Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed last week that California’s AB 3088 eviction moratorium be extended so that renters who are experiencing COVID-19 financial hardship are only required to pay 25% of their monthly rent to avoid eviction, leaving some taxpayer advocacy groups, miffed by the governor’s move.
“It's going to hurt property owners tremendously because it's already been 10 months or so of having to pay all the bills without having rental income,” Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association (HJTA) communications vice president Susan Shelley said. “It’s a difficult situation and the longer it goes on, the more owners will be forced out of business.”
Without immediate action on AB 3088, which mandates eviction protections, the current moratorium will expire on Jan. 31, according to a press release.
“This is a situation where the government is forcing one group of people to subsidize another group of people,” Shelley told the Southern California Record. “The tenants are in a tough situation because of COVID but the property owners are in a tough situation as well and this is a rather extraordinary use of government power by Gov. Newsom.”
Newsom also proposed that the state quickly deploy all $2.6 billion in federal stimulus money to low-income California households to keep as many people housed as possible.
But there’s no guarantee that the money that’s disbursed will trickle down to landlords through rent payments, according to Shelley.
“If the state wanted to stabilize housing providers, they should have made payments to housing providers but they didn't,” she said. “They are making payments through the earned income tax credit, which by the way, is going to be available to people who don't have social security numbers. So, undocumented households will qualify for the $600 payment also.”
As of January 9, California has 2,568,641 confirmed coronavirus cases, resulting in 28,538 deaths, according to the state’s COVID-19 dashboard. The number of coronavirus-related deaths increased by 1.8% from the prior day total of 28,045.
“The vaccine is supposed to help but there are questions about the competence of the rollout and then only about 35% of the doses sent to California were distributed to people,” Shelley said. “The rest of the doses are just sitting there while the governor makes taskforces, plans, and enforcement priorities. There's an awful lot of bureaucracy that's been put on top of this rollout, which has slowed it.”