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I really hope renters get relief and there is not an avalanche of evictions. But if we are being honest about "progressive" Maryland, the #eviction system has been perverse for decades and the legislature & executive have been made well aware. 1/
In the Sunday, June 3, 1973 edition of the Sunpapers, Judge Sweeney, chief of the Maryland District Court admitted that "the court is being used a collection agency for landlords, I recognize this and I don't like it." /2
In 2018, the last year of data, there were 316,875 landlord-tenant filings in Baltimore City and Baltimore County combined. That is 26,406 per month. So, we have accepted 26,000 people/families should be put into eviction proceedings every month in just these two jurisdictions 2/
Many large landlords/property management companies file the eviction proceedings on the 6th of the month as a policy and THERE IS NO PRE-FILING NOTICE. If you are five days late on rent - here's your eviction filing. 3/
NBD, right? Wrong. Landlords, by law, can and do, impose a 5% late fee. Many then charge the tenants with the costs of filing the eviction proceedings (whether the filing was legally defensible or not). This can add significant fees onto those least able to pay 4/
What does a rent court filing do for tenants? It creates a record. Just like you have a credit score and history, you have a rental score and history. And a filing, even if the tenant wins or it was not legal in the first place, will be held against the tenant. 5/
Landlords like to use software that automates the filing of thousands of failure to pay rent complaints (the start of eviction proceedings). Incorrect data, rules for imposition of late fees that violate the law, filing against the wrong tenants - that all happens. 6/
This is not news to the Maryland legislature. Each year, tenants' rights bills conveniently find their way into a drawer in Annapolis and never see the light of day. The human right to housing is placed after the landlords' right to exploit investments. 7/
The landlord lobby heads down to Annapolis each year and tells the legislature that they dislike evictions and that they work with tenants. Apparently, hundreds of thousands of eviction proceedings filed on the 6th of the month or thereabout is how they work with tenants. 8/
In 2012, the federal court (D. Md.) in Sager v. Housing Com'n of Anne Arundel County, described the leverage given landlords by the "summary ejectment" process. It "gives substantially greater leverage to the landlord and incentive for payment to the tenant, /9
because of the speed at which the proceeding operates and the fact that the tenant will be swiftly evicted if she fails to pay the amounts found due and owing." /10
The process is designed to force rapid payment from those who can least afford it. It is a debt collection scheme in which landlords get to use the power of the courts and the threat of eviction/homelessness to collect. /11
So, in Baltimore, 6500-7000 people/families end up evicted each year. Caught in the gears of a system that is designed to promote the interest of landlords to rapid payment over the interest of residents. https://evictions.study/maryland/report/baltimore.html /12
Baltimore City's eviction rate is 2.3 times higher than the national average. (But we just keep on with the same system. Odd.) /13 https://evictions.study/maryland/report/baltimore.html
In Baltimore City, according to a recent report - "Black headed households had the highest removal count which was 2.96 times higher than White removals... Black female headed households had the highest number of eviction removals." /14
If this data is similar for the upcoming eviction tsunami, we will, as a society, have made statements affirming Black Lives Matter while allowing Black families to be evicted and rendered homeless by a system that we, as a society, have condoned for decades. /15
