Sonoma renters at risk as eviction moratorium expires

Barbie Hoffmann walks through her Verano Avenue house packed with cardboard boxes and relics of the 25 years she’s lived there, knowing that she won’t be able to call it home much longer.

An eviction notice is the latest in a string of crises she’s faced. Her husband, popular martial arts teacher Patrick Hoffmann, died suddenly in July. In 2020, the couple lost their 30-year-old business, Sonoma Taekwondo, to the pandemic.

“I have tried everything. I am on a waiting list for a grief counselor. I am just an old lady with no where to go, this is so sad,” she said.

With a statewide eviction moratorium now expired, struggling renters in Sonoma are no longer protected from eviction for missed rent payments going forward unless they have applied for rental assistance, according to Sonoma County attorneys. By the end of October, they may find themselves in the same position as Hoffmann.

Hoffmann is being forced to move after the owner of her rental property decided to sell the home — a loophole in the eviction moratorium that allows landlords to move out renters by taking a property off the rental market. She got the notice just five weeks after her husband’s funeral, and now she has to figure out what to do with a lifetime’s worth of possessions.

“The house is big and my husband is everywhere,” Hoffmann said.

Her husband’s memorabilia as a martial arts teacher in Sonoma line the walls. At one point, Hoffmann grabbed her late-husband’s first belt and clutched it to her chest as tears fell from her stormy blue eyes.

There’s plenty of fear around the future for renters post-eviction moratorium, said La Luz Center Executive Director Leonardo Lobato.

“Invariably, it is a position that our community is distressed, and it is a situation of high uncertainty,” he said.

La Luz, a nonprofit focused on the immigrant community, initially received $250,000 from the Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP), federal assistance provided for households unable to pay rent or utilities. La Luz is handling dozens of applications for rental assistance currently, but expects more to come when the harvest season ends and farm workers are unemployed.

At another local nonprofit, FISH (Friend in Sonoma Helping), hundreds of applications for rental assistance poured in when the pandemic first began, said Sandy Piotter, the steering committee coordinator. While they usually spent around $100,000 annually on rental assistance, between April 2020 and April 2021, that number jumped to $951,480.

“FISH became that safety net, which is what we're designed to be,” Piotter said. “And we were able to help hundreds of families.”

But with the eviction moratorium ending, there remain two challenges: Paying back the accumulated debt to landlords, loans and credit cards, and accessing aid from rental assistance programs like ERAP.

“That program is a very complex program,” Piotter said. “So that was the safety net for people who are really behind in rent.”

So far, the county has allocated almost half the $32 million in rental aid funds it's had access to since April. Less of that allocated sum, however, has been distributed to renters.

Hoffmann applied for rental assistance with the help of LegalAid, a nonprofit providing pro bono legal services. Soon after, her landlord refused her offer to pay 25% of her $1,900 rent.

“I tried to pay her but she sent me back the check,” Hoffmann said. “...my husband died in July. I don't have income in August and September, and I'm trying to catch up with four months back bills. So I'm flatlined here.”

The process is more difficult for those in the Spanish-speaking community who typically do not have the legal literacy to seek aid, Lobato said.

“It's not only for ERAP funds, but for any other assistance program,” Lobato said. “It is important that the community be able to have access or help in order to fill out the forms. And not only fill out the forms, but advise on the process that it takes.”

The many bureaucratic hoops in accessing aid remain a tall burden for those who could face eviction, particularly as more federal money has become available, Piotter said.

“The (CARES Act) money, which was the first money released, was released under an emergency assistance program and it had fewer requirements,” she said. “As the pandemic continued and got worse as Congress allocated money, there was just more information required.”

Some landlords are asking their tenants to apply to ERAP programs, Piotter said, which would guarantee 100% of back rent. Still, the process remains a challenge for people like Hoffmann who feels adrift after losing her business and her husband, who oversaw their finances.

“I am just an old wife,” she said. “And I didn't have credit. And I didn't have two months worth of bank statements because he hadn't died then.”

The social safety net isn’t in place for people like Hoffmann. And the continued blows of crisis on top of crisis have her in free fall. She said that people have tried to help her, but the issues she faces remain hers alone.

Piotter said that there’s no telling how many people, like Hoffmann, are bogged down by the requirements to access aid.

“It seems as if everybody is trying to work toward a solution,” Piotter said. “And I just don't have a sense of how many people are going to fall through those cracks.”

While residents continue to vie for rental assistance to avoid the possibility of eviction, Hoffmann is facing eviction as a reality. She last paid rent in August and a LegalAid lawyer told her a move-out notice from the landlord told her she would have to vacate by Oct. 31.

“I know it's silly to want to stay in town, because it's so expensive here, but my support system’s here,” Hoffmann said. “I have a life here.”

Hoffmann had volunteered with her late husband at many of the charities that support the local community. Now, she’s the one in need of help.

“Everywhere I know to go for help is here,” Hoffmann said. “Because those are all the places we've been going to to help the community.”

Press Democrat Staff Writer Ethan Varian contributed to this story. Contact Chase Hunter at chase.hunter@sonomanews.com and follow @Chase_HunterB on Twitter.