No job, no money but rent's due: Colorado renters have few protections amid pandemic

没有工作，没有钱，但租金到期:科罗拉多州的租户在流行病中几乎没有保障措施

Anita Hassan安妮塔·哈桑

April 23, 2020, 6:20 AM GMT+8

2020年4月23日，格林尼治标准时间早上6:20 +8

In a span of 10 days in March, all three people in Kendra Tallant’s household lost their jobs.

在3月的10天里，肯德拉•塔兰特(Kendra Tallant)家的三个人都失业了。

As the COVID-19 outbreak shut down businesses across Colorado, Tallant, 41, was furloughed from her job at a resort where she took reservations. Her fiancé, who detailed cars, lost his job, and her 23-year-old son, who worked at a nearby seafood restaurant, was also laid off.

由于科罗拉多爆发了第19次致命流感，科罗拉多州各地的商家纷纷关门歇业，41岁的塔伦特不得不暂时离开了她在一家度假胜地的工作岗位。她从事汽车制造的未婚夫失去了工作，她23岁的儿子在附近一家海鲜餐厅工作，也被解雇了。

Without any income, she knew they would not be able to pay the $1,761.62 rent for their three-bedroom apartment in Colorado Springs on April 3 and still have enough money left over for groceries and other expenses. She tried to negotiate with her landlord, but the company hit her with nearly $300 in late fees and began taking steps toward eviction.

没有任何收入，她知道他们无法在4月3日支付他们在科罗拉多斯普林斯(Colorado Springs)的三居室1,761.62美元的房租，而且还有足够的钱买杂货和其他开销。她试图与房东谈判，但公司给了她近300美元的滞纳金，并开始采取措施驱逐她。

“I was just flabbergasted,” Tallant said. “We were forced to not work by no fault of our own. These places are just not working with us, and we’re having to choose between whether we can eat or pay rent.”

“我只是大吃一惊，”泰兰说。“我们被迫不工作并不是我们自己的错。这些地方对我们根本不起作用，我们必须在吃饭和付房租之间做出选择。”

Kendra Tallant, 41, her fiance, BJ Shepherd, 35, and her son Jonathyn Murray, 23, outside of their apartment complex in Colorado Springs. (Benjamin Rasmussen / for NBC News)

41岁的肯德拉·塔伦特和她的未婚夫，35岁的BJ·谢泼德，以及她23岁的儿子乔纳森·默里，在他们位于科罗拉多斯普林斯的公寓外。(本杰明·拉斯穆森/ NBC新闻)

More更多的

Unlike more than 30 other states, Colorado does not have a statewide moratorium on evictions during the coronavirus outbreak. Instead, Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, has issued guidance to limit evictions, requesting that landlords work with tenants on payment plans and waive late fees — but he has not required them to do so.

与其他30多个州不同的是，在冠状病毒爆发期间，科罗拉多州并没有在全州范围内暂停驱逐。相反，民主党人、州长贾里德·波利斯(Jared Polis)已经发布了限制驱逐的指导意见，要求房东与租户一起制定付款计划，并免除滞纳金——但他并没有要求他们这样做。

Decisions on evictions have been left to courts and local governments, creating a patchwork of policies throughout the state, legal experts say. While law enforcement is not delivering eviction notices during Colorado’s state of emergency, and many district judges and cities have suspended eviction proceedings, others are still allowing cases to be filed, but delaying hearings. Attorneys say at least one jurisdiction, Montrose County, has held teleconference eviction hearings.

法律专家说，有关拆迁的决定已经交给了法院和地方政府，在全州范围内形成了一套拼凑而成的政策。虽然执法部门在科罗拉多州的紧急状态期间没有发出驱逐通知，许多地区法官和城市已经暂停了驱逐程序，但其他地方仍然允许提起诉讼，只是推迟了听证会。律师说，至少有一个司法管辖区，蒙特罗斯县，已经举行了电话会议驱逐听证会。

The uncertainty has left thousands of Colorado renters confused and fearing they’ll be evicted when courts resume operations and law enforcement agencies begin delivering notices, legal and housing policy advocates say.

法律和住房政策倡导者说，这种不确定性让科罗拉多州成千上万的租房者感到困惑，他们担心一旦法院恢复运作，执法机构开始发出通知，他们就会被赶出去。

Full coverage of the coronavirus outbreak 全面报道冠状病毒爆发

Colorado earned a spot fourth from the bottom on a scorecard released Monday that evaluated the eviction policies of each state amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The scorecard, developed by Princeton University’s Eviction Lab and Columbia Law School, gave Colorado zero out of five stars.

科罗拉多州在周一发布的一份记分卡上排名倒数第四，记分卡评估了科罗拉多州在19日爆发的流感大流行期间各州的驱逐政策。由普林斯顿大学驱逐实验室和哥伦比亚大学法学院共同开发的记分卡，给科罗拉多州打了0分(满分5分)。

“Without statewide action and supportive measures to address rental debt, Colorado could see a surge of evictions during and immediately following the pandemic,” the report stated.

报告说:“如果不采取全州范围内的行动和支持性措施来解决租赁债务问题，科罗拉多州可能会在流感大流行期间和之后立即出现驱逐现象。”

In apartment complexes across the state, tenants have begun organizing to push their landlords to offer payment plans or waive late fees. Tenants are also mobilizing online: The Colorado Rent Strike and Eviction Defense Facebook group, which has more than 4,000 members, is planning a rent strike April 30 and is encouraging participants to post signs on their doors and windows.

在全州的公寓楼里，租户们已经开始组织起来，要求房东提供付款计划或免除滞纳金。租户们也在网上动员起来:拥有4000多名成员的“科罗拉多房租罢工和驱逐保护”Facebook小组计划在4月30日举行一次房租罢工，并鼓励参与者在他们的门窗上贴上告示。

“I think a statewide moratorium on evictions would go a really long way in relieving anxiety for many Coloradan families,” said Zach Neumann, a Colorado attorney who started the COVID-19 Eviction Defense Project, a group of about 50 volunteer attorneys. A halt on evictions would give renters time to negotiate agreements with their landlords while they are waiting to receive unemployment insurance or federal stimulus checks, he said.

“我认为，全州暂停驱逐对许多科罗拉多家庭来说，将大有帮助，”科罗拉多州律师扎克·诺伊曼(Zach Neumann)说。他发起了“covid19驱逐保护项目”(covid19 - Eviction Defense Project)，该项目由大约50名志愿律师组成。他说，暂停拆迁将使租房者在等待领取失业保险或联邦经济刺激支票期间有时间与房东谈判达成协议。

Within days of posting a Facebook message offering legal advice last month, Neumann said, he received more than 500 messages. “It is deeply inconsistent to tell people they are not allowed to work, but then rental payments are still expected to be paid on time,” he said.

诺伊曼说，上个月他在Facebook上发布了一条提供法律建议的消息，几天之内就收到了500多条信息。他说:“告诉人们不允许他们工作是非常不一致的，但租金仍有望按时支付。”

Polis has allocated $3 million toward emergency rental assistance, but lawyers and advocates say it won’t be enough to meet the need. An analysis by Neumann’s group, based on eviction filings and unemployment data, found that without more interventions, almost 500,000 Coloradans could face eviction in the coming months.

波利斯已拨出300万美元用于紧急租赁援助，但律师和倡导者说，这将不足以满足需求。Neumann的研究小组根据拆迁申请和失业数据进行的分析发现，如果不采取更多干预措施，近50万科罗拉多州人可能在未来几个月面临被驱逐。

Polis’ office did not respond to a request for comment.

波利斯的办公室没有回复记者的置评请求。

In response to a Denver City Council proclamation last week calling on the governor to cancel rent and mortgage payments for struggling residents, aspokesperson for Polis said that he does “not have legal ability to suspend rent or evictions outright, as these are private contracts between individuals and institutions and suspending the sanctity of contract is not within the emergency powers of any governor or president."

在回答丹佛市议会上周宣言呼吁取消房租和房贷的州长苦苦挣扎的居民,城邦的发言人说,他“没有法律能力完全停止出租或驱逐,这些个人和机构之间的私人合同,中止合同的神圣性不是在任何州长和总统的紧急权力。”

‘The state still needs to step in’

国家仍然需要介入

When Tallant realized that she wouldn’t be able to pay her rent for April, she wrote to the managers at the Residences at Falcon North, explaining her family’s job losses and asking if they could work out a partial payment plan and waive late fees.

当塔伦特意识到自己无法支付4月份的房租时，她写信给猎鹰北方公寓的管理人员，向他们解释了自己家人失业的原因，并询问他们能否制定出一份部分还款计划，并免除滞纳金。

But after more than a dozen emails and several phone calls, the management had only agreed to waive the late fees if she paid her April rent in full. On April 6, Tallant received a 10-day demand letter — notices landlords must issue before they can legally begin an eviction — posted to her door, saying that she needed to pay her rent or leave the apartment.

但在发了十几封邮件、打了几个电话之后，管理部门才同意，如果她全额支付了4月份的房租，就免收滞纳金。4月6日，塔拉特收到了一封10天的催款信——房东在合法开始驱逐之前必须发出的通知——贴在她的门上，说她需要付房租或离开公寓。

The 10-day demand letter that was posted on the door of Kendra Tallant's apartment. (Benjamin Rasmussen / for NBC News)

肯德拉·塔兰特公寓门上张贴的10天催款信。(本杰明·拉斯穆森/ NBC新闻)

“Even if we find a way to pay for April, I have no idea what we’ll do for May,” Tallant said last Wednesday. By that point, including late fees, her April rent had risen to $2,047.

“即使我们能找到支付4月份费用的方法，我也不知道5月份我们要做什么，”塔林特上周三表示。包括滞纳金在内，她4月份的房租已经涨到了2047美元。

Even though the Fourth Judicial District court, which includes Colorado Springs, is not accepting any new eviction filings until May 18, Tallant worried that when court proceedings resume, she and her family could be forced out of their apartment.

尽管包括科罗拉多斯普林斯在内的第四司法地区法院在5月18日之前不会接受任何新的驱逐申请，但塔拉特担心，一旦法院恢复审理，她和她的家人可能会被赶出他们的公寓。

Then, on Monday night, she received a message that brought her some relief: She had previously reached out to Neumann, the attorney, for help, and he had discovered in a database compiled by the National Low Income Housing Coalition that her apartment complex’s mortgage was backed by the federal government.

然后，在周一晚上，她收到了一条消息，这让她松了一口气:她之前曾向律师诺伊曼(Neumann)寻求帮助，他在国家低收入住房联盟(National Low Income Housing Coalition)编制的数据库中发现，她公寓的抵押贷款得到了联邦政府的支持。

Under a federal relief law, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security, or CARES, Act, that meant that not only was she protected from eviction until July 25, but also that her apartment management could not charge her late fees.

根据一项联邦救济法，即《冠状病毒援助、救济和经济安全法案》(Coronavirus Aid, relief and Economic Security，简称CARES)，这意味着，在7月25日之前，她不仅可以免于被驱逐，而且她的公寓管理部门也不能向她收取滞纳金。

The management from Residences at Falcon North and JRK Property Holdings, the Los Angeles-based company that owns the complex, did not return requests for comment. The company owns 32,000 multifamily units and luxury hotels across 20 states, according to its website.

猎鹰北方(Falcon North)和JRK地产控股(JRK Property Holdings)的管理层没有回复记者的置评请求。据其网站显示，该公司在美国20个州拥有3.2万套多户公寓和豪华酒店。

“I’m still angry, because how would I ever have known that as just a regular person, and I’ve been sitting here worried for weeks,” Tallant said. “The state still needs to step in and do more, too, because not everyone is going to fall under those circumstances.”

“我仍然很生气，因为我怎么可能知道这只是一个普通人，我已经在这里担心了几个星期了，”塔伦特说。“政府仍需要介入，并采取更多行动，因为在这种情况下，不是每个人都会倒下。”

Even before the pandemic, Colorado renters — 35 percent of the state’s population — had already faced challenges including rapidly rising rents and stringent eviction policies, attorneys and researchers said.

律师和研究人员说，甚至在流感大流行之前，占该州人口35%的科罗拉多州租户就已经面临着租金迅速上涨和严格的拆迁政策等挑战。

Median rent for one-bedrooms apartments in the state has risen 26.1 percent since the beginning of 2014, compared to a national increase of 15.5 percent, as the state’s population grew, according to data from the real estate site Apartmentlist.com. Five Colorado cities — Aurora, Thornton, Colorado Springs, Westminster and Lakewood — were among the top 100 large cities with the highest eviction rates in 2016, according to Princeton’s Eviction Lab.

房地产网站Apartmentlist.com的数据显示，随着该州人口的增长，该州一居室公寓的租金中值自2014年初以来上涨了26.1%，而全国的涨幅为15.5%。根据普林斯顿驱逐实验室的数据，2016年，科罗拉多州的5个城市——奥罗拉、桑顿、科罗拉多泉、威斯敏斯特和莱克伍德——跻身驱逐率最高的100个大城市之列。

Unlike other states, renters in Colorado have almost no “cure period,” or time to pay back debt and prevent eviction, said Jack Regenbogen, a senior attorney with the Colorado Center on Law and Policy, a legal aid organization. In Colorado, the period ends the moment that the eviction is filed.

法律援助组织科罗拉多法律与政策中心(Colorado Center on Law and Policy)的高级律师杰克·雷根伯根(Jack Regenbogen)说，与其他州不同，科罗拉多州的租户几乎没有“治愈期”，也就是偿还债务和防止被驱逐的时间。在科罗拉多州，这一时期结束的时刻，驱逐提出。

Regenbogen is concerned for the many Coloradans who have lost their jobs; the state has seen more than 231,610 initial unemployment claims filed since mid-March.

Regenbogen担心许多科罗拉多人失去工作;自3月中旬以来，该州首次申请失业救济的人数已超过231,610人。

“This crisis serves to compound and illustrate those inequities in the worst possible manifestations,” he said.

他说:“这场危机以最糟糕的形式加剧和说明了这些不平等现象。”

Tenants mobilize

租户动员

Before the coronavirus outbreak, there was no tenant’s union at The Acacia Apartments, a 55-unit building in downtown Denver. Ryan Leach, 37, a renter in the building, said he decided to help start a union after noticing that many of his neighbors were struggling. Some had received letters from the management demanding that they pay their rent in 10 days or leave.

在冠状病毒爆发之前，Acacia公寓(位于丹佛市中心，有55个单元)没有租户工会。37岁的瑞安·里奇(Ryan Leach)是这栋大楼的租客，他说，他注意到很多邻居都在苦苦挣扎，于是决定帮助成立一个工会。有些人收到了管理部门的来信，要求他们在10天内交房租或离开。

“Ultimately, what we want is for them to have open and good faith communication with all residents, and willingness for negotiations,” said Leach, who teaches computer science skills to Palestinian refugees abroad and is not working now because he can’t travel overseas.

“最终，我们希望他们能与所有居民开诚布公地交流，并愿意进行谈判，”利奇说。他在国外为巴勒斯坦难民教授计算机科学技能，现在没有工作，因为他不能出国旅行。

Ryan Leach started a tenant's union at The Acacia Apartments in downtown Denver to help negotiate rent payment options with the building's landlords. (Ryan Leach)

瑞安·里奇(Ryan Leach)在丹佛市中心的Acacia公寓里成立了一个租户工会，帮助房东协商租金支付方案。(Ryan Leach)

More更多的

The group of about 25 residents is communicating on Slack and has placed flyers offering support in the building’s common area. The group also sent letters to management asking for rental assistance.

这群约25名居民正在Slack上交流，并在大楼的公共区域张贴了提供帮助的传单。该组织还写信给管理部门，要求提供租金援助。

Vicky Pelton, operations director for Olive Bark LLC, which owns Acacia and 12 other apartment properties in Colorado, said that all late fees are waived, and tenants who have asked for a payment plan have been allowed to postpone paying half their rent.

Olive Bark LLC公司在科罗拉多州拥有Acacia和其他12处公寓物业，其运营总监维姬佩尔顿(Vicky Pelton)说，所有的滞期费都被免除了，要求支付计划的租户可以推迟支付一半的租金。

Leach said these concessions came after the union’s emails to management.

里奇说，这些让步是在工会向管理层发出电子邮件后做出的。

Download the 下载NBC News app NBC新闻应用程序 for full coverage and alerts about the coronavirus outbreak 获取有关冠状病毒爆发的全面报道和警报

Demand notices are only sent to tenants who haven’t asked for a payment plan, Pelton said, and no one is being evicted.

Pelton说，催租通知只会发送给那些没有要求支付计划的租户，而且没有人会被赶出去。

“It’s important for all residents to know that we care about them,” she said. “It’s not in anyone’s best interest for us to put someone out on the street.”

“让所有居民知道我们关心他们是很重要的，”她说。“对我们来说，把人放到大街上对任何人都没有好处。”

But many Colorado tenants do not have flexibility in making their rent — including those who are renting from private individuals.

但是许多科罗拉多的租客在租房方面没有灵活性——包括那些从私人租房子的人。

Alexander Stockton, 26, rents a five-bedroom home with his wife, Nicole, in Arvada, just outside Denver. The couple was already struggling financially at the beginning of the year when Stockton closed his small furniture delivery company. By February, he’d found work doing contract remodeling. But in March, after business closures began, Stockton and Nicole, an assistant manager at a bridal boutique, both lost their jobs.

26岁的亚历山大·斯托克顿(Alexander Stockton)和妻子妮可(Nicole)在丹佛郊外的阿瓦达(Arvada)租了一套有五间卧室的房子。年初斯托克顿关闭了他的小家具送货公司时，这对夫妇已经在财务上陷入了困境。到了2月份，他找到了一份重塑合同的工作。但在3月份，在业务开始关闭后，斯托克顿和一家婚庆精品店的助理经理尼科尔双双失业。

Alexandra and Juliana Stockton (Alex Stockton)

亚历山德拉和朱莉安娜·斯托克顿(亚历克斯·斯托克顿)

Stockton said his landlord is an elderly man who relies on the rent to make ends meet. When Stockton asked about a payment plan, he was told it wasn’t possible. (A relative of the landlord, who collects the rent, did not respond to a request for comment.)

斯托克顿说，他的房东是个上了年纪的男人，靠房租勉强维持生计。当斯托克顿问及付款计划时，他被告知这是不可能的。(负责收取租金的房东的一名亲戚没有回复记者的置评请求。)

So Stockton said he scrounged up what he could from the couple’s savings, and with the help of family, they made the $2,000 rent for April. Last week, Nicole began receiving unemployment insurance, which will come to about $2,030 a month.

因此，斯托克顿说，他从这对夫妇的积蓄中尽可能地凑钱，在家人的帮助下，他们支付了4月份的2000美元房租。上周，妮可开始领取失业保险，每月大约2030美元。

“So we’ll still be able to make full rent next month, but it’s going to be tight with food,” Stockton said.

斯托克顿说:“所以我们下个月还是可以付得起房租的，但是食品供应会很紧张。”

Stockton said he understands that his landlord is also struggling and doesn’t begrudge him for requiring rent.

斯托克顿说，他知道他的房东也在苦苦挣扎，也不会因为他要求付房租而抱怨。

“He needs a place to live the same way we need it,” Stockton said. “We’re in the same boat.”

“他需要一个地方住，就像我们需要它一样，”斯托克顿说。“我们处境相同。”

出处：头条号 @不知道人Jacky