Tenants and advocates are calling on lawmakers to do more to protect tenants in the final days of the 2022 General Assembly session — to avoid a repeat of the 2021 session, when several consequential tenant protection measures failed to pass.
Fair housing advocates are particularly pushing a measure that would allow tenants to ask a judge to temporarily delay an eviction if they have applied for rental assistance.
Rent relief funding has been slow to get to many tenants who have applied, leaving some to face eviction while waiting for assistance.
“I applied for rental assistance months ago and I have court on Friday for an eviction and my children and I have no place to go,” Evelyn Estrada, a tenant and member of the immigrant advocacy organization CASA, said at a rally at Lawyers’ Mall outside the State House earlier this week. “We don’t want to get thrown on the street.”
Senate Bill 384, sponsored by Sen. Shelly L. Hettleman (D-Baltimore County) would require a judge to delay eviction proceedings if a tenant can prove they have a pending application for rent assistance. The bill would also allow a judge to delay an eviction, even if the judge has already ruled in favor of the landlord. But it limits the delay to no more than 35 days.
The measure would apply only to tenants with pending rental assistance applications “submitted before or within 30 days after the tenant’s landlord filed a written complaint regarding the failure to pay rent.” Read more at Maryland Matters.
Photo: Evelyn Estrada, a tenant and member of the immigrant rights organization CASA, speaks at a rally on Lawyers’ Mall in Annapolis on Wednesday. Photo courtesy of CASA.
