This violence and discrimination against indigenous and people of color must stop.”
“This type of violation is so deep how are we supposed to live and be healthy and find justice if we cannot have a place to lay our heads at night?” Johnson continued. “How are our children supposed to achieve academic success if they are being removed from their homes and schools?”
Cawthon says that it is important that landlords follow the moratorium set by city and state officials, and allow tenants like Johnsons to remain in their homes at least until the country gets a handle on COVID-19.
“In terms of message, the message is we want the landlords to leave the Johnson family alone, and to abide by local, state eviction moratoriums right now and to give Phoenix time to find a new place,” says Cawthon.
It is unfortunate families are finding themselves having to choose between homelessness and health due to lack of empathy on the part of landlords. Tower expresses the need to find a solution to a broken housing system in order to bring peace of mind to struggling tenants during the COVID pandemic.
“The whole system is broken,” says Tower. “The housing system needs to be re-imagined and restructured so the housing is actually a human right that everybody has and the only way we are going to get there is by working together and standing up to landlords when they do this.”
