Rent aid is on the way. But for SC tenants facing eviction, it may come too late
When Congress approved a second round of COVID-19 stimulus money at the end of December, housing advocates applauded it as an important step in getting people back on their feet.
But three months later, the $245 million in rental assistance allocated to South Carolina is still sitting in limbo. Many tenants are left wondering which will come first — help or an order to vacate their homes.
A bill authorizing the distribution of the federal relief money passed the S.C. House earlier this month and is now pending review by the Senate committee on finance.
The state will get millions more in rental assistance through the The American Rescue Plan Congress passed last week, but it is not yet clear when that money will become available.
With a nationwide eviction moratorium set to expire on March 31, advocates fear thousands of South Carolinians may lose their housing before they can receive aid that could help them catch up on back rent. The deadline for the moratorium has already been extended several times, and though it could be pushed back again, right now there is no guarantee.
Lila Anna Sauls, president and CEO of the Columbia based nonprofit, Homeless No More said most of the families who are counting on that rental assistance do not have a backup plan to pay off their debts.
“The people that are most affected work minimum-wage jobs,” she said. “If you’re already impoverished and you fall behind, it’s harder to rebound. Some never do.”
The Centers for Disease Control ordered the eviction moratorium in September to ensure that Americans struggling to pay for housing would have a safe place to quarantine. Still, that did not put a full stop on evictions. Analysis from The State and The Sun News found that inconsistent enforcement and confusion about the rules has caused some South Carolina renters to fall through the cracks.
Since the moratorium went into effect, according to court records at least 50,000 evictions have been filed across five of the state’s most populous counties — Richland, Lexington, Horry, Greenville and Charleston.
Though there’s no way to tell how many of those tenants will ultimately be forced to vacate their homes, data from the Census Bureau shows that many South Carolinians have serious concerns about losing housing. Nearly 53% of renters said they were very likely or somewhat likely to be forced to leave home due to eviction in the next two months.
Florence resident Tamika Star is currently relying on the moratorium for protection. Before the pandemic, the single mother of two ran a small business doing administrative work but was forced to shut down in October after losing several clients. She was eventually able to find another job, though not before falling three months behind on rent.
Star said she hopes the moratorium will be extended at least through the end of April so that people like her can access rental assistance.
“I really need this extra time to be able to come up with this payment,” she said. “It’s just like being given a chance to work things out. I feel like the little people are not really given that chance.”
If the federal moratorium is not renewed, the South Carolina legislature or Gov. Henry McMaster could enact a statewide ban like the ones in California, Kansas and New York.
But state Rep. Marvin Pendarvis, D-North Charleston, who has previously called for the legislature to take action, said there is no political appetite for a new state eviction ban.
Last year, when South Carolina halted evictions from March 17 until May 1, “the legislature did not act, the governor did not act,” Pendarvis said. “It was the Supreme Court that took action.”
For landlords across the state, the end of the moratorium represents a necessary step toward a return to normalcy.
Research published last year by the National Council of State Housing Agencies estimated that by January 2021, South Carolina tenants would have racked up as much as a $429 million rental shortfall.
“We’re going to continue to work with renters as best we can, but another moratorium is not going to solve this crisis. It’s only going to cause people to accumulate more debt,” said Lynette Bland, president of the South Carolina Apartment Association. “We don’t want a mass number of properties to fall into foreclosure because landlords who aren’t getting rent are unable to pay for the mortgage.”
If and when the eviction moratorium expires, Sue Berkowitz, director of the South Carolina Appleseed Legal Justice Center, said she is hoping that landlords will try to work with tenants who are past due on rent rather than rushing to evict.
“The only way they can get money through the rental assistance that’s going out is to allow people to stay in their homes,” she said. “If they evict, they’ll likely never be repaid for that back rent. So it’s in everyone’s best interest to be patient while we wait for people to return to work.”
This story was originally published March 16, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Rent aid is on the way. But for SC tenants facing eviction, it may come too late."
