Archives



County must extend eviction protections

Posted on August 10, 2020 by Sonoma Valley Sun
As the Board of Supervisors once again takes up a review of Sonoma County’s COVID-19 eviction moratorium, Sonoma Valley Housing Group urges [it] to strengthen the ordinance to reflect the ongoing rental housing crisis.
While there are no statistics to adequately measure the current COVID-19 catastrophe for Sonoma County renters, we know that 47% of renter-occupied households were rent-burdened and a quarter were severely rent-burdened in 2016.
Please consider that these measures should be instituted immediately:
-no eviction for rent debt accumulated during the state of emergency. Take eviction off the table!
-extend the moratorium for one year
-ban all evictions
-no late fees
-no rent increases
-no requirements to provide documented proof or notification to a landlord that a tenant lost income due to COVID-19
Nobody wants to withhold the rent. The stress is overwhelming and consequences dire: displacement, dislocation and upheaval. This is nothing new. With all due speed, Sonoma County must follow in the footsteps of other Bay Area communities2,3 to ensure that evictions due to rent debt accumulated during the state of emergency are prohibited, If you do not, many people currently housed will simultaneously become homeless.
— Dave Ransom, Chair, Sonoma Valley Housing Group


2 thoughts on “County must extend eviction protections

  1. Ridiculous. How do you expect landlords to pay their mortgages ? Property taxes? Insurance? Repairs and maintenance? For many landlords this is their livliehood and your “solution” includes nothing to help them. You literally cant have a long term solution that doesn’t include proving you need help, and then getting rental assistance to pay rent. You live in a fantasy land if you think the long term solution is “free rent” with zero proof and zero paperwork and zero help to the people paying the bills. There needs to be a rental assistance fund set up and anyone affected by covid should be able to get funds to help with their rent.

  2. “ban all evictions,no late fees,no rent increases, no requirements to provide documented proof or notification to a landlord that a tenant lost income due to COVID-19” Your shifting the problem for one to the other.
    Nobody wants to withhold the rent? Wrong….
    Is there a moratorium on not making a mortgage payment, homeowner insurance, property taxes? Of course not! When landlords are unable to collect the rent, how will they come up with the funds to do maintenance, water heater repairs etc?

Comments are closed.


Sonoma Sun | Sonoma, CA