Evictions increase in Allen County after moratorium ends

Many people are facing losing their homes after the state’s moratorium ended last month.

Petroviak.

Thanks for joining us.

Tonight many people are facing losing their homes after the states moratorium ended last month.research shows fort wayne ranks 13th in the nation for evictions and that was before the pandemic.

Fox 55's jentill neal talked to people who work with those facing evictions and tells us more about this growing problem that will not be slowing up anytime soon.

Jentill?hunter, the state moratorium ended at midnight august 14.

Allen county small claims says august 15 th through september 14- 508 eviction cases were filed so far.

The allen county small claims department says since the beginning of the year a total of 1,621 eviction cases have been filed.

- and 508 of those came after the state ended its moratorium>17:53:30-17:53:50 "we find of the renters we have here in allen county and there's 39,000 rental households in allen county.

59% of them are rent burdened.

That means they are paying of their monthly gross income, they are paying 30% in just rent alone."even though housing is considered affordable compared to other states, vaughn says for many ther a large gap between income and the cost of living.

754 eviction cases have already been decided and 867 cases are pending.

Attorney andrew thomas says there is something in place now that could help slow up the numbers of cases called a tenant declaration.

It's put in place by the cdc.17:48:34-17:49:01" this declaration says under oath several things.

The tenant would say i have tried to get rental assistance.

I have tried to make my payments but i haven't made money because i lost income."then under the cdc's moratorium..

The landlord under criminal, federal penalties must not take action to evict that tenant.but many do not know that's in place and there have been a spike in informal evictions.17:47:23-17:47:36"we have seen a drastic uptick in those kind of cases.

Fortunatley they are still low in comparison to the overall picture but they are much more than we've seen in the past."

An informal eviction looks like turning off utilities if someone doesn't pay rent.

This is also illegal.

Attorney thomas says really communicate with your landlord to avoid going to court if you can.reporting live jentill neal..

Fox 55