Pandemic-era Eviction Bans Linger in California

Several cities in California with high housing costs are still enforcing eviction bans enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic, even though the national public health emergency is expiring Thursday.

In San Francisco, an eviction ban for tenants with unpaid rent will continue until sometime this summer, The Wall Street Journal reported. Los Angeles extended a prohibition on evicting tenants for having unauthorized pets or occupants in their apartments and renewed a rent freeze on rent-controlled apartments until next year. Oakland’s eviction ban will continue until July 1.

The Trump administration imposed a nationwide pandemic eviction ban near the start of the pandemic. During the Biden administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention imposed an eviction ban that was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in August 2021, with the court ruling that the CDC exceeded its authority.

Many in California are worried that after eviction bans are eased, cases of homelessness will rise in a state that has among the nation’s highest housing costs.

“As we work to bring Angelenos inside, we also have to work to prevent Angelenos from falling into homelessness,” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said last month, according to The Journal.

After most eviction protections expired nationwide, eviction filings soared by nearly 80% in 2022 over the previous year, The Journal reported, citing Eviction Lab, a research unit at Princeton University that tracked filings in 34 cities and 10 states.

Unlike Los Angeles, San Francisco’s extended moratorium will cover new months of unpaid rent, The Journal reported. The city renewed its ban because it had $24 million in rental assistance left to spend, said Dean Preston, a member of the city’s board of supervisors. That is enough to help 3,000 households avoid eviction, he said. But tenants are still required to pay back what they owe.

“What we’re saying is you don’t get to collect this debt by evicting people,” Mr. Preston said, according to The Journal.