What’s next for Beaufort, Jasper Co. public housing tenants as eviction ban ends?
In early July, Janey Davis, a resident of Sandalwood Terrace, a public housing complex on Hilton Head Island, was falling behind on her rent.
She looked ahead at a cliff — the late-July cutoff of federal protections for renters of many forms of housing, including public housing.
“Someone had referred me” to the Deep Well Project, Davis said. “They were able to help.”
But some of Davis’ neighbors weren’t so fortunate. They’ve received notices that they have until the end of the month to pay back rent — often hundreds or thousands of dollars — or risk losing their homes, she said.
The end of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act’s eviction moratorium, which protected renters in federally funded and backed housing from being removed from their homes, has put at risk of eviction 26 of Beaufort County’s 293 families in public housing and 14 of Jasper County’s 38 families.
Officials from Beaufort Housing Authority and South Carolina Regional Housing Authority No. 3 — which oversees public housing in Jasper and six other counties — sent 30-day notices to delinquent renters after the eviction ban expired July 25. While some have been able to pay, 40 Jasper and Beaufort County public housing renters have not.
The ban went into effect March 27 for four months. In Beaufort County alone, the ban appeared to significantly reduce the number of evictions filed at federally backed properties, including those with Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac loans, and those receiving low-income housing tax credits, housing choice vouchers and other forms of federal aid.
In the 71-day time period after the state eviction ban ended but the federal ban was still in effect, only three evictions were filed by federally backed properties in Beaufort County.
In the two months before the pandemic, 77 evictions were filed at federally backed properties in Beaufort County. During the same time period the previous year, 98 evictions were filed at federally backed properties.
30-day, 14-day notices and evictions
A 30-day notice is not the same as an eviction notice. It is a warning that if the tenant does not pay all the rent owed in a month, eviction proceedings could begin.
The CARES Act required that all federally backed properties issue these notices before evicting a tenant. That means that the first legal proceedings cannot begin until late August.
Public housing tenants in Beaufort County have also started receiving 14-day notices, sent on the sixth of each month, which notify them that if they do not pay their rent or vacate by the 20th, the housing authority will file an eviction in court. Legal proceedings for these cases cannot begin until late August, either.
Forty-three Beaufort County public housing residents have received 14-day notices, including the 26 residents who owe July rent and 17 others who have just recently fallen behind in payments.
One resident at Sandalwood Terrace said she received the 14-day notice on Aug. 6 and initially panicked.
“I kept assuming that I was going to get a job and things would be fine, but things kept dragging on,” said the resident, who requested anonymity, citing privacy concerns.
She gave the Deep Well Project a call, and the agency helped with her rent payment.
She found a job that starts this week.
“I feel a lot better now,” she said. “I cried. They saved my life.”
At risk
Angela Childers, executive director of Beaufort Housing Authority, said that in normal times, about 2% of public housing tenants are at risk of eviction, a figure that includes people who have abandoned their properties and stopped paying rent.
BHA acts as the landlord for 293 public housing units in multifamily housing complexes, including Sandalwood Terrace, Yemassee Heights in Yemassee, Marsh Pointe in Beaufort and Oak Hill Terrace in Port Royal. It also manages 30 single-family properties that are a part of its LowCountry Housing and Redevelopment Corporation and Neighborhood Stabilization Project programs.
Now, with 9% of tenants at least two months behind in rent and another 6% a few weeks behind, Childers said she is searching for ways to help the residents stay in their homes. While the situation is serious, it is not as bad as it could be, she said.
“I’ve heard from other housing authorities across the country (that) there are upwards of 50 to 60 percent that haven’t paid, and then I hear from other housing authorities that there are 7 or 8 percent that haven’t paid,” Childers said. “I think that’s pretty good for us.”
Doris Jamison, director of public housing for Regional Housing Authority No. 3, said that normally, less than 5% of tenants at the authority’s sole Jasper County property, Deer Run in Hardeeville, are delinquent.
As of Aug. 13, 37% were delinquent, she said. The occupants of 14 of Deer Run’s 38 units owe a total of $6,820.50.
Both housing authorities also oversee the allotment of Housing and Urban Development money to housing choice voucher programs, which provide funds to low-income families to rent housing on the private market.
BHA in particular is charged with distributing HUD funding to multifamily housing projects, LIHTC properties and other forms of affordable housing. All of this housing was previously subject to the CARES Act eviction ban, but because they are managed by dozens of private landlords and rental companies, it is difficult to determine just how many tenants are at risk of eviction.
Childers said the housing authority has made residents aware of resources in the community that might be able to help with financial support.
“Most of the time, if we take them to court, they agree to pay, and they pay and they stay,” Childers said.
Back on track
Of the six people who have called the Deep Well Project requesting help with rent at Sandalwood Terrace, two had received 30-day notices, Deep Well executive director Sandy Gillis said.
“As it turns out, both of the people who got those notices ... are people we have not helped recently,” Gillis said. “They’re both people we’re going to bail out now. They seem back on track for now.”
Such a small percentage of tenants in the Beaufort County area are in public housing, Gillis said, that Deep Well usually receives fewer than four calls a month from tenants on the verge of eviction.
Chrystie Turner, vice president of community impact at the United Way of the Lowcountry, also noted that most residents who have called during the pandemic have not been in federal housing. The United Way, she said, has received only one call recently from a Beaufort Housing Authority tenant on the verge of eviction.
“The housing authority adjusts rental amounts depending on household income,” she said. “The rents went down, adjusting accordingly, so we have way more individuals requesting assistance that are not receiving vouchers.”
‘The need is just so tremendous’
Knowing the CARES Act eviction moratorium ended July 25 and weekly federal unemployment benefits ended Aug. 1, Antioch Educational Center executive director Jackie O’Bannon expected calls to flood in from people in need.
“This is the first time I’ve gotten a call at 6:30 in the morning,” she said of the early riser who needed immediate help to halt an eviction on a Monday morning in August. O’Bannon’s group was able to help keep the woman in her home.
In Jasper County, where the situation is more dire, there are fewer nonprofits, Gillis said.
For O’Bannon, that means constant collaboration with other nonprofit groups in the area that have more resources.
“Jasper has always had a lot more challenge than some of its neighboring communities,” she said. “You want to help. You get calls like that everyday. You have to calm people down (and call) different agencies because AEC doesn’t have enough money. The need is just so tremendous.”
AEC refers clients to providers in Beaufort County such as the United Way and the Beaufort Jasper Economic Opportunity Commission.
“Jasper is just next door to Beaufort County,” said Tedd Moyd, executive director of Jasper County Neighbors United, a private affordable housing provider. “But we are totally different.”
None of his tenants is currently behind on rent, Moyd said. He believes that while rental assistance from nonprofit groups helps, it is mostly because renters pay less than a third of their income on rent.
Moyd charges $600 for a one-bedroom apartment, while the fair-market rent — how much one needs to afford decent, safe and sanitary private rental housing — is $813 in Jasper County for the 2021 fiscal year.
“There is not safe, sanitary and decent housing in Jasper County,” Moyd said. “My agency is addressing that issue.”
This article has been updated to reflect that tenants issued 14-day notices cannot be formally evicted until late August.
This story was originally published August 20, 2020 at 7:00 AM.
