Legal aid service has not seen a surge in eviction cases following moratorium’s end
Whitfield said the numbers for October don’t show a surge in eviction cases either, and are actually lower than they were before the pandemic.
HARRISONBURG, Va. (WHSV) - Executive Director of Blue Ridge Legal Services in Harrisonburg John Whitfield was preparing for a flood of evictions cases to come in when the CDC moratorium ended last month. However, he found that is not the case.
“It looks like there is going to be just a trickle instead of a flood,” Whitfield said.
Whitfield said it could be because around the same time as the moratorium’s end, expired protections were re-enacted by the Virginia General Assembly.
“That just sort of changed everything for everybody,” Whitfield said. “It’s been just an up and down, rollercoaster experience for landlords and tenants and the courts and for our attorneys here at Blue Ridge Legal Services.”
Whitfield said some of the evictions previously filed have been pushed off because they were done before these protections kicked in.
The protections require a 14-day notice and a notice of the rental assistance program. Landlords are also required to apply for rental assistance on behalf of tenants before eviction.
“It’s a win-win situation. The landlords will get money that otherwise the tenants probably couldn’t afford to pay. The tenants will continue to have housing and not be homeless and won’t owe that rent and the courts won’t be flooded with evictions,” Whitfield said.
Whitfield said the numbers for October do not show a surge in eviction cases either and are actually lower than they were before the pandemic.
He said this may show that the mitigation steps put in place are working.
Whitfield said Virginia has done a good job of dispersing the rent relief program to those who need it and said they are still looking to spread the word about the program.
Blue Ridge Legal Services has employees available to help community members with an application.
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