CHARLESTON, W.Va. - West Virginia's court system has reopened, after being closed to limit the spread of the new coronavirus. Now, advocates for renters are bracing for a flood of evictions, from people financially strapped because of job loss in the pandemic.

Ellen Allen - executive director of Covenant House, a homeless shelter and resource center in Charleston - says it's too soon to see an overall rise in evictions, since housing courts reopened just three weeks ago.

But her center was swamped with eviction cases from March to May. She says Covenant House is also getting many calls from people who have never before faced eviction - until this month.

"I think you will see homelessness increase, and they would be new homeless," says Allen. "People who were used to living paycheck to paycheck. But now, because of a partial economy, I think we're going to see more people experience homelessness for the first time."

This week, the West Virginia Community Action Partnership received a grant from the Veteran's Administration of over a million dollars to provide housing services for homeless and evicted veterans.

Legal Aid of West Virginia also is offering help to people facing eviction. Start online at 'LAWV.net.'

Allen says much more government funding is needed to tackle the rise in homelessness expected from the pandemic. She says her group alone has seen its caseload rise by about 25% since March, and they're still waiting on federal dollars to support the extra cases and continue their work.

"We need federal housing assistance money to flow into our communities," says Allen. "That's what communities need. If we're going to build a resilient community and economy during and post-COVID-19, this housing money needs to flow."

From 2000 to 2016, West Virginia had a 3.5% eviction rate, according to the Eviction Lab at Princeton University. The town of Berkeley Springs in Morgan County had the highest rate in the state, at about 15%. Rates in Martinsburg and Middleway are over 10%.


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In the first six months of this year, the U.S. saw a significant jump in foreclosure filings, coinciding with concerns about the pressure inflation is putting on homeowners.

A national tracking firm recently reported nearly 165,000 U.S. properties with foreclosure filings, more than double the same time last year. The uptick follows the expiration of pandemic moratoriums and forbearance programs, but analysts say spikes in consumer costs are not helping.

Joe Mahon, regional outreach director for the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, said it affects borrowers in different ways.

"It causes people to cut back on the more discretionary parts of their budget," Mahon observed. "If you're low income, you don't necessarily have a lot of discretionary spending, so there's not necessarily a lot of room to cut."

Mahon pointed out even though wages have been rising sharply, they have not kept up with inflation, hurting a person's chances to get caught up on budget concerns, such as overdue payments.

Around the state, the Minnesota Homeownership Center has partnerships with nearly 20 organizations offering free financial counseling to avoid foreclosure.

While gas prices have been trending downward, Mahon noted they are still higher than they were a year ago and homeowners might also be reeling from other energy price hikes, including natural gas and the cost of heating their home.

"Unless we see a dramatic reversal in natural gas and heating oil prices, expect higher heating costs this winter, as well," Mahon cautioned. "That's one of those things that you can only trim your spending on that so much."

As for foreclosure filings, Minnesota is in the middle pack among states for the first half of 2022, during which the real estate data company ATTOM said more than 2,100 properties around the state were in foreclosure.

Washingtonians are feeling the squeeze from high housing prices, but a novel concept launching in Spokane could speed up the creation of affordable housing.

The Spokane Low Income Housing Consortium (SLIHC) is creating a land bank to acquire land and set it aside for affordable housing. The land bank was launched in part with a $45,000 grant from the GoWest Foundation, which works with credit unions in the West.

Ezra Eckhardt, president of STCU, formerly the Spokane Teachers Credit Union, which is part of the land-bank effort, explained the program's goals.

"SLIHC would be the centerpiece of a clearinghouse to acquire both public and private land, with the specific intent of building affordable housing and workforce housing to support the needs of the community," Eckhardt stated.

Eckhardt pointed out the land bank, as a nonprofit organization, can acquire surplus property at discounted values more easily than individuals.

The completion of the North Spokane Corridor in the next five years is expected to free up parcels of land for affordable housing. Eckhardt argued it is also important to construct high-density housing outside of highway corridors, where it is typically located.

"We want to take a mindful eye on how the projects themselves are sourced and located using the concept of the land bank to tap into all of the available surplus land that is located here in our community," Eckhardt emphasized.

Even so, Eckhardt noted the region still is years away from fixing its housing woes.

"The land bank is a good, innovative idea," Eckhardt stressed. "We look forward to finding other ideas to be able to support that, and accelerate the timeline on the construction projects."

With Virginia's Rent Relief Program ending, a flood of eviction cases has emerged.

Established during the pandemic, the program was designed to help tenants who were having trouble paying their rent, but it stopped accepting applications in mid-May. Prior to the closure, landlords could have informed tenants who were behind on their rent about the program, and could even apply for it on their behalf.

Christie Marra, director of housing advocacy for the Virginia Poverty Law Center, said when she spoke with tenants, she found something entirely different.

"They have filed all their paperwork to get the emergency rental assistance," Marra observed. "And when they call to check on the status of their application because they have an eviction hearing coming up, the people who run the program tell them that they haven't received the necessary paperwork from the landlord."

The Rent Relief Program has also seen delays in processing applications. Marra feels some problems could be prevented if landlords continued to give tenants a 14-day grace period. The grace period put in place by the legislature ended June 30. Marra cited the growing number of eviction cases as a good reason for an ongoing rental assistance program in the state.

Another factor in the eviction spike is a lack of affordable housing for Virginia renters. According to the National Low-Income Housing Coalition, a person working at the state minimum wage of $9.50 an hour would have to work 88 hours a week to afford a one-bedroom apartment at the average market rate of just over $1,000 a month.

Marra believes the height of the pandemic was a better time for tenant law.

"I think we have a system that I think everybody now knows is not tenant-friendly," Marra asserted. "It became more tenant-friendly during the pandemic. But unfortunately, most of the improvements that were made to the landlord-tenant law in Virginia during the pandemic were time-limited, and they expired."

She added Virginia renters would also benefit from a state-funded housing voucher program, and more funding allocated for the federal Housing Choice voucher program.