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File Number: 23-024 concurrently with the expiration of the Governor’s proclamation of a state of emergency. Accordingly, the City’s eviction moratorium will terminate on February 28, 2023. Ordinance No. 2020-003 provides that, upon the expiration of the eviction moratorium, tenants and mobile homeowners have a maximum of 180 days to repay rent that accumulated during the period of the eviction moratorium, but which has not yet been paid. Analysis The COVID-19 pandemic has persisted longer than the City Council anticipated when it enacted Ordinance No. 2020-003, which contemplated that the Governor’s emergency declaration and the local emergency declaration might end earlier than May 31, 2020. Similarly, the scale of the economic impact caused by COVID-19 was deeper than expected at the time. In February 2020 the unemployment rate in Alameda County was 2.9%, but layoffs due to COVID-19 caused the unemployment rate to rise to 14.1% in April 2020, the highest rate since before World War II. The unemployment rate in Alameda County remained above 8% for 6 months, and did not drop below 5% for 18 months. High unemployment was one of multiple factors that caused a substantial decrease in the household income of many households in San Leandro, and this decrease in income prevented these households from paying rent for an extended period of time Because the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic lasted longer than originally anticipated, the amount of rent that accumulated during the eviction moratorium is greater than was anticipated when Ordinance No. 2020-003 was originally enacted. Requiring households to repay the entirety of the accumulated rent within a maximum of 180 days will cause severe financial hardship. This financial hardship is exacerbated by ongoing high levels of inflation, which make purchasing necessary household goods like food, clothes, gasoline and medications substantially more expensive for households. The proposed ordinance will do two things. First, the proposed ordinance will readopt the existing eviction moratorium as a regular ordinance. Second, it will extend the time period for tenants and mobile homeowners to repay rent that accumulated during the eviction moratorium to one year. The proposed ordinance will not extend the eviction moratorium, which will still expire on February 28, 2023. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, City Housing Division Staff have regularly fielded phone calls from both residential tenants and property owners/managers on the status of the Eviction Moratorium. In 2020, the City began annually contracting with the nonprofit Centro Legal de la Raza (and its nonprofit subcontractor Eden Council for Hope and Opportunity or ECHO Housing) to provide information and referral, legal consultation, and legal representation on tenant/landlord issues including eviction defense. Around Summer 2020 when the pandemic was at its height, the City approved over $1.1 million in federal Community Development Block Grant - Coronavirus (CDBG-CV) funds to create an Emergency Rental Assistance Program that provided rental payment assistance grants to 148 low-income renters whose incomes were negatively impacted by COVID-19. Based on call data collected by the Housing Division in FY 2020-2021 and FY 2021-2022, 51% (339 inquiries) and 48% (275 inquiries), respectively were calls to City staff for assistance on the eviction moratorium, rental assistance (an indicator of those having difficulty paying/collecting Page 2 City of San Leandro Printed on 2/2/2023