Delaware officials and housing advocates concerned about a wave of homelessness as federal unemployment benefits expire are rushing to set up a new way to hear eviction cases in hopes of settling as many landlord-tenant disputes out of court as possible.
The goal, court officials said, is to create a slowed-down, mostly virtual track for landlord-tenant cases, with mediators on hand at every step, that would “flatten the curve” of potential evictions.
A statewide eviction moratorium ordered by Gov. John Carney when the pandemic reached Delaware has been lifted for the past month.
Court-approved evictions are still significantly on hold, and even cases seeking eviction that were filed before the pandemic won’t go before a judge until late August at the earliest, said Chief Magistrate Alan Davis of the Justice of the Peace Court, where eviction cases are heard.
More than 200 cases statewide filed before the pandemic hit in mid-March were delayed then and will be scheduled first.
After that, the courts have a backlog of more than 1,400 cases – filed both before and after the pandemic hit – that will be heard later or have yet to be scheduled.
It’s a caseload that’s lower than usual for the Justice of the Peace Court, which normally sees about 1,500 eviction filings a month. More than a quarter of all cases that have yet to be heard this year were filed since the moratorium was lifted July 1.
“Some … cases have been resolved because landlords and tenants are still talking to each other,” Davis said. “Tenants to a great extent understand they have obligations and landlords understand the world isn't like what it used to be.”
But he expects eviction filings to grow as new financial challenges set in.
The additional $600 per month in unemployment benefits from the federal government expired Friday as another month’s rent became due. School reopening plans will affect whether parents will be able to make rent in addition to the previously unaccounted for cost of child care.
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“Pre-pandemic” cases will be scheduled for pre-trial hearings to assess whether they can be resolved out of court on an online mediation platform the courts have contracted with.
Similarly, court officials will try to divert as many “post-pandemic” cases to the mediation phase as possible, with help from the Delaware State Housing Authority. The state department will use some of its $14 million in rental assistance funds to pay tenants’ owed back rent if it helps resolve cases.
That program was launched in late March to help households affected by the economic downturn pay rent and utilities, but halted less than a month later when the state was overwhelmed with applications.
State Housing Authority swamped with rental help requests, stops taking applications
Housing authority spokeswoman Jessica Eisenbrey said the state hopes to restart the program in the next two weeks. There is not a specific dollar amount set aside to resolve eviction cases.
Tenants’ advocates are cautiously optimistic that a slower court process can reduce an onslaught of homelessness in the coming months.
John Whitelaw, advocacy director at the Community Legal Aid Society of Delaware, one of the main groups representing tenants in eviction court, said the full scope of a potential pandemic-related eviction crisis is still unknown.
“We don't know the need yet and we don't know the money [available] yet,” Whitelaw said. “August is going to be a real problem.”
BACKGROUND: As evictions loom, Delaware advocates say guaranteed lawyers could help tenants
Advocates say the current rental help funds are not enough, with Stephen Metraux, director of the University of Delaware’s Center for Community Research and Service, estimating the state needs about $10 million a month to cover rent owed by tenants due to unemployment.
The delayed court system has frustrated landlords, who say some cases of tenants owing rent since January still haven’t been heard.
“Most landlords would work out a repayment and make some concessions,” said Brian O’Neill, president of Greater Wilmington Housing Providers. “Landlords are frustrated and feeling the pinch.”
O’Neill said an inability to evict certain tenants and move in new ones who are able to pay rent would lead landlords to let their buildings fall into foreclosure proceedings, a detriment to the already tight housing market for low-income renters.
He called the state’s halt of rental help funds “embarrassing and disheartening” and said the program could have kept more landlords afloat the past few months.
With or without the new eviction court proceedings, some tenants are already in the throes of finding housing during a pandemic.
Carney’s emergency orders did nothing to stop landlords from ending leases, Latrish Oseko learned in late May, when her landlord handed her a 60-day notice that he would not be renewing her lease when it ended Friday.
He was selling the Newark house, and the buyers wanted to come rehab the building immediately, Oseko said she was told.
She had just lost her job as a data entry contractor after having her hours cut already, and had considered herself one of the lucky ones when she was approved for the state’s rental assistance program while it was still running.
Oseko spent the next two months simultaneously looking for a job and looking for an apartment while her boyfriend kept them and their 4-year-old daughter afloat on his $13-an-hour job cleaning buildings at the University of Delaware.
She saved her federal stimulus check and unemployment benefits for their future rent and security deposit.
"I'm really out there putting one foot in front of the other," she said. "I'm not just sitting around doing nothing all day."
But by her lease's end, she still had not found an affordable apartment close enough for her boyfriend to get to work. Most apartments, she said, require applicants to make an income of three times the monthly rent — money she doesn't have while out of work.
Last week, the family was rejected at a Newark complex where Oseko asked her sister, who has a stable income, to co-sign the lease.
This week was the final one for which Oseko received the additional federal unemployment benefits.
"I want to hold onto my money tight," she said. "It was $50 just to apply to that one place."
Oseko said she understood if she overstayed her lease, the courts would not order her eviction for a while. But she's been taking financial planning courses, and having been through eviction court once in the past, she didn't want another case on her record.
This week, days before the lease ran out, she packed up the house in between Zoom job interviews and considered her family's options. She hesitated to spend her security deposit savings paying for a motel room. They couldn't be placed into a shelter until they were out on the street.
A stranger who also works at the university had offered to let her, her boyfriend and their daughter stay in a spare room. She was going to meet them that afternoon.
"Everything's up in the air," she said. "We go to the grocery store and I don't want to buy food because, are we going to be locked out?"
Contact Jeanne Kuang at jkuang@delawareonline.com or (302) 324-2476. Follow her on Twitter at @JeanneKuang.
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