Britt Macias sleeps in the cramped front seat of her black two-door Monte Carlo Super Sport most nights, her Doberman mix and pit bull taking up the tiny backseat. Macias, 36, became homeless for the first time after she was evicted from a house in south Sacramento last month.

She is one of roughly 600 people who have been evicted during the coronavirus pandemic in Sacramento County despite temporary state protections meant to keep people in their homes, according to Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office data.

“I feel like I’m knocked down worse than ever,” Macias said. “I feel like the ultimate failure.”

Like many eviction cases, hers was complicated and personal. Her landlord is her mother, who evicted her from the house in the city’s Fruitridge Manor neighborhood after she fell behind on rent. Macias has been looking for a job so she can save up for a new place. But just keeping up with basic needs has taken all her energy.

“If I get $50, do I put gas in my car, do I eat or do I pay my phone bill?” she said. “I can’t focus on anything if I’m out here like this.”

The state law only protects renters from being evicted for failing to pay rent, and only if they turn in paperwork that shows their income was impacted by the pandemic. They must also pay at least 25% of their back rent when the moratorium lifts.

Renters who don’t know about the required paperwork or are late turning it in can still be evicted. So can those in other situations, including those who commit minor lease violations or are living in units the owner wants to renovate.

The Sacramento Bee analyzed eviction records kept by the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office, which performs “lockouts” once a case has been cleared through the courts. The “lockouts” touched most corners of the county. But 232 took place in the city of Sacramento — about two out of every five by the end of April. Another 81 renters were put out in Arden Arcade. There were 35 evictions in Carmichael and 25 in Foothill Farms.

Nearly half the evictions — 277 — took place in high poverty communities, which The Bee defined as a census tract with a poverty rate at or above 20%. The county rate is 12.6%. Those areas include sections of North Sacramento, Arden Arcade, La Riviera, Foothill Farms, Citrus Heights and Fruitridge Manor.

Send Us Your News Tips

Here's how to send tips and documents to Sacramento Bee reporters, including via secure communication.

The figures do not include those who left after getting an initial eviction notice and before the sheriff’s office got involved, as most people do, experts say. It also doesn’t account for illegal eviction cases against tenants that never made it to court.

When those evictions are factored in, the real number is likely at least double – and could be as much as 10 times higher, said Tim Thomas, research director for the Urban Displacement Project.

“A couple of times a day, I’m getting a voicemail from someone crying, saying that their landlord is kicking them out or they’ve already been kicked out,” said Jeffrey Pettibone, a tenant attorney who represents Sacramento clients. “It has reached a fever pitch.”

The Bee interviewed eight people who were evicted during the pandemic. None had found new permanent housing.

The state eviction moratorium, Assembly Bill 3088, only protects tenants from being evicted due to nonpayment of rent, and came after Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order in March of last year which banned the enforcement of evictions against renters affected by COVID-19.

As public health officials urged residents to stay home to stem the spread of the virus, some counties adopted ordinances to give tenants added protection on top of the state law, like barring evictions unless there was a health or safety threat or the landlord was taking the unit off the rental market.

San Francisco and Alameda counties, which both adopted ordinances of that type, had a combined 25 evictions from March 19 through Dec. 31, according to sheriff’s department data reported by KQED. During the same time frame, Sacramento County had 244. The state law did appear to protect many renters – about 2,768 renters were served notices in Sacramento during the last 10 months of 2019.

Jennifer Kwart, spokeswoman for Assemblyman David Chiu (D-San Francisco), who sponsored the state eviction moratorium, said cities can adopt ordinances that provide additional protections to the state law. Neither the Sacramento City Council nor the county Board of Supervisors did so, despite pressure from tenant advocates last summer.

“Hearing that number (of evictions), the only word I can think of is ‘heartbreaking,’” City Councilwoman Katie Valenzuela said after she learned of the evictions from a reporter. “That’s 600 households in a pandemic.”

At a January council meeting, Valenzuela, a renter, proposed the city ban evictions during the pandemic unless there was an imminent health or safety risk. But the council did not take action.

Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg said he wants to research the reasons behind the 232 city evictions, and is willing to look into an ordinance with those stronger protections.

“I’m open to anything that will protect people from being unfairly evicted, especially during this time,” he said.

But Cesar Aguirre, a tenant activist with the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, said the city should have adopted the protections more than a year ago, when the pandemic first struck.

“It’s really just showing that our City Council members aren’t seeing the threat the other people are having to live with,” Aguirre said. “And we see it in the numbers.”

Locked out

For Sacramentans who have been evicted — in many cases jobless or underpaid, and with virtually no safety net — the consequences can be devastating and far-reaching. Individuals and families find temporary lodging in motels or in their vehicles. They cram into the apartments of family members or couch surf with friends. Some end up in tents on the street.

“Eviction is absolutely a pathway to homelessness for a lot of people,” said Sarah Ropelato, attorney for Legal Services of Northern California.

Since Alyssa Holurnoy was evicted from her Carmichael duplex in January, she and her five children have been staying in motels, friends’ houses and occasionally in a tent outdoors. Their vehicle was towed, eliminating the possibility for car camping.

“Once I lost the house, pretty much everything fell apart around me pretty quickly,” Holurnoy, 30, said. “Some nights we have to throw up the tent and tell them it’s camping.”

Many renters don’t know that to be covered by the state moratorium, tenants must submit a form called a “declaration of COVID-19 related financial distress” to their landlord.

“All I know was they were saying nobody could be evicted (during the pandemic),” Macias said. “I did not know about this form.”

Even if she had been aware of the form, she still may have been evicted. After Macias’ mother said she was evicting her for nonpayment of rent, Macias tried to give her a check to cover back rent. Her mother refused the check, she said, and kicked her out anyway. Macias’ mother could not be reached for comment.

Both Macias and Holurnoy, who were locked out by sheriff’s deputies, will likely have their evictions show up in future background checks conducted by potential landlords. Evictions can stay on tenants’ records up to ten years, Ropelato said.

“It’s very difficult to find safe and habitable housing with an eviction on your record,” Ropelato said.

Reasons behind evictions

Joshua Howard of the California Apartment Association criticized the broader tenant protections passed by San Francisco and Alameda, saying the laws allowed tenants to “undermine contractual agreements.”

Tenants have been able to sublease without permission or “create a nuisance to their neighbors without any consequence or recourse,” Howard said in a statement.

Even if there were broader tenant protections in Sacramento, it might not make a difference. Landlords are already flagrantly violating renter protections, Pettibone said, changing the locks on homes occupied by tenants who should be covered by the state moratorium. Landlords who have been receiving little to no rent from tenants impacted by COVID-19 are looking to recoup the lost income from the pandemic, he said.

“They’re resentful against a policy that’s putting the public burden on private ownership,” Pettibone said.

Only local news: Crime, weather, traffic and more

Stay on top of Sacramento-area crime and local news in the Local News & Crime Newsletter – sent straight to your inbox, Monday through Saturday.

SIGN UP

Skyrocketing rents in Sacramento could be exacerbating the eviction crisis, spurred by the recent influx of Bay Area residents seeking cheaper prices during the pandemic, Thomas said.

“More people are moving to Sacramento, which can inspire landlords to evict people they normally wouldn’t,” Thomas said.

San Francisco landlords may be kicking out fewer tenants than Sacramento because of costly lawsuits in that city. Illegally evicting a tenant in Sacramento might result in a landlord paying $25,000 in damages, Pettibone said. In San Francisco, a landlord could face paying $50,000 per person for a rental ordinance violation, or as much as $250,000 in the case of an illegal eviction against a family.

That’s a useful deterrent against landlords attempting to circumvent rental laws, such as falsely claiming an eviction was needed for the owner to move in, said San Francisco-based tenant rights attorney Brian Brophy.

“We send a letter and point out the penalties and liabilities, and often they will back down,” Brophy said.

What has been done to prevent evictions

Tenants who face sudden evictions are often left confused and scrambling, with limited ability to fight. Many can’t afford legal support and free services that existed prior to the pandemic have been reduced.

For example, the free in-person clinic at the Carol Miller Justice Center, where most eviction cases are processed, now just has an email and hotline number.

Last summer, Sacramento began funneling millions of dollars of federal COVID-19 relief money toward stipends for residents struggling to pay rent during the pandemic.

So far, the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency — buoyed by about $100 million from the city, county, state and federal government — has distributed free rental assistance to 1,065 households. The agency plans to assist about 12,400 more who applied since then, in addition to those who apply in an ongoing third round.

The city also has a Tenant Protection Program, adopted prior to the coronavirus, which bars evictions unless tenants stop paying rent, are criminally charged, are illegally selling drugs, fail to give landlords access to the unit, or otherwise violate their leases. But the program does not protect renters from eviction who live in units built after Feb. 1, 1995, in single-unit homes, or those who have lived in the unit for less than a year. The council has been discussing ways to strengthen the program, but it’s a lengthy process that has not yet been voted on.

The house Matt Ortiz rents in Oak Park is not covered by the program, since it’s a single-unit home. The 30-day eviction notice he received in March stated a substantial remodel was behind his removal. Finding new housing during the pandemic has been difficult.

“Right now it doesn’t look like there’s a whole lot for rent,” said Ortiz, who’s lived in the house for five years. “Definitely nothing in my price range.”

It’s especially hard to find a new place to rent during COVID-19, with many property managers not giving in-person tours or working on-site to answer their office phones, Ropelato said.

Newsom announced this week he plans to set aside $7.2 billion to help low-income tenants financially impacted by the pandemic pay all of their outstanding rent and utility bills, as well as cover future payments. Though it’s unclear how much debt Californians have accumulated during the pandemic, Newsom said the major relief package is designed to account for the “worst case scenario” outlined in some of the more dire estimates.

Even for those protected by the state rent law, Brophy said, what comes after the moratorium ends will be an entirely new crisis for renters financially impacted by COVID-19. Unless it’s extended again, the state moratorium is set to expire in June. Many renters won’t be able to pay back rent.

“It feels like the water is building up on the levee,” Thomas said. “It’s just going to be a scramble, I think, to evict and get rid of tenants that would’ve been evicted last year.”