In late April, the landlord at 2929 Dunvale Apartments—a garden-style apartment complex in Midwest Houston with one-bedroom apartments starting at $700 a month—filed to evict six tenants. A month later, seven tenants at Concord at Little York, a three-story complex tucked behind I-45 in North Houston, were hit with eviction filings. Between May 26 and June 17, the property manager at Inwood Grove, a tree-studded property in northwest Houston, filed to evict 17 households.
All of these cases appear to be in violation of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, which prohibits landlords from filing for eviction at properties that benefit from federal subsidies until July 25. The CARES Act covers properties with federally backed mortgages as well as any that participate in federal housing assistance programs, including housing choice vouchers or low-income housing tax credits. It also gives renters an additional 30 days, until August 24, to vacate their unit.
These protections were intended to stabilize renters impacted by the coronavirus pandemic and to prevent widespread homelessness—since mid-March, 2.5 million Texans have filed for unemployment benefits. But the law did not lay out a mechanism for enforcement, nor did it specify how tenants or landlords could find out if their property was protected. Since the CARES Act went into effect on March 27, landlords in Texas have been violating it with impunity, says Eric Kwartler, a public interest attorney at South Texas College of Law Houston. “The law is not being followed,” he says. “That’s demonstrable.”
