Michael Pope

I'm Michael Pope.

Thomas Bowman

And I'm Thomas Bowman.

Michael Pope

And this is still Transition Virginia, at least for now.

Thomas Bowman

Later in the show, we'll interview Christine Marra at the Virginia Poverty Law Center about the upcoming wave of evictions we can expect. But first, Michael, is that new music I hear?

Michael Pope

Yeah, we're changing things up a bit. What do you think?

Thomas Bowman

Hey, to quote one of our Twitter followers, @EthanHGardner, "This is dope. I like it, man."

Michael Pope

This is dope. Yeah, I'm hoping eventually for season three, we'll be able to afford some new music. And that brings me to our Patreon. Now in our last episode, we hit the mother load, the phones were ringing off the hook after our fun drive. And we had nine new Patreons. So as a special treat for those Patreons, we've launched a new channel for supporters to hear exclusive content.

Thomas Bowman

And Michael, it's been very well received. Everybody who's interacted with it has had nothing but good things to say about it. So I think it's a hit.

Michael Pope

Of course.

Thomas Bowman

Yeah, of course. It's a hit.

Michael Pope

It is a hit. It is pretty dope too, to quote one of our fans.

Thomas Bowman

Yeah. So it was fun to record. We're going to do more of that and keep an eye out, patreons, for more of the same, but better.

Michael Pope

Hey, Thomas, do we have any new Patreons this week?

Thomas Bowman

As a matter of fact, we do. We have two new friends of the show to thank, Seth S. and Kyle L. Thank you so much for signing up to be Patreons that support this show.

Michael Pope

Thank you to our new Patreon's. We could not do this show without your support, so we really appreciate it. Now speaking of Patreons, we also have a new sponsor that we want to hear from, but you know, Thomas, I'm not really sure about this new sponsor. It's Victor Evictor's United.

Steve Artley

Howdy friends, I have some free news. The conservative majority Supreme Court ruled that that pesky pandemic eviction moratorium was lifted. Now you can legally clean house of those deadbeat freeloaders occupying your properties and cast are unfortunate butts out on the street. My collecting was a chore before and your payment never made it to my bank before. SCOTUS rules allow your eviction now, putting you on the streets where you live. This message is brought to you by Victor Evictor's United, who is solely responsible for its content.

Thomas Bowman

Michael, we really need some quality control over these sponsors.

Michael Pope

Yeah, we do need some quality control. That was the one, the only, award winning editorial cartoonist Steve Artley, who is, yet again, contributing to the podcast with another song and something really was moving, was really kind of deeply moving.

Thomas Bowman

This is fun. Thanks again, Steve. You know, it's really great of him to keep doing this. He is a big deal, too.

Michael Pope

He is. Okay, let's get on to the news. Thomas, reparations may be on the way, here in Virginia, for families who have been cheated out of generational wealth. Delegate Jeff Bourne and Senator Ghazala Hashmi are working together on a proposal for reparative home ownership. The idea is to help people whose ancestors were cheated out of home ownership. Now I spoke to Delegate Bourne this week about the proposal and this is what he said about people who might benefit from it.

Jeff Bourne

People who have ancestors whose homes were taken through eminent domain for highway construction, or other urban renewal projects, without fair, appropriate, and just compensation. You know, folks who have ancestors who lost farmland they own because of discrimination, in private mining or government lending or other policies and practices.

Michael Pope

Senator Ghazala Hashmi says, "Many families have heartbreaking stories about how systemic racism has robbed them of generational wealth."

Ghazala Hashmi

Redlining pushed many communities out of the Richmond market. There were race restricted seats in terms of home ownership. Mortgages, oftentimes, were denied to people on the base of race.

Michael Pope

Now the initial pilot program here that Bourne and Hashmi are working together on, would be somewhere between like $15 million and $20 million for the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area. Get this dollar amount, Thomas. Qualifying families could end up receiving as much as $125,000 per household. Bourne and Hashmi want to roll this out in Richmond first, but then ultimately, in other communities across Virginia, and eventually, have a statewide program for Reparations aimed at policies around land use and lending.

Thomas Bowman

I think it's a great idea, Michael, and Hashmi is proving, once again, why she is one of my favorite state senators, because she pulls through, and Jeff Bourne, too. They're pulling through on tough issues, traditionally tough issues, at least, like this one, and I'm I'm all for it, do it.

Michael Pope

You know, it is really interesting, when you talk about Reparations, it seems like this kind of abstract concept where you would like cut a check for a certain dollar amount to like, let's say, every African American person in Virginia, which seems sort of unworkable, and not necessarily productive. This is actually aimed, sort of, much more narrowly at systemic racism, and redlining, and the problem of generational wealth. And the way this thing has been crafted is specifically aimed sort of right at the historical problems of systemic racism, and the way it's manifested in like land use policy, and lending, in terms of the banking community.

Thomas Bowman

Yeah, the top domestic priority for all governments, right now, should be building household wealth, because we need people to build that household wealth, in order to be engaged in the political system, and economic system, too. And we're missing out on scores of opportunities to empower more people to build our economy because they have to work day in and day out, if they can, multiple jobs, just to pay the bills, and nobody can pay rent, anymore, on one minimum wage job, and sometimes not even two minimum wage jobs. So where are you going to build that wealth, when you can't quit your minimum wage job to take a risk on a better one? So you've got to address systemic poverty, and help families build their wealth.

Michael Pope

You know, I'm thinking about what this debate might end up looking like in the next General Assembly session, and what the opposition to it might be. And I can imagine people voicing opposition along the lines of, "Well, just because your ancestors were wronged, doesn't mean that you should be the beneficiary of that." Right? So do you think that's an argument that would have purchase in the General Assembly?

Thomas Bowman

Well, it's definitely an argument, you're going to hear, Michael, and we can expect it because it comes up every time somebody mentions Reparations. But here's how I would frame it. They do deserve to be the beneficiary of these reparations because we are the beneficiary of the legacy slave system that our forefathers created. And nobody, who's born today, signed up for this. And there is no reason to defend the actions of our great grandparents and beyond. So what we can do now is to make sure that the people whose families were wronged are, I mean, you can never make them whole, not in this generation. But in the future, we can give them a leg up so that they can have kids, and grandkids, who can absolutely compete as equals in this economy and in politics.

Michael Pope

Well, we're a long way off from this discussion. This is kind of a preview of coming attractions, in a way, because this is a bill that, of course, will be debated in January of 2022. So put that on your calendar for the future.

Thomas Bowman

I'm excited.

Michael Pope

But as for now, it's time to move on to your voicemails. Yes, that's right. If you want your voicemail featured here on Transition Virginia, it's really easy to do. Just record some audio of you reacting to something you've heard on the show and send it to TransitionVApodcast@gmail.com. Now this week's voicemail is from friend of the show, Brian Devine. He has some thoughts about our recent discussion about the Democratic Primary.

Brian Devine

For me, some of the framing of the races being Establishment versus liberal, or left to progressive isn't entirely accurate. So the most liberal people in the party are people who've been around for a while, people who've been, you know, fighting and working in politics for 10,15,20,30, etc. years, and we deemed quote, unquote, Establishment. So just because the challenger is younger or newer to politics, it doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to be more left than the incumbent, especially in the House of Delegates.

Michael Pope

When Democrats have challengers, I think, oftentimes the knee jerk assumption is that the challenge is from the left, but as Brian Devine points out, that's not always the case. Thomas, is it a mistake to think about a challenge to someone like Alfonso Lopez, for example, as a progressive challenge?

Thomas Bowman

Yeah. And just because it's true often, and it winds up being the prevailing narrative, doesn't mean it's true all the time. So I'm thinking about back to 2014, when people like then Delegate, Scott Surovell, Delegate Patrick Hope, they were founding members of the Progressive Caucus, for the House Democrats, and today, there are people way farther left than them, of course, but not nearly as effective. The way I would frame it is not so much, frankly, left versus right, because everybody is, more or less, voting the same way. And I understand that's not always true, but generally speaking. The way I would frame it, is that you are having debates of style, because there are a lot of rightfully angry, newly engaged voters who are waking up for the first time from the era of Donald Trump and saying, "Hey, you know, everything screwed up. We gotta, we got to fix this. And we got to fix it right now. We don't have time to wait." And they're right, the climates on fire, for example. You know, we've had an attempted civil war on January sixth, recently. So from that perspective, they're absolutely right. We don't have time to wait on the go along, get along, establishment kind of politics. But there's a counter to that, Michael. And the counter is that the people who have been there the longest, tend to know how to push effectively for the change that's required. Because if you replace them, you have to start all over from scratch on building that institutional knowledge and seniority, which is a prerequisite in our system.

Michael Pope

So you know, I'm thinking back to the incumbents who lost, in terms of the Democrats, Steve Heretick, Ibraheem Samirah, Lee Carter, Mark Levine. And I'm not really getting a sense that any of those incumbents were unseated by progressive challengers to the left, or were they?

Thomas Bowman

With the exception of Steve Heretick, but no, that's absolutely right. And there's actually a counter narrative that's forming right now, of the progressives, and far left of the Democratic Party, are getting pushed out, or boxed out, from positions of leadership within the DPPA, within the caucus leadership positions, and machinations. And again, what they're really trying to do is to make sure, in my opinion, at least, that it's populated by people who actually know what they're doing, to be able to use that leadership effectively. But there is, of course, they're human beings. So there's going to be a little bit of tit for tat. And there's some people who like to fight their wars on Twitter and kind of forget that the real battle is right in front of your face.

Michael Pope

You know, you mentioned earlier matter of style, and I'm thinking about the House District that I live in, which is House District 45, currently represented by Mark Levine, he lost his primary to Elizabeth Bennett-Parker. I have interviewed both Levine and Bennett-Parker about their policy positions, and they are identical, Thomas, right. There's like literally no daylight between them.

Thomas Bowman

Yeah, of course.

Michael Pope

Even on the most extreme issues where like Mark Levine wants to require gun owners to like register their guns with the state, which is a position so on the extreme end of the progressive Democrats, that they're not even talking about it like in terms of...they don't even want to introduce legislation because they don't want to have the debate. It's like that far, sort of in the extreme. Elizabeth Bennett-Parker is right there along with that policy proposal. Like there's literally no daylight at all, between Mark Levine and Elizabeth Bennett-Parker. It's really, for the voters, it was really all about style. Do you want the aggressive progressive, who's constantly going to be making these speeches, and sending out these incendiary email requests for money? Or do you want another style, that seems more willing to talk, and sit down, and you know, work with the other side and that's all stuff....It's not policy. That's a style question. And so I think, you know, the victory of Elizabeth Bennett-Parker over Mark Levine kind of fits in with this narrative that you're talking about, in terms of, you know, what kind of style does the successful primary winner have in our modern context?

Thomas Bowman

Yeah. And you know, in the case of Mark Levine, when he won in 2015, he was the most talked about new freshmen member among the Republican Caucus in 2015. And the reason for that is because he just lit their hair on fire. And, you know, Mark Levine would tell you, and probably rightly, that there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, because that's what he wants.

Michael Pope

He's the aggressive progressive, right?

Thomas Bowman

Right.

Michael Pope

That's his brand.

Thomas Bowman

Right. But there are real world consequences to waking up in the morning and choosing to poke your opponent in the eye. And it's not that you should or should not do it, it's that you need to understand what's going to happen when you do. And Mark Levine was somebody who likes to talk first and think second.

Michael Pope

He would take issue with that.

Thomas Bowman

Of course he would. Obviously he would. But that's who he is.

Michael Pope

I spent a lot of time talking to Mark Levine on the phone and like his whole style, is that he's already thought all this through, and now he's going to sort of educate you.

Thomas Bowman

Right. And nobody likes the smartest guy in the room. So you know, that is just evidence that he hasn't thought it through. He's not acting strategically. And he'd never acted strategically. He sent out a fundraising email calling the Republicans, "murderers," when they...excuse me, it was not a fundraising email, because you're not allowed to fundraise in the middle of Session, but he sent out a message calling the Republicans, "murderers," because they killed all the gun bills. Now, I mean, I get the sentiment, you know, personally, as a Democrat, I was just as angry as he was. But you know, what I wasn't doing, was writing inflammatory fundraising emails to, for no purpose, just to Jen up people who are already voting for me, at the risk of having all of your legislation killed.

Michael Pope

You know what? I'm glad you brought that up, Thomas, because there was a debate going on back then that I'm still kind of curious about, which is a lot of Republicans who were mad about that particular email you're talking about, raised this issue of, he didn't send that to his political list, he sent that to his constituent list. Is that a valid distinction? I mean, like do people who are in elective office have two lists, and one of them is their political list. And the other is their constituent lists. And they send different kinds of things to one list and not the other list.

Thomas Bowman

I mean, so we're talking about state politicians here. And one staffer said their lists are going to be as sophisticated as they are. And I don't know what list he sent it to, or didn't send it to, I don't recall. But the reality is, it's often like built from the same master list. So if you're using NGP, you're putting every single contact you have into your database, and then you're tagging them with maybe an issue that, you know they care about, or, you know, their zip code or their school.

Michael Pope

So there's not really a valid distinction. There's not really any distinction worth mentioning there between those two lists?

Thomas Bowman

No, and the Republicans know that. They're just trying to take issue because they were- they had hurt feelings. And of course, there's always a smarter way to send out a blast email. Frankly, in Mark Levine's case, he shouldn't have done it at all, because what he did was soured his relationship with everybody on the other side of the aisle that he needed to have at least one or two of their votes in every committee meeting to get anything he wanted done. And so what happened is that for the duration of his time as an elected official, representing Alexandria, Alexandria was effectively voiceless at the General Assembly, as long as the Democrats were in the minority.

Michael Pope

So new and young is not the same thing as progressive. Just because you're not the incumbent and you're younger the incumbent, does not mean, necessarily, that you're more progressive. This is Brian Devine is trying to say. Are there any other examples that we can think of, especially on the House side, I think things work differently on the Senate side. But like in terms of the House side, sort of being the longest serving members, you know, who are probably more progressive than anyone who could challenge them?

Thomas Bowman

I would point right to Ken Plum, and somebody did try to challenge Ken Plum, and they both did an interview on a local Reston podcast. And Ken Plum, very clearly, knew exactly what needed to be done, and how to do it. And now that doesn't mean he has every single vote, because he's just one out of 100 members. But his opponent didn't even know where to start, and apparently, didn't even know that Ken Plum was already one of the most liberal members of the House. I mean, he was anti gun before it was cool to be anti gun. When he started, I think it was in the 70s...

Michael Pope

Yeah, late 70s. Yep.

Thomas Bowman

Yeah, he's number one in seniority down there. So when he started, he came in like as an anti machine, Democrat and the machine still was Democrat by then. So you know, Ken Plum has been walking the walk, and talking the talk, longer than most people listening to this podcast have been alive. Well, you know, I could go on on this subject forever, Michael, if you wanted me to, but I think we should take a break because we've got a great interview. When we come back, we'll talk to Christine Marra at the Virginia Poverty Law Center about the eviction crisis.

Michael Pope

We're back on Transition Virginia and we're going to talk about the eviction crisis. That federal moratorium that protected renters from homelessness, that's a thing of the past, it ended last month.

Thomas Bowman

That means the clock is ticking for renters across Virginia. Landlords want to get rid of tenants who haven't paid up since the pandemic started. To dig into it, we're joined by the Director of Housing Advocacy for the Virginia Poverty Law Center. Christie Marra. Thanks for joining us, Christie.

Christie Marra

Thank you, Michael and Thomas. It's great to be here with you. And I'm so glad you are really focusing on this very important issue.

Michael Pope

Well, I want to start with the controversy around the word, "moratorium." Now when I pick up the New York Times, it says we had an eviction moratorium. When I listen to NPR, they talk about the eviction moratorium. You don't like that word. Explain your problem with the word, "moratorium?"

Christie Marra

A moratorium indicates that everything is stopped. You can't do it. You cannot evict anyone, any tenant, during an eviction moratorium. There has never been 100% protection for tenants, at least not nationally, and not in Virginia, since the judicial emergency order was pared down, if you will, in May of 2020. So one thing that came along with Governor Northam's issuance of the State of Emergency Order on March the 16th, I believe it was, soon after that, the Supreme Court issued a Judicial Emergency Order, and that did put a complete moratorium on all non emergency cases. And after some advocacy that was determined to include evictions. That changed and then May of 2020, courts around the Commonwealth started hearing eviction cases. And, back to the original question, and the moratorium that was ultimately somewhat declared by the CDC and by the state of Virginia, only covered non payment of rent cases.

Michael Pope

Now, your advocacy organization is focused on renters who might not be able to pay their rent and making sure they have legal representation. I want to ask you about the other side of this equation, which is the landlords. During the Special Session, the Senate was debating whether or not they wanted to require landlords apply for federal assistance before they evict anyone. Senator Chap Peterson, this is a Democrat from Fairfax City, and he was saying that's a lot of hassle to put landlords through. This as part of our conversation.

Chap Peterson

Why not just require people to follow the terms of the lease?

Michael Pope

This money is out there and it is available? What's wrong with making sure the landlord tries to get that money before evicting anybody?

Chap Peterson

Well, I think there's a lot of problems with it. First of all, you could have people that have been living in a property for two years without paying rent. At some point, you've got to give landlords a remedy to take their property back. Living two years without paying rent is too long in my book, maybe it's not, it's okay in your book. Not okay in my book. And to me, if someone's been the landlord for that long and has not been paid rent, I think they have a right to take the property back.

Michael Pope

From the landlord's perspective, the landlord wants money, right? They can either get it from the tenant or from the federal government. What's wrong with getting the money from just a different source other than the tenant?

Chap Peterson

Well, for one thing, the landlord oftentimes wants the property back. Because again, you're dealing with a situation where you have someone who's not paying rent. That's not a healthy situation if you're a landlord. Plus, you seem to think that applying to the federal government is no fuss, no muss, and they'll just open up your application and write you a check that day. Doesn't work that way. You know, oftentimes, there's a long waiting response, you have landlords that may not speak English as the first language, they got to go out and hire an attorney to do this, or get some third party to do it. Again, why not just hold people to the terms of their contracts? What's, what's so scary about that?

Michael Pope

Christie Marra, what's so scary about holding renters to the terms of their contract?

Christie Marra

The scary thing, Michael, is that so many renters have lost their jobs, through no fault of their own because of this pandemic, haven't been able to get new jobs, through no fault of their own because of this pandemic, and cannot pay that rent out of their own pockets. So the scary thing is that you would have 1000s, if not, 10s of 1000s of people put out on the street, doubling up with family, living in congregate care, all of which will most likely lead to another spike in COVID infections. That's the last thing we need as this delta variant is speeding across the state and the country. I'd also like to address what I see as just a lack of information reflected in Senator Peterson's statement, and I don't blame him for that. I actually credit the state for making changes quickly in response to concerns and complaints that they hear from landlords and from tenants. So we have heard that there are some smaller landlords, and I know Senator Peterson pretty well, and I know he has particular concern for small landlords. And I understand that, but as of July, there are new positions funded by federal dollars, federal emergency rent relief dollars, called rental assistance navigators or similar terms. At nonprofits like Catholic Charities, and Southside Community Development Center in Richmond, who will help landlords apply for this money. They can actually complete the application for the landlord. And then if the landlord isn't getting his or her money in a timely fashion, those assistants will work with Virginia Housing, or the Department of Housing Community Development, whoever is administering the funds, to get that money to the landlord's in time for them to make their mortgage payment. So that's the biggest thing that I think Senator Peterson didn't know about. And that maybe would have changed his statement, I don't know. But I think it definitely should change the way that the rest of us look at the landlord's responsibility. Nobody is saying they're in this spot on their own. The other thing I'll say is that there is more balance to what the Senate did in the budget than Senator Peterson's statement would lead you to believe. There is a deadline. We didn't want this deadline. But there is a deadline. If that funding isn't approved within 45 days of when the application, initial application, is submitted for rental assistance, the landlord can move forward with an eviction. That's where a first time they apply. And then because they're so confident that upon second or third application, everything will run much smoother. The landlord only has to wait 14 days to get his application approved. So there are lots of safeguards in place for landlords. This is not something that was done willy nilly at the request of tenant advocates, believe me.

Thomas Bowman

Christie, across the country, about 89% of federal rental assistance money is untapped. What do Virginia's numbers look like?

Christie Marra

Virginia's numbers are the best in the country per capita. That the beginning of August, during this Special Session of the Virginia legislature, I got data from the woman who heads the Rent Relief Program for the Department of Housing and Community Development at the state level. And according to the data she provided, which I think relied, in part, on the Treasury, U.S. Treasury data, even though Virginia received only about one or 2% of the total amount of rental assistance that has come to the states from the federal government, of the very small amount, which I think at the time was slightly over 3 billion that has been paid out nationwide, to landlords, Virginia has paid out 9% of that. So even though I know Texas may have more dollars going into landlord accounts, and be seen as the number one in the nation with Virginia right behind it at number two, I believe that per capita, we are doing the best in the country of getting this rental assistance out.

Michael Pope

I want to ask you about our short term reality and then the long term future. I was speaking with Steve Haner, at the Thomas Jefferson Institute about what it will look like once landlords can finally evict tenants, which is on the horizon. We're talking about in the next few weeks, sort of that first wave of evictions, post moratorium, so called moratorium, will start. He had a prediction about sort of what we'll see in the short term, and then also, you might be interested in his comments about what we can expect for the long term. This is Steven Haner of the Thomas Jefferson Institute.

Steve Haner

There will be a rush at the beginning as some people either can't qualify for the grant, or don't want the grant, or have other problems like damage to the property, or drugs on the property that the landlord is citing for evictions. And there's, I think there's a big backlog of cases and the first period will probably be pretty rugged. But in the long run, I think the changes Virginia has made will make eviction harder, two years from now, four years from now, five years from now, six years from now. And you will see fewer evictions than you used to.

Michael Pope

So, Christie Marra, of the Virginia Poverty Law Center, I want you to react to both of those things, the from his perspective, the short term reality of a situation that will be, "rugged," to use his word. But then also, I thought it was really interesting, his perspective, of in the long term, Virginia will see fewer evictions because of all these changes that are going on right now. What do you make of that?

Christie Marra

So let me start with the second one. I do hope that some of the positive changes that were made by the legislature over the past year, year and a half, will reduce evictions moving forward. But I need to point out that according to national groups like the National Housing Law Project, Virginia is still in the middle of the pack of states when it comes to the strength of its tenant protections. So we have started down that road and I am very appreciative not only of the legislators who saw the need to pass these protections for tenants, but also the stakeholders in the landlord advocacy community who sat down with us and worked through the details of some of these additional protections, like the leaders of the Virginia Association of Realtors, you know. So this is, these protections have been something that not everybody has agreed on. But we've definitely had stakeholders from both sides of the landlord tenant equation working on that, still a long way to go. As for the short term, let me first reiterate that, contrary to the quote you just heard, there will not be a sudden rush to evict tenants based on violations of leases that have nothing to do with non payment. You heard him talk about drugs, and you've heard him talk about damages to the property. If tenants were engaging in that type of lease violation, a year ago, six months ago, eight months ago, there was no barrier to the landlord moving forward with an eviction action. So any landlord who has not evicted those tenants, to the potential detriment of his other tenants who are law abiding, is creating that problem himself or herself. As for whether there will be a big rush to the courthouse, we are concerned about that, for the nonpayment cases. We are particularly concerned about the period of time between June 30 and August 10, when there's these these additional protections of requiring landlords to give notice of rental assistance and apply for that. They were gone for those five or six weeks. The important thing to know here is that tenants, even if their landlord started the eviction case during that time, are still protected by the August 10th budget, if they haven't gotten evicted yet. That's important. But yes, that's the group of people we are extremely worried about. And we're worried about any slowness in the landlord's learning that these protections are back in place.

Thomas Bowman

So according to the Brookings Institution, 30 to 40 million people in the U.S. are at risk of being kicked out of their homes. And CNBC says that more than 10 million Americans are behind on their rent. Yes, in Richmond alone, there's been over 7500 eviction filings just since the start of the pandemic, just Richmond. That figure comes from the Virginia Pilot. And across the United States, around 20% of renters are Black, but 33% of eviction filings are against Black renters. So Christie, what's the profile of a person who is at risk for eviction in Virginia?

Christie Marra

So I think you've hit on it, Thomas. I think that they are more likely to be Black, they are more likely to be female, they are more likely to be mothers, single mothers. We have data that shows this, not just in Richmond, but throughout the country. They are more likely to be paying more than 30% of their income toward rent. I mean, one of the things that people have sort of stopped talking about, and we were talking about it more at the beginning of the pandemic, is that a big part of why this is so difficult for people in Virginia, is because rents are unaffordable in many parts of Virginia, certainly up in Northern Virginia. You see a lot of renter's paying up to 50% of their monthly gross income on rent and utilities, and that is not sustainable.

Michael Pope

I know there's an accepted cap on the percentage of your income that you're supposed to pay in rent, what is that number?

Christie Marra

According to HUD, it's no more than 30% of your monthly gross income.

Michael Pope

And we've seen people in Virginia paying up to 50% of their income?

Christie Marra

Correct. Right. So you had people who were already rent stressed, and just barely making it, before the pandemic hit, before they lost their jobs, or had their hours cut, or had increased expenses because the person who provided child support to them had her hours cut. And so you took a very vulnerable population that was sort of, you know, walking a financial tightrope every month to get the rent paid. And you just pulled out that tightrope. So I think, going back to Senator Peterson's quote about, you know, people just having to follow the terms of the lease, people can't do what they can't do. You know, this is these are not willful actions. These are folks who, I would submit for a long time, we're paying rent before they paid for other necessities.

Thomas Bowman

Christie, I'm wondering, how do you expect this to play out? Should we expect a deluge of eviction cases or all at once, or will this be slower trickle?

Christie Marra

Well, I certainly hope it's a slower trickle. You know, our emphasis right now is working as an- not just Poverty Law Center, but all the legal aids, all of the other grantees that are working with landlords and tenants, to make sure they get this federal money. Our emphasis is on letting the communities across the state know this money is out there. This is how you access it. We are trying to go out, physically, into the communities to actually set up stations and have people interact with our rental assistance providers to start that process. But that said, I am afraid of, if not a deluge, then a more steady downpour. And I think a lot of that really depends upon whether or not landlords step up. You know, there are good landlords out there. There are good attorneys representing landlords out there, who are saying, "Hey, I recognize the best thing for my business is to get paid," and they are doing everything they can to make that happen quickly. We want to work with those landlords. We think this is something, and we've said this all along, this money and the way that Virginia has worked hard to get the money out to everyone as quickly as possible, benefits landlords, every bit as much as it benefits tenants. You know, here's the goal, the goal is we get to June, 30 of 2022, and the vast majority of landlords are in good shape, financially, and the vast majority of tenants have a zero read balance. That's the goal.

Thomas Bowman

Christie, you actually just hit on something interesting because it's a collective action problem among the landlords themselves, they know individually, it's very much a game theory. They know individually, they're better off kicking that renter out and trying to replace them with somebody who can pay that rent, but as a collective body, if that deluge were to happen, what is the effect of all these evictions on tenant records hitting the market all at once, because this sticks with you? Right?

Christie Marra

Right. Well, so great question, that actually was addressed during last summer's Special Session, to a degree. It's going to be...I think your premise is look, if a lot a lot, a lot of these tenants get evicted for non payment of rent, that becomes, what I call, "The Scarlet E," that becomes a, "Scarlet E," on their tenant record. And because so many landlords now use these big third party screening companies like Core Logic, they're just going to get back a report that says, "Nope, thumbs down, don't rent to this person." Right? Not ever realizing that the, "Scarlet E," happened during this pandemic and therefore should be treated differently. According to our law, it should be not counted against somebody. But that's a law that's very difficult to implement. I don't think many people are going to benefit from it because of the difficulty of implementation, despite its good intentions. So it could be a mess. And what that could mean is nobody's getting any rental income. I mean, that's an exaggeration, right, but that the rental units are vacant. And I think, even in the short term, or individually, I think you said Thomas, I would not feel confident as a landlord right now that if I evicted somebody, I'm going to easily get another tenant in. I think what we're seeing is that higher end, higher cost rentals, they're actually going down slightly in cost because so many people are buying homes. So we're already seeing at that top level, that landlords who do have vacancies are struggling to fill them, more so than in the past. Unfortunately, you know things at the lower end of the cost spectrum are harder to predict. I think that some landlords continue to raise rent. I don't think that is helpful in this circumstance. And as I said earlier, in that area, people are used to paying 40 to 50% of their income for rent and maybe less feel like they have, they definitely have fewer choices. All of that to say it's hard to predict, but evictions now could easily lead to evictions in a few months of a new tenant. Why not work with what you have right now?

Michael Pope

All right, one last question before we wrap up. Christie Marra of the Virginia Poverty Law Center, we really appreciate your time and coming on the podcast, and explaining all this to us. What's next for the Virginia Poverty Law Center? I know you're working on a project that you plan on rolling out in the near future here. Talk a little bit about that.

Christie Marra

I would love to Michael, thank you. We are working with a number of stakeholders in the Affordable Housing Community and Faith Community and others, to try to develop a pilot program for the Richmond MSA and possibly the Charlottesville MSA, that we're calling The Reparative Homeownership Pilot Program. It would be a very robust downpayment assistance program for people earning less than 80% of the area median income, who either lost opportunities for homeownership, or lost homeownership, or whose ancestors lost homeownership, or family farms, due to the racist policies and practices of the past. We're talking redlining, we're talking about, quote, "urban renewal," that destroyed neighborhoods like Vinegar Hill in Charlottesville. We're talking about highway construction that dissected neighborhoods like Randolph in Richmond.

Michael Pope

Parker, a great neighborhood in Alexandria, where I live, it's actually bisected by a major highway that went right through the middle of it. And there goes your historic African American neighborhood.

Christie Marra

Exactly. Everywhere, we can find it...It's It's heartbreaking. And I believe, and I'm not alone in this, it's one of the reasons that the Black White Homeownership Gap is larger today than it was in the early 1960s when the Fair Housing Act was passed, to narrow that very gap. And so we're really excited about this. We have great legislative champions and Senator Ghazala Hashmi, and Delegate Jeff Bourne here in Richmond, great partners looking at this with us and I would love to talk to you more about it in January and see where we are then.

Thomas Bowman

So that's all for this episode.

Michael Pope

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Thomas Bowman

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Michael Pope

Read the transcripts at TransitionVirginia.com and special thanks to Emily Cottrell for figuring out what the heck we're saying.

Thomas Bowman

Thanks for being on the Transition Team. We're your hosts, Thomas Bowman.

Michael Pope

And I'm Michael Pope.