Editorial: Mediation needed to stop Hawaii evictions

This is yet another race against time, a hallmark of the ongoing Age of Coronavirus. In Hawaii, thousands of residents have fallen desperately behind in payment of rent and other bills. What has saved them so far is a moratorium on evictions, enforced by the state, to keep people housed with the goal of containing COVID-19 infections.

But the clock is running down on the moratorium. Private social-service advocates and government officials are, with good reason, worried that an enormous wave of homelessness could result.

Other stopgap measures — including the acceleration of efforts by renters to negotiate a deal with landlords — now become critically important. In particular, a measure passed by the Legislature to institute a period in which landlords must give notice and enter into mediation.

House Bill 1376 extends from five business days to 15 calendar days the period for a notice of termination of a lease agreement for failure to pay rent. This provides needed breathing space for settling on a payment plan, if possible. Gov. David Ige should sign the bill into law.

The latest extension of the state’s moratorium, part of Ige’s 19th emergency proclamation signed April 9, will expire June 8.

Further, a federal moratorium authorized by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is under threat of termination. The CDC in September ordered evictions to be put on hold, a moratorium initially set to end Dec. 31, 2020. The new Biden administration extended it through June.

However, on Wednesday federal Judge Dabney Friedrich of the D.C. District Court overturned the federal moratorium, arguing the CDC had overstepped its authority. The Justice Department moved promptly to appeal this ruling, so for the short term the federal policy is in limbo.

It’s also uncertain what Ige will do with the expiration of the state moratorium only a month away. Suffice it to say, at this stage it is protection with a short shelf life.

And it could never be considered a long-term solution. Those collecting the rent have their own bills to pay and need to resume normal management of their property.

There is a robust cache of federal funding intended to provide relief. The first round of federal dollars for renters was authorized under the first program, the CARES Act. On Oahu, the second tranche of the aid amounts to $114 million, more than four times the $25 million Honolulu received from CARES.

The Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement (CNHA) as well as Catholic Charities, both with experience issuing the CARES grants last year, were tapped to administer the funds for the city’s current Rental and Utility Relief Program. That was part of an omnibus bill including another pandemic stimulus package, passed under the Trump administration in December.

The demand was so great that, when applications opened April 5, they closed four hours later, after 8,000 applications came in. There was a lot of capacity-building to do, said Amy Asselbaye, executive director of the city’s Office of Economic Revitalization.

The challenge was largely to staff up, Asselbaye said; the contractors’ staff hired for the first program had to be rehired, along with many more, and all needed training on the updated systems and federal rules.

The lessons learned from Honolulu’s 2020 program include the need to avoid fraud and duplication, she said, starting with the decision to use a single portal for all applications (www.oneoahu.org/renthelp) rather than separate websites run by each contractor.

Sometimes two individuals in a single household would apply separately to increase the chance of getting through; this obviously added to the processing backlog.

There are also systems implemented to help detect fraud — everything from finding where documents have been whited out and inaccurate details added, to uncovering where identity theft or double-dipping in multiple aid programs may have occurred. About half of the initial 8,000 applications turned out to involve a combination of fraud, duplication or incompleteness, Asselbaye said.

Close to 100 people will be on the job soon, she said, once the most recent hires are trained. Kuhio Lewis, CEO of CNHA, said the more than 600 people whose claims were processed surpass the number the contractors had projected, given all the challenges, and he feels encouraged by the progress made.

Clearly, of course, it’s not enough. Expansion and enhancements to the systems must continue so that those needing help the most can be served, and quickly. Priority is rightly assigned to those earning 50% of the area median income or less, and those who were out of work for 90 days or more.

HB 1376 also will help households suddenly finding themselves up against an eviction date, for precious time to seek free mediation toward a payment-plan goal. But if Oahu is going to avoid layering a homelessness avalanche on top of an 18-month-old pandemic, everyone will need to step up to resolve this looming crisis, including the renters themselves. It’s time to make a deal.