The COVID-19 pandemic brought massive disruption to countless lives, including vulnerable families in San Diego at the mercy of landlords seeking to evict them.
Although statewide pandemic regulations prevented landlords from evicting tenants for nonpayment of rent, loopholes allowed evictions to proceed in several circumstances, including some in which the tenant had done nothing wrong. This in turn, left tenants vulnerable to housing instability and exposure to COVID-19, and further strained the County’s already overburdened healthcare system.
Fortunately, the Legal Aid Society of San Diego (LASSD) joined the fight to protect tenants who were in danger of losing their housing. In 2021, Supervisor Nora Vargas championed a temporary countywide Eviction Moratorium to protect against unnecessary evictions during the state of emergency. Supervisor Vargas reached out to LASSD for guidance in drafting the ordinance to eliminate loopholes that could be exploited by landlords.
San Diego County’s Emergency No-Fault Eviction Moratorium was passed but a landlord lobbying group filed a federal lawsuit against the County and Board of Supervisors to try to keep it from going into effect. LASSD leapt to the defense of the Eviction Moratorium by partnering with the non-profit Western Center on Law and Poverty (WCLP) and pro bono counsel Susman Godfrey LLP, to represent the tenant group Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) as an Intervenor-Defendant in the lawsuit. Together with county counsel, LASSD, Susman Godfrey LLP and WCLP successfully convinced the court to allow the Eviction Moratorium to remain.
As a result of LASSD’s advocacy surrounding the eviction moratorium and the tireless efforts of co-counsel at Susman Godfrey LLP and WCLP, they were able to keep countless tenants housed during the pandemic and established strong legal precedent if future eviction moratoriums are needed.
