CDC order expected to halt evictions in Colorado through end of 2020

Col­orado offi­cials and evic­tion defense advo­cates say they believe that an unex­pect­ed order Tues­day from the fed­er­al Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion will halt most evic­tions in the state start­ing this week.

The CDC announced it plans to sus­pend the evic­tion of ten­ants earn­ing no more than $99,000 a year from Sept. 4 until Dec. 31. In a draft order, the agency said it’s tak­ing the action to pre­vent the coro­n­avirus from spread­ing. The pol­i­cy has the sup­port of Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump, the White House said.

“Pres­i­dent Trump is com­mit­ted to help­ing hard­work­ing Amer­i­cans stay in their homes and com­bat­ing the spread of the coro­n­avirus,” White House spokesman Bri­an Mor­gen­stern said in a state­ment. “Today’s announce­ment from his Admin­is­tra­tion means that peo­ple strug­gling to pay rent due to coro­n­avirus will not have to wor­ry about being evict­ed, and risk fur­ther spread­ing of or expo­sure to the dis­ease due to eco­nom­ic hardship.”

The order from the Repub­li­can admin­is­tra­tion blind­sided Col­orado offi­cials and advo­cates. The governor’s office, state law­mak­ers, attor­neys and rep­re­sen­ta­tives for both the state Divi­sion of Hous­ing and Judi­cial Branch scram­bled Tues­day after­noon to first read the order and then to under­stand how and when Col­orado might imple­ment it. As of 4:30 p.m., no state offi­cial was able to affir­ma­tive­ly state to The Den­ver Post that evic­tions will be halt­ed here for those who qual­i­fy under the order.

“Our admin­is­tra­tion is cur­rent­ly review­ing this recent fed­er­al action to see if it will real­ly help Col­oradans or is just emp­ty words,” said Conor Cahill, spokes­woman for Demo­c­ra­t­ic Gov. Jared Polis, in a statement.

But Jon Sarche, a spokesman for the Judi­cial Branch, said his office believes the order will effec­tive­ly end most evic­tions by pro­hibit­ing land­lords from seek­ing evic­tion for any­one pro­tect­ed by it. Indi­vid­u­als with incomes above $99,000 and joint fil­ers with incomes above $198,000 are not protected.

“It looks like courts can con­tin­ue to accept fil­ings, but that unless all the con­di­tions in the CDC order are met, noth­ing real­ly could hap­pen,” Sarche said, stress­ing that the Judi­cial Branch had only done an ini­tial review of the order.

Col­orado, unlike many oth­er states, is no longer under a statewide pan­dem­ic-relat­ed evic­tion mora­to­ri­um. The gov­er­nor banned evic­tions ear­ly in the pan­dem­ic but let his mora­to­ri­um lapse in June, and evic­tions have since restart­ed here. Sev­er­al Demo­c­ra­t­ic state sen­a­tors sought in May to ban evic­tions through the fall, but they couldn’t get enough sup­port in the cham­ber they only nar­row­ly hold.

The CDC typ­i­cal­ly would not be involved this way in a hous­ing issue, but the agency argues that a big spike in evic­tions would con­sti­tute a pub­lic health crisis.

“In short,” the order states, “evic­tions threat­en to increase the spread of COVID-19 as they force peo­ple to move, often into close quar­ters in new shared hous­ing set­tings with friends or fam­i­ly, or con­gre­gate set­tings such as home­less shelters.”

Under the CDC order, those seek­ing evic­tion relief will still be required to pay as much rent as they can afford. The order also requires that ten­ants show that they are inca­pable of pay­ing their rent or are like­ly to become home­less if kicked out of their prop­er­ty. Trea­sury Sec­re­tary Steven Mnuchin said Tues­day that the actions tak­en by the admin­is­tra­tion could impact “close to” 40 mil­lion renters. Attor­neys in Col­orado have for months warned that more than 300,000 peo­ple here could be vul­ner­a­ble to evic­tion by the end of 2020.

So far in the pan­dem­ic there has been no major evic­tion wave in Col­orado, but evic­tion defense advo­cates have been wor­ried that could change soon, as peo­ple start to feel the effect of the recent end to the $600 week­ly fed­er­al unem­ploy­ment benefit.

Said one advo­cate, attor­ney Zach Neu­mann, “If this order is imple­ment­ed and upheld, it will buy ten­ants the time they need to get back on their feet.”

He also said it’s not enough, and called on Con­gress to pro­vide more rent relief.

The CDC order does not freeze or for­give anyone’s rent, which means that for some the pol­i­cy will sim­ply delay evic­tion until after it expires. That expi­ra­tion could come just weeks before a poten­tial Joe Biden admin­is­tra­tion takes over.

The apart­ment indus­try in Col­orado has opposed calls for an evic­tion mora­to­ri­um here, and Tues­day the nation­al indus­try advo­ca­cy group, the Nation­al Mul­ti­fam­i­ly Hous­ing Coun­cil, crit­i­cized the new CDC order.

“An evic­tion mora­to­ri­um will ulti­mate­ly harm the very peo­ple it aims to help by mak­ing it impos­si­ble for hous­ing providers, par­tic­u­lar­ly small own­ers, to meet their finan­cial oblig­a­tions and con­tin­ue to pro­vide shel­ter to their res­i­dents,” said Doug Bib­by, the group’s president.

Bloomberg News con­tributed to this report.

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