California is paying off residents’ past due rent that was accrued during the COVID-19 pandemic, giving renters a clean slate, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced recently.
The state’s $5.2 billion in funds from Congressionally-approved aid packages is enough to pay off overdue rent, according to Newsom’s senior counselor on housing and homelessness, Jason Elliott, the Associated Press reported. However, just $32 million out of $490 million in requests for rental assistance through May 31 have been covered so far, according to a California Department Housing and Community Development report.
“We should do our best to get back to the starting point where we were in December of 2019. Anything other than that is taking advantage of a crisis,” said Keith Becker, a property manager in Sonoma County. He revealed that 14 tenants have not paid $100,000 worth of rent.
Newsom says California will pay off all past-due rent accumulated in the nation’s most populated state because of the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, promising to make landlords whole.
Left unsettled is whether California will continue to ban evictions for unpaid rent beyond June 30, a pandemic-related order that was meant to be temporary but is proving difficult to undo.
Federal eviction protections also are set to expire on June 30. California had passed its own protections that applied to more people than the federal protections.
Continue reading story at: newsweek.com
