I thought California was bad for leaving their eviction moratorium in place until 2023.
But Washington DC has them topped.
Landlords still have not been able to evict their tenants, so long as the tenants apply for the emergency rental assistance program, ERAP, for help. And the tenants do not have to be approved for that program to get the eviction protection.
Some tenants still have not paid a dime in rent since 2020.
Mayor Muriel Bowser said as many as 20% of renters in D.C. aren't paying each month, costing landlords hundreds of millions of dollars. Landlords are facing more than $100 million in unpaid rent for 2024 alone, according to Bowser.
Most of the defaulted rents are in low-income housing projects that DC paid for.
D.C. has invested hundreds of millions of dollars over the past 10 years in affordable housing for low-income residents.
'Now, we have a serious problem. We are at risk of losing that affordability, and once we lose those affordability covenants, they're gone. And here's the root problem. We have about a hundred million dollars, as this slide shows, in unpaid rent to affordable housing providers. And if things don't change, that number will skyrocket to a hundred and fifty million dollars by next year,' Bowser said in a meeting with D.C. leaders on Monday.
And they're in danger of losing all those projects because the landlords cannot afford to keep running them for free, at least not without raising rent for those who are paying it.
This means less affordable housing for everyone willing to pay. Add that to the Biden economy, and you can see how the spiral of unaffordable housing thanks to socialist policies is picking up speed.
D.C. leaders said the number of applicants to ERAP doubled this year. And you know some of those applicants are genuinely in need, but they're getting pushed into a bad light by bad actors who are essentially squatting.
Some of those squatters owe as much as $70,000 each in back rent.
DC really doesn't care about property owners:
'I don't want anybody to leave this room thinking that we're talking about wanting more evictions, because that's the last thing that anybody wants. What we want is for people to pay their rent,' Bowser said.
Well, the way you get people to pay their rent is to have a consequence - oh, let's say removing them from the property they are renting - if they don't pay!
The legislation they're voting on won't necessarily let the landlords evict people right away. People would still be able to apply for ERAP and still get protection from eviction, but maybe not multiple times.
Once the eviction process starts, it could still take months, and the landlords will have to spend thousands on attorneys' fees, what with squatters' rights and all.
Thanks for reminding us how swampy the Swamp is, DC!
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