Eviction moratorium on public housing in Tucson to end

The city’s eviction moratorium for residents living in public housing will come to an end this summer, the Tucson City Council voted Tuesday.

Council members halted evictions for public housing the city owns and rents to low-income residents in 2020. It continued the policy far after the CDC’s eviction moratorium ended last summer.

While the city’s eviction moratorium expired on June 30, the council voted 6-1 Tuesday to make it official, with an action plan in place, starting Aug. 1.

About 190 households of the 1,500 housing units the city owns owe $135,356 in unpaid rent from April 1, 2020, through May 31, 2022, according to Tucson’s Housing and Community Development Department.

The department plans to avoid evictions by setting up payment plans and connecting tenants to the Emergency Rental Assistance Program, HCD Director Liz Morales said.

The current rent collection rate among Tucson’s public housing tenants is 79%, and housing officials have faced pressure from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which subsidizes and regulates the city’s public housing program, to step up rent collection.

Public housing tenants with overdue rent balances will begin to incur late fees on Aug. 1, and receive notice of the moratorium’s expiration.

Morales told the council HCD will not start evictions on Aug. 1, but will instead “use that time for education.” On Sept. 20, the department will send out its first eviction notices to unresponsive tenants, she said.

HCD works with residents to determine monthly rent costs based on their incomes. Many tenants are paying rent, Morales said, but the money lost from those who aren’t paying affects the department’s ability to maintain its public housing units.

“HUD will not cover us for loss of rent revenue. So then the whole program is in jeopardy. And so our budgets definitely need that rent revenue to be effective,” Morales said.

Councilmember Richard Fimbres, the sole dissenting vote, said “This is gonna be terrible for us.”

“Everybody’s rents going up, food is costing more, gas is costing more. It’s not the right time, I don’t think, for this,” Fimbres said.

Councilmember Kozachik pointed to the HCD department’s mission to keep people in housing, and that the council’s decision will guide public housing tenants to receive rental assistance without skipping rent payments.

“It’s important to point out that (Morales’) department is not in the business of evicting people. It’s just the reverse of that,”Kozachik said. “So the point is that what what we’re doing is we’re really just telling people work with us.”