California Moratoria on Eviction of Deadbeats Hurt Honest Citizens

California Moratoria on Eviction of Deadbeats Hurt Honest Citizens

By Jack Elbaum

Three years later, COVID-era eviction moratoria are still in effect in Oakland, San Francisco, and Berkeley. The Associated Press released a report on Monday indicating this may be among the craziest examples in recent memory of government cruelty in the name of "social justice."

The outlet spoke to 69-year-old retiree Pamela Haile. She “has paid property taxes, insurance, and other bills on a house she lets out in Oakland, but for more than three years, her tenants have paid no rent thanks to one of the longest-lasting eviction bans in the country.” Haile is owed more than $60,000 in back rent, which she will never get paid.

The Associated Press also spoke to 62-year-old John Williams, who stopped receiving monthly $1,500 rent payments in 2020. Later that year, “he tried to sell the house, but [the tenant] refused to move, and the sale fell through. In late 2021, Williams was so stressed he was hospitalized, placed on disability, and could not work. He was forced to move into the unit above his tenant. It no longer felt like his house.”

Stories such as these are common when it comes to COVID-19 eviction moratoria. Even those moratoria that ended more than a year and a half ago resulted in countless similar cases. They left many small landlords in financial ruin and even an Air Force veteran homeless after her tenants refused to pay rent. The vlogger Peter Santenello did a series on the personal stories of a few small landlords in New York during its eviction moratorium.

Why was there such a significant human toll? It’s simple: More than 40% of rental units are owned by “mom-and-pop” landlords, not businesses. As such, in the cases tenants took advantage of the policy, these landlords were required to pay taxes on — and utilities, insurance, and upkeep costs for — units that another person was occupying, while the owners received no rent whatsoever. 

Even absent an eviction moratorium in place, this would undoubtedly be a bad situation. But the landlord would be able to rectify it by evicting the squatter for freeloading private property that did not belong to him. That was not the case while eviction moratoria were in place, though. That the government forced normal people to put up with this, for upward of three years in some cases, while their own finances were suffering is unjust.

Those landlords were left with no options. Leases between landlords and tenants ensure that if one side does not fulfill its responsibilities, the other can terminate the lease. However, under the eviction moratoria, the tenant no longer had any responsibilities, while the landlord retained all of his. This created a situation in which one side was entirely powerless. This is not how contracts in a free society can work.

It should be no surprise, then, that the Associated Press report suggests many of those who did not pay rent still had jobs — they simply decided to stop paying. In one case, after a lady lost her job, a “community nonprofit” group recommended she stop paying rent. She now has a job, and it is unclear whether she has resumed her payments.

It is sometimes hard to grasp just how widespread blatant injustices in the name of the “greater good” were during the COVID-19 pandemic. From prohibiting people from visiting dying relatives in the hospital to keeping the unvaccinated out of restaurants to preventing children from attending in-person school, even after we knew schools were not transmission hot spots, the list never seems to end.

In an age when appeals to the government to solve nearly every problem in society are becoming increasingly common, we must stick to first principles. We must approach public policy with the reality that, as economist Thomas Sowell points out, “There are no solutions, only trade-offs.” By doing that, we may be able to prevent future abuses.

This article was first published by the Washington Examiner and is being republished with permission of the author. Jack Elbaum is a summer 2023 Washington Examiner fellow. He is a student at The George Washington University studying International Affairs and Economics.

(Editor’s Note: Were you hurt financially and/or emotionally, or even perhaps physically, due to pandemic era moratoriums on evictions and rent increases? Did you have renters who took advantage of the situation and you, or perhaps renters that skipped town without paying rent or destroyed your property? Are you still being hurt under pressing regulations? Please tell us your story. Submit your story to: info@aagla.org.)