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Tangential and honest question: how do eviction moratoriums help? I can see how a short ban on evictions can help prevent a spike in a homelessness crisis, but

Tangential and honest question: how do eviction moratoriums help? I can see how a short ban on evictions can help prevent a spike in a homelessness crisis, but long term I really struggle with it. Is the assumption that all/most landlords have infinite money to support non-payers? Are governments subsidizing 100% of the missed rent?

jMyles 5y ago
> Are governments subsidizing 100% of the missed rent? Not quite. Only 0%.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- aaomidi 5y ago
  Nearly every state has a program to provide some rental payments back to the landlord. It's going to be less and more delayed than rent payments, but that's expected during a crisis. Renting isn't, and shouldn't be risk free.
  - bluGill 5y ago
    > Renting isn't, and shouldn't be risk free. That goes both ways, as a renter you risk getting kicked out, while as the landlord you risk not getting paid. Landlords typically evict and get someone who will pay but they were unable to. While there were programs for landlords, it was hard to get money out of them for various reasons.
    - aaomidi 5y ago
      > That goes both ways Did I imply it doesn't? Evictions are no longer banned at a national scale. So, uh, yeah? We already know it goes both ways. In this special circumstance, the government essentially came in and said "We're not going to allow you to do that type of business for a bit for the sake of society." Landlords by definition exist because the state allows them to exist. If the state wasn't there, landlords would probably be at the mercy of the 90% - and things would get ugly. So, to keep enjoying those protections that the government is giving, you need to follow circumstantial business changes. Such as a pandemic.
    - einpoklum 5y ago
      If free high-quality public housing is available as an alternative to renting, then fine. Otherwise, why should renting not be essentially-risk-free? People don't rent as some sort of risky adventure, they need a place to live. I mean, medicine is socialized (*) so that living will be "risk-free" health-wise, so why not housing? (*) - Yes, I know that doesn't hold in the US...
- colejohnson66 5y ago
  Yep. The moratorium only made it that you can't evict someone. It didn't make it that your tenants didn't have to pay. However, many tenants (for a variety of reasons that may not be their fault) chose to use the money elsewhere. So now the moratorium is ending and the thousands of dollars of missed rent payments are catching up. Some states had programs that would provide some money to renters to help them with that, but it wasn't enough for a lot of people.
- fineIllregister 5y ago
  This is completely false. The federal stimulus packages had billions in subsidies to landlords. That's in addition to the indirect support that the govtlernment has provides (such as the stimulus checks). Also most states have additional money for landlords.
  - mywittyname 5y ago
    There was all kinds of federal stimulus money given to businesses/property owners. It was just gobbled up by those who knew how to work the system (read: large property owners).
    - fineIllregister 5y ago
      So... not "0%" as claimed in the comment I replied to.
      - mywittyname 5y ago
        Yes, I was in agreement with you and expanding upon what you said. The OP might have received nothing, but that's not because nothing was available, just that property is a dog-eat-dog world and OP was dog chow this time around.
        jMyles 5y ago
        I didn't receive anything because I wasn't in a position to (don't own rental property, and don't qualify for income-based assistance even if it existed for this purpose). But my less affluent neighbors also didn't receive anything in direct support of rent payments, despite their jobs disappearing.
  - jMyles 5y ago
    This is not the same as subsidizing rent so as to avert piling debt upon struggling renters whose jobs were suddenly and forcefully cancelled, some for months on end.
kristjansson 5y ago
There were subsidies provided by multiple levels of government[1][2], down the city level where I live. Apparently there was at least (if not more than) the usual level of misappropriation of those subsidies, so complaints from landlords abound. [1] https://dfpi.ca.gov/2021/03/15/covid19/ https://dfpi.ca.gov/2021/03/15/covid19/ [2] https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/coronavirus/assistance-for-state-local-and-tribal-governments/emergency-rental-assistance-program https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/coronavirus/assistan...
- cdcarter 5y ago
  > Apparently there was at least (if not more than) the usual level of misappropriation of those subsidies, so complaints from landlords abound. For the most part, we saw landlords REFUSING these subsidies and refusing to help tenants get them - https://newrepublic.com/article/163840/erap-cash-tenants-not-landlords https://newrepublic.com/article/163840/erap-cash-tenants-not...
- JPKab 5y ago
  My sister manages a large portfolio of properties in Virginia and North Carolina in her role as a director at a medium-sized property management firm. The reality for her company, and many landlords, is that it was extremely easy for a deadbeat tenant to stop paying rent. They simply printed out the form, filled it out (it was essentially a 1 page form), and they could immediately stop paying rent and not be subject to eviction. No verification was needed. City workers who were definitely still employed according to public records were doing this on 3 of her properties when they did an audit. Conversely, the programs that would reimburse landlords required far more rigorous documentation, AND ACTION FROM THE TENANT. That last part was the killer. The deadbeats simply had no interest or motivation to fill out paperwork that allowed the landlord to get reimbursed. I know that this is anecdotal, but my sister is also an elected representative of an industry group that represents property management companies. Her group did extensive surveys and analytics, and concluded that in the state of Virginia, the problem was widespread, and her company's experience was actually a bit better than most of the other member companies. She would call me to vent quite a bit. She was furious at how "thoughtless" the original implementation of the moratorium was under the Trump administration. She thought for sure that Biden would come in, see it as a Trump artifact, and revise it in a careful way. This didn't happen, and he instead extended it twice. It was extremely detrimental to their business, but more importantly, to any and all new tenants, as well as existing tenants. New tenants had to pay far higher rents. Her company had to cover the losses from the deadbeats, and additionally, had to "price in" the risk of a new tenant suddenly filing the moratorium form and ceasing to pay rent. It never ceases to amaze me how bureaucracies will double down on policies while ignoring the unintended consequences they produce.
aaomidi 5y ago
If you look at the Irish famine crisis, a huge % of lives lost was because of landlords evicting people. So, it prevents that. And it's an important thing to prevent.
alistairSH 5y ago
Preventing a short spike was the goal. The eviction moratorium was never intended as a long term fix to homelessness.
q1w2 5y ago
As a landlord, I can tell you that the government does NOT replace ANY of the missed rent. Moreover, while many tenants have continued to pay their rent - MANY have gradually started realizing that I am unable to evict them, and have completely stopped paying rent. Moreover, they have started collaborating under the assumption that there is more protection if they do it together. Like other landlords, I have lost a tremendous amount of money in this pandemic. My 12 unit complex represents my retirement, so this hit me very personally. It's incredibly unfair that the most honest tenants continue to pay. The ones not paying are not paying because they know they can get away with it - not because they cannot pay - they are all still working.
- maxmamis 5y ago
  - endisneigh 5y ago
    I wonder why people think being a landlord is not a job.
    - maxmamis 5y ago
      why do you think it is one?
      - endisneigh 5y ago
        There's obviously work in maintaining an inherently depreciating, heavily worn asset. This is true of both landlords and anyone who loans out physical goods as a service.
        hedgehog 5y ago
        Maintenance work is a job, owning real estate is an investment. Sometimes done by the same people, sometimes not.
dpweb 5y ago
I feel it’s more to present a compassionate attitude, and prevent instability, big spikes. Plus there’s a cost in kicking people from their homes.
einpoklum 5y ago
> Tangential and honest question: how do eviction moratoriums help? They allow politicians to pretend they've resolved a problem, while managing other aspects of a crisis. Later, when the moratorium expires, hopefully the media is concerned with other things and the plight of the evicted will go unheeded. It's also a middle-of-the-road measure between doing nothing (bad publicity) and declaring a rent holiday / subsidizing rent from taxes / expropriating rented-out apartments or other such measures (politically difficult, angers donors and politicians' social milieu).
tobyjsullivan 5y ago
> Is the assumption that all/most landlords have infinite money Individually, no. As a class, yes. Property rental seems a lot like a Subway franchise in this respect. If one property owner becomes insolvent, the property will be sold to another person who is not. The tenant might be evicted by the new owner but, on average, probably not. Edit: pardon my obscure Subway reference. Subway franchises are notorious for going out of business with incredible frequency. You'd never notice because an insolvent franchisee's best option is to sell the operating business to another, solvent franchisee. Subway arranges the sales. Then Subway sells more franchises with statements to the effect of "80% of locations have been operating for over 20 years" (not their actual words).
- JPKab 5y ago
  > Individually, no. As a class, yes. Elevating group identity over individuals is the root of some of the most evil activities in human history. It should be noted that individual human beings who moved to a new home and chose to rent their old home got burned by this moratorium as well. Often getting put in a situation where they were forced to foot the full bill of two mortgages, with no end in sight. There was a well-reported case of a terminally ill cancer patient who lost all of her income when a tenant in her split-level home stopped paying rent by abusing the moratorium. Your Subway example was hilarious, BTW. I've seen that happen so many times lol.

jMyles 5y ago

> Are governments subsidizing 100% of the missed rent? Not quite. Only 0%.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
aaomidi 5y ago
Nearly every state has a program to provide some rental payments back to the landlord. It's going to be less and more delayed than rent payments, but that's expected during a crisis. Renting isn't, and shouldn't be risk free.
- bluGill 5y ago
  > Renting isn't, and shouldn't be risk free. That goes both ways, as a renter you risk getting kicked out, while as the landlord you risk not getting paid. Landlords typically evict and get someone who will pay but they were unable to. While there were programs for landlords, it was hard to get money out of them for various reasons.
  - aaomidi 5y ago
    > That goes both ways Did I imply it doesn't? Evictions are no longer banned at a national scale. So, uh, yeah? We already know it goes both ways. In this special circumstance, the government essentially came in and said "We're not going to allow you to do that type of business for a bit for the sake of society." Landlords by definition exist because the state allows them to exist. If the state wasn't there, landlords would probably be at the mercy of the 90% - and things would get ugly. So, to keep enjoying those protections that the government is giving, you need to follow circumstantial business changes. Such as a pandemic.
  - einpoklum 5y ago
    If free high-quality public housing is available as an alternative to renting, then fine. Otherwise, why should renting not be essentially-risk-free? People don't rent as some sort of risky adventure, they need a place to live. I mean, medicine is socialized (*) so that living will be "risk-free" health-wise, so why not housing? (*) - Yes, I know that doesn't hold in the US...
colejohnson66 5y ago
Yep. The moratorium only made it that you can't evict someone. It didn't make it that your tenants didn't have to pay. However, many tenants (for a variety of reasons that may not be their fault) chose to use the money elsewhere. So now the moratorium is ending and the thousands of dollars of missed rent payments are catching up. Some states had programs that would provide some money to renters to help them with that, but it wasn't enough for a lot of people.
fineIllregister 5y ago
This is completely false. The federal stimulus packages had billions in subsidies to landlords. That's in addition to the indirect support that the govtlernment has provides (such as the stimulus checks). Also most states have additional money for landlords.
- mywittyname 5y ago
  There was all kinds of federal stimulus money given to businesses/property owners. It was just gobbled up by those who knew how to work the system (read: large property owners).
  - fineIllregister 5y ago
    So... not "0%" as claimed in the comment I replied to.
    - mywittyname 5y ago
      Yes, I was in agreement with you and expanding upon what you said. The OP might have received nothing, but that's not because nothing was available, just that property is a dog-eat-dog world and OP was dog chow this time around.
      - jMyles 5y ago
        I didn't receive anything because I wasn't in a position to (don't own rental property, and don't qualify for income-based assistance even if it existed for this purpose). But my less affluent neighbors also didn't receive anything in direct support of rent payments, despite their jobs disappearing.
- jMyles 5y ago
  This is not the same as subsidizing rent so as to avert piling debt upon struggling renters whose jobs were suddenly and forcefully cancelled, some for months on end.

kristjansson 5y ago

There were subsidies provided by multiple levels of government[1][2], down the city level where I live. Apparently there was at least (if not more than) the usual level of misappropriation of those subsidies, so complaints from landlords abound. [1] https://dfpi.ca.gov/2021/03/15/covid19/ https://dfpi.ca.gov/2021/03/15/covid19/ [2] https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/coronavirus/assistance-for-state-local-and-tribal-governments/emergency-rental-assistance-program https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/coronavirus/assistan...

cdcarter 5y ago
> Apparently there was at least (if not more than) the usual level of misappropriation of those subsidies, so complaints from landlords abound. For the most part, we saw landlords REFUSING these subsidies and refusing to help tenants get them - https://newrepublic.com/article/163840/erap-cash-tenants-not-landlords https://newrepublic.com/article/163840/erap-cash-tenants-not...
JPKab 5y ago
My sister manages a large portfolio of properties in Virginia and North Carolina in her role as a director at a medium-sized property management firm. The reality for her company, and many landlords, is that it was extremely easy for a deadbeat tenant to stop paying rent. They simply printed out the form, filled it out (it was essentially a 1 page form), and they could immediately stop paying rent and not be subject to eviction. No verification was needed. City workers who were definitely still employed according to public records were doing this on 3 of her properties when they did an audit. Conversely, the programs that would reimburse landlords required far more rigorous documentation, AND ACTION FROM THE TENANT. That last part was the killer. The deadbeats simply had no interest or motivation to fill out paperwork that allowed the landlord to get reimbursed. I know that this is anecdotal, but my sister is also an elected representative of an industry group that represents property management companies. Her group did extensive surveys and analytics, and concluded that in the state of Virginia, the problem was widespread, and her company's experience was actually a bit better than most of the other member companies. She would call me to vent quite a bit. She was furious at how "thoughtless" the original implementation of the moratorium was under the Trump administration. She thought for sure that Biden would come in, see it as a Trump artifact, and revise it in a careful way. This didn't happen, and he instead extended it twice. It was extremely detrimental to their business, but more importantly, to any and all new tenants, as well as existing tenants. New tenants had to pay far higher rents. Her company had to cover the losses from the deadbeats, and additionally, had to "price in" the risk of a new tenant suddenly filing the moratorium form and ceasing to pay rent. It never ceases to amaze me how bureaucracies will double down on policies while ignoring the unintended consequences they produce.

aaomidi 5y ago

If you look at the Irish famine crisis, a huge % of lives lost was because of landlords evicting people. So, it prevents that. And it's an important thing to prevent.

alistairSH 5y ago

Preventing a short spike was the goal. The eviction moratorium was never intended as a long term fix to homelessness.

q1w2 5y ago

As a landlord, I can tell you that the government does NOT replace ANY of the missed rent. Moreover, while many tenants have continued to pay their rent - MANY have gradually started realizing that I am unable to evict them, and have completely stopped paying rent. Moreover, they have started collaborating under the assumption that there is more protection if they do it together. Like other landlords, I have lost a tremendous amount of money in this pandemic. My 12 unit complex represents my retirement, so this hit me very personally. It's incredibly unfair that the most honest tenants continue to pay. The ones not paying are not paying because they know they can get away with it - not because they cannot pay - they are all still working.

maxmamis 5y ago
- endisneigh 5y ago
  I wonder why people think being a landlord is not a job.
  - maxmamis 5y ago
    why do you think it is one?
    - endisneigh 5y ago
      There's obviously work in maintaining an inherently depreciating, heavily worn asset. This is true of both landlords and anyone who loans out physical goods as a service.
      - hedgehog 5y ago
        Maintenance work is a job, owning real estate is an investment. Sometimes done by the same people, sometimes not.

dpweb 5y ago

I feel it’s more to present a compassionate attitude, and prevent instability, big spikes. Plus there’s a cost in kicking people from their homes.

einpoklum 5y ago

> Tangential and honest question: how do eviction moratoriums help? They allow politicians to pretend they've resolved a problem, while managing other aspects of a crisis. Later, when the moratorium expires, hopefully the media is concerned with other things and the plight of the evicted will go unheeded. It's also a middle-of-the-road measure between doing nothing (bad publicity) and declaring a rent holiday / subsidizing rent from taxes / expropriating rented-out apartments or other such measures (politically difficult, angers donors and politicians' social milieu).

tobyjsullivan 5y ago

> Is the assumption that all/most landlords have infinite money Individually, no. As a class, yes. Property rental seems a lot like a Subway franchise in this respect. If one property owner becomes insolvent, the property will be sold to another person who is not. The tenant might be evicted by the new owner but, on average, probably not. Edit: pardon my obscure Subway reference. Subway franchises are notorious for going out of business with incredible frequency. You'd never notice because an insolvent franchisee's best option is to sell the operating business to another, solvent franchisee. Subway arranges the sales. Then Subway sells more franchises with statements to the effect of "80% of locations have been operating for over 20 years" (not their actual words).

JPKab 5y ago
> Individually, no. As a class, yes. Elevating group identity over individuals is the root of some of the most evil activities in human history. It should be noted that individual human beings who moved to a new home and chose to rent their old home got burned by this moratorium as well. Often getting put in a situation where they were forced to foot the full bill of two mortgages, with no end in sight. There was a well-reported case of a terminally ill cancer patient who lost all of her income when a tenant in her split-level home stopped paying rent by abusing the moratorium. Your Subway example was hilarious, BTW. I've seen that happen so many times lol.