Almost a quarter of evictions filled in Harris County (Houston) during the moratorium were illegal. Effin’ landlords.
Posted by
Qale (aka Qale)
Aug 6 '20, 17:43
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Nearly 24 percent of evictions filed in Harris County during the federal eviction moratorium were illegal, according to an analysis released Wednesday.
Led by public interest attorney and South Texas College of Law Houston professor Eric Kwartler, a team of lawyers and law students analyzed evictions filed during the federal CARES Act, from March 25 to July 25. The law prohibited various types of federally backed apartments from filing an eviction against tenants. It did not come with any consequences for landlords who violated the act.
“A big problem with the CARES Act is that it had no teeth,” Kwartler said. “If we have another moratorium, there needs to be consequences. That will at least make landlords think twice.”
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The Houston Apartment Association disputes the data. The disagreement hinges on an interpretation of the CARES Act: Kwartler worked under the interpretation that it applied to every unit in a property that had even one tenant covered by the CARES Act. The HAA believes it applied only to that one covered unit, not the entire property.
HAA attorney Howard Bookstaff pointed to a Department of Housing and Urban Development FAQ that said market-rate units at apartments that also had voucher tenants were not covered by the CARES Act.
“There may be a misinterpretation with respect to when the property is subject to the CARES Act,” Bookstaff said.
Kwartler said he won a case in Harris County based on his interpretation.
“I imagine there’s gonna be a litigation battle over this,” said Jon-Ross Trevino, the managing attorney of the housing and consumer units at Lone Star Legal Aid. He shares Kwartler’s interpretation. “But the litigation battle can take a long time—it can take years for that to resolve. It’s not comforting for the tenants who are facing those evictions on such a short time frame.”
In Harris County, anyone filing for an eviction had to sign an affidavit that their property was not covered by the CARES Act. It did not prevent covered properties from filing eviction anyway, or judges from allowing the cases to proceed.
Tenants who have already left their apartments — either after they saw the eviction notice or after a court appearance — don’t have any real recourse.
“I’m terrified for those people,” said Zoe Middleton, Houston and Southeast co-director at Texas Housers. “That’s the human cost of bad policy in illegal evictions.”
Kwartler shared the data with Lone Star Legal Aid and Houston Volunteer Lawyers. They did not share it with judges because that communication could violate court rules.
The group of lawyers downloaded the eviction filings from a public portal on the Harris County Justices of the Peace website. They matched it up against data they obtained through public information requests on where tenants with publicly subsidized rentals lived. Kwartler said he plans to make the information public and searchable.
One of the students at South Texas College of Law who worked on the study, Gaspar Gonzalez, is in his third year. As he sorted through the cases, it got personal: He saw apartments he’d grown up around in East Houston. He hopes to go into commercial real estate.
“I wanted see the other side,” he said. “If I was representing a landlord, I could tell him what not to do so he doesn’t become a bad guy.”
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The Texas Supreme Court instituted an eviction moratorium at the beginning of the pandemic that expired in May. Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner has resisted calls for a citywide eviction grace period.
“An eviction filing is something that’s a long-term blemish on an individual’s rental history,” Kwartler said. “Even if it’s dismissed, that matters.”
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