Falling Behind on Weekly Rent and Afraid of Being Evicted

In general, evictions have had real health consequences for tenants and families during the pandemic. One recent study found that lifting state eviction moratoriums from March to September resulted in an additional 10,700 deaths in 27 states from Covid-19. And unless Congress extends it or provides funds for rental assistance — something currently being debated on Capitol Hill — there could be a wave of evictions across the housing market when the moratorium ends.

Judicial rulings on the applicability of the moratorium to weekly rentals have varied depending on the state. A judge in Orlando, Fla., for instance, ruled in November that the operator of the Lake Inn motel could evict three people but delayed the effective date of the order to Jan. 1. Housing lawyers said some rental operators were trying to bypass the courthouse by telling residents the moratorium didn’t apply to them — putting the onus on the residents to go to court to keep their homes.

“The vast majority of evictions from weekly rentals never see the light of a courtroom,” said Bailey Bortolin, statewide outreach and policy director for Nevada Coalition of Legal Service Providers, a nonprofit that provides free legal help to eligible residents.