Evictions are back in Orange County

The eviction moratorium is over for some renters in Orange County.

The Orange County Sheriff’s Department next week plans to start carrying out eviction orders that predate the coronavirus pandemic, according to the Los Angeles Daily News. It’s the first Southern California county to restart those evictions, which were frozen when the state enacted stay-at-home measures.

There were 180 move-out judgments handed down in Orange County before the pandemic. Orange County Sheriff’s Department deputies began contacting tenants on Tuesday to see if they have voluntarily moved out of homes they were ordered to vacate.

Nearly 1,000 pre-shutdown move-out judgments were put on hold in L.A. County. County authorities haven’t said when they’ll begin to process those orders.

Those judgments in both counties are not subject to the state’s eviction moratorium nor any local eviction moratoriums. The state’s moratorium and most local moratoriums bar landlords from evicting tenants while stay-at-home orders are in place. The state’s order freezes evictions until at least August or three months after the statewide state of emergency is lifted.

At least 222,000 Orange County residents lost their jobs between March and April — the unemployment rate shot up from 3.7 percent in March to 13.8 percent this month.

A spokesperson for the Orange County chapter of the California Apartment Association, a landlord representation group, said he heard “horror stories about frozen evictions.”

Elena Popp, the executive director of L.A.-based Eviction Defense Network called it “thoughtless and irresponsible to throw families out on the street during this health crisis.” [LADN] — Dennis Lynch