Sahar Chmais
The eviction moratorium under the CARES Act ended on July 25, but the pandemic has not eased. On the contrary, COVID-19 infection rates continue to increase and the U.S. unemployment rate is at 11.1%.
Precinct one in San Marcos is a hub of apartment complexes and is home to a plethora of university students. In order to protect renters, the city of San Marcos issued an order on April 7 to help residents against getting evicted if they cannot make rent.
The ordinance requires landlords to provide a Notice of Proposed Eviction prior to giving a notice to vacate. This mandate provides tenants 90 days to cure any delinquency with their landlord if they cannot make payment due to COVID-19.
“From the looks of things,” said Maggie Moreno, Justice of the Peace in Precinct One, “it does seem as though we are seeing more landlords and apartments working with their tenants. I haven’t seen an increase in evictions; it means they probably worked something out.”
Both justices of the peace in precinct one, Moreno and Jo Anne Prado, said they have not been seeing many cases for evictions since the coronavirus was declared a pandemic.
Since the courts reopened, Moreno heard two eviction cases, one was not within city limits, so the eviction ordinance did not apply to this case. The other scenario was brought in due to imminent threat. Judge Prado had a similar situation where she only heard two eviction notices for imminent threat and only executed one eviction.
The city of San Marcos’ eviction order was made to protect the community from the spread of the coronavirus. If people are evicted, they could contribute to the spread of the coronavirus.
Although the CARES Act funds for evictions has ended, San Marcos has its order in place indefinitely, and until there is no longer a declaration for disaster in the city.
