The federal eviction moratorium was extended earlier this month in counties that have high levels of COVID spread. Many residents, however, including those in Orange County, are still concerned about what the future holds for their homes.
The CDC announced it will extend the federal eviction moratorium for 60 days. This means renters cannot be evicted from their homes if they live in counties with “substantial and high levels of community transmission spread” of COVID-19. The ban will now extend through October 3.
The moratorium covers 90 percent of renters nationwide and nearly all North Carolina counties because of COVID spread.
A poll from the U.S. Census Bureau found that 1 in 13 North Carolinians feel unlikely that they will be able to make next month’s rent payment and an additional 30 percent felt they may be evicted in the next two months.
Corey Root is the director of Orange County’s Housing and Community Development Department. She said those numbers are not surprising, but there are local resources available to help.
“We don’t want folks to feel like they need to be experts in our system,” Root said. “They can call the Housing Helpline and get connected to exactly the right resources that are appropriate for their situation.”
Orange County offers a Housing Helpline available for those in need of rental assistance. The helpline can connect callers to funds or programs.
Since March 2020, the helpline in Orange County has helped more than 1,800 households by distributing $6.8 million. Root said the state and county have worked to streamline the rental assistance process since the pandemic began.
“We’re hopeful that all of that is going to pay dividends now in the form of not seeing this huge tsunami,” Root said. “Of course, we are prepared for the worst and hoping for the best.”
Orange County also tries to help residents avoid filing for eviction by doing proactive outreach through its Housing Helpline to keep people in their homes.
“A lot of my clients are in their homes not just through the end of the month, but a couple months ahead of time in the future,” said Jeanine Soufan, the Eviction Diversion Attorney with Orange County. “They can stabilize their economic situation as well as they return to work and basically get their lives back to stability.”
The goal of the Orange County Housing Helpline is to make accessing these resources as easy as possible, which is increasingly difficult with everchanging regulations around evictions and COVID-19.
That includes the new federal moratorium. If a county starts experiencing a lesser spread, from substantial to moderate, for 14 consecutive days, the moratorium would no longer apply in that county.
Soufan said the shifting moratorium could change how people’s cases are considered in court.
“Right now, as an attorney, I am taking this day by day,” Soufan said. “So it is totally possible that you have a court date in September or at the end of August and this moratorium doesn’t protect you.”
Root said people should still reach out if they are in fear or in need of help, and to let the county’s housing department handle COVID regulations and rental assistance processes.
To contact the Housing Helpline call 919-245-2655 or email HousingHelp@orangecountync.gov.
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