EVERETT — The expiration of COVID renter protections has opened a floodgate of eviction cases that threatens to swamp courts, according to the Alliance for Housing Affordability (AHA).
Snohomish County evictions have averaged 180 per month through April, representatives from AHA told an Everett City Council subcommittee in May.
“If it continues at this rate, I’m not sure how we’d be able to keep up in the court system with the attorneys that we have,” said Jane Pak, executive director of Snohomish County Legal Services (SCLS).
Pak’s group offers free legal support for low-income clients facing eviction. AHA, the nonprofit for affordable housing solutions, is formed through an agreement between 15 cities and the county.
The number of eviction cases requiring lawyers, called Right To Counsel cases, has surged since Gov. Jay Inslee’s COVID-era eviction moratorium expired.
There were 368 such cases in Snohomish County during 2022; this year there are projected to be 1,008. Nearly one-third of those cases involve Everett residents.
“What you’re seeing in court with evictions and eviction filings is just the tip of the iceberg,” Pak said.
She cited a study by Matthew Desmond, a Princeton University sociology professor and founder of the Eviction Lab, that cited Everett as “kind of an emerging high-eviction census tract.”
“That is something that is very interesting,” Pak said.
Everett zip codes 98201 and 98204 rank second and fourth, respectively, in the rate of statewide requests for assistance with housing and shelter via the 211 community service resource line.
“While most have put the pandemic behind us, that’s not true for our clients. Most are on a very long road to recovery,” Pak said.
Many SCLS clients face additional barriers, such as a disability, domestic violence, or lack of English proficiency, that further complicate evictions.
A pilot program called Evictions Resolution helped prevent eviction cases from going to court. It concluded in July 2023.
The program encouraged landlords and tenants to work together toward mutually beneficial solutions.
“We were able to help a lot more people get better resolutions,” said Victoria Heit, an SCLS attorney.
The combination of the program and state-mandated steps for landlords bought tenants about 45 days to find new housing before being put into court for eviction.
Now they can be evicted in as few as three days under certain circumstances.
“The majority of our clients are shocked, and they feel very overwhelmed,” Heit said.
She added that a big hurdle for a large portion of SCLS clientele is lack of education.
“They don’t really understand what we’re talking about sometimes due to their educational level of understanding,” she said.
Heit noted that a high percentage of evictions were defaulted. “Defaulted means failure to respond. And that means the sheriffs are coming,” she said. “That’s when they reach out.”
This creates stress on SCLS attorneys, who treat such cases as emergencies.
“We drop everything. It’s a huge burden on my team,” Pak said. “A lot of it could be mitigated or is preventable.”
Mitigation could include working out a payment plan for owed rent or granting tenants more time to find new accommodations.
Eviction filings mar renters’ records, even if the case is settled. And evictions also stress other holistic support services such as food banks and homeless shelters.
“Where are (evictees) gonna go? We don’t have enough housing,” Pak said. “It’s best to keep them housed. That’s the goal of what we do.”
