I'm going to go ahead and get our recording started.

I'm going to pass it on over to my colleague, Brooke Doyle, the Project Coordinator at WebJunction for this  project.

Welcome, Brookings and thank you so much to all the presenters for being here today.

All right, Brookings we're just not hearing you, so I'll let you unmute yourself.

>> Hi, there, so sorry, thank you, Jennifer.

I'm Brooke Doyle, a Project Coordinator at WebJunction and spent two and a half years on improving our access with the legal services corporation.

We'll talk about them later and about the project.

I'm thrilled to be joined by Deb Hamilton, Strategics Services Librarian at Pikes peak Library and Kristin Wong, Financial analyst and Consumer financial Protection bureau.

Thank you for being with us.

Let's dive in.

There's so much to talk about related to eviction.

We'll focus the conversation today on these areas.

I'll spend a little bit of time on the overview and bigger picture around evictions.

Deb will really dive into the phases of eviction.

So that's going to be a really important learning from today is understanding the five phases, what can happen in each phase, and when are the opportunities for prevention, which leads us to Kristin's main topic, which is rental assistance, and this is one of the main ways that, particularly, libraries can be involved in helping prevent eviction.

We will end with a tour of the  LSC eviction laws database, and I will try to give you a little high level tour of that, and then one big learning from today is also, I want to kind of say this from the beginning, is that this really is about finding partners, looking for and making those really successful referrals, and we'll all be  talking about different ways of doing that.

Libraries are not alone in this work.

You are one player that can help connect people to the best players to be the most effective in preventing eviction.

We'll end with time for  questions.

don't be shy about putting your questions in the chat.

We'll pause it several times and try to answer some in the chat.

We want to collect those for our follow-up meeting in December, so, please, please, please surface those questions there.

Now we have a question for you.

There's a link in the chat to go to the poll so we can get a sense of what is happening at your library around eviction.

How frequently are these questions coming your way?

Give you a minute to answer that first question.

Feel like I'm at a horse race watching.

Who is going to come out on top?

It is an interesting question whether or not you're getting the question at your library is that reflective of the state of evictions in the area or  reflective of the fact that people do not think about libraries for these questions?

So it seems like, for sure, that it is a rare question.

Rare is the dominant answer by almost double.

Very small percentage daily.

Okay.

Great.

Let's go to the second question.

Okay.

And then this is really the heart of the learning here.

How do you feel about answering these questions?

Hopefully, you'll feel better prepared at the end of today.

If you can't use the poll, it is fine to answer in the chat.

There seems to be a clustering of somewhat and not at all, a few at the very end.

Give you another 10 seconds maybe.

Seems like a clustering from somewhat to not at all.

Well, we're glad you are here.

The folks who are very prepared, I hope you chime in with your knowledge in chat to assist our fellow learners.

Thank you for moderating that.

Okay.

We're going to start at the really high level here.

Probably don't have to tell you that the public cost of eviction is far reaching.

Certain legal Protections have expired, estimates suggest that over 8 million families are at the risk of eviction.

8million families.

Studies throughout the country show people of color constitute approximately 80% of people  facing eviction.

Researchers found the number of evictions for black households in Baltimore exceeded those of white households by nearly 200%.

There's really disproportionally different experiences with eviction, disproportionally affecting people of color.

This makes it more expensive and difficult for tenants who have been evicted to rent safe and decent housing, to apply for credit, to borrow money, or to purchase a home.

Eviction separates families from homes.

It can separate children from parents.

Workers from jobs.

Students from schools.

Neighbors from communities.

Following ab an eviction, the risk of experiencing  homelessness increases, mental and physical health diminished, and probability of obtaining employment declines.

Eviction is linked to numerous poor public health outcomes including depression, suicide, and anxiety, among others.

The public costs of eviction are far reaching.

Individuals experiencing displacement due to eviction more likely need emergency shelter and use in-patient and emergency medical services, require child welfare services, and experience the criminal legal system among other harms.

The clock is ticking for millions of people who face  losing their homes.

The phases we talk about are specific time points in each of those, and once the eviction is filed, the clock is really  ticking.

There are viable ways to avoid eviction, and we hope to make the phases of eviction of avoiding it clearer today.

Public libraries are  well-positioned to help the eviction crisis by increasing access to information and resources.

People who may not know to come to the library for eviction information, but they do know to come to the library for other reasons and feel comfortable doing so.

We can build an awareness that libraries have helpful eviction information, and Deb will talk specifically about different roles public libraries can play in the eviction space.

I want to make it really clear that this is reference work.

Eviction questions are like other questions you get at the desk about topics you don't know about.

The stakes might feel higher, and there is that line between information and advice that must be heeded, and, again, Deb will talk about this, but what we're talking about is not social work.

This is reference work.

Part of being able to answer these questions is to become familiar enough with the phases and what other crisis patrons are seeking help for that might also have an eviction component.

They might not come in directly asking for eviction help, but as you ask more questions and dive in deeper, you might surface an eviction element to it.

Another part of answering questions is also learning about where to refer patrons to, the partners I talked about in the beginning.

Who are they?

Who are the other players in the eviction space?

When is the right time to refer people?

Who are the best referrals for different agencies?

And, again, Deb will talk about ways to find those partners.

Going to take just a second to look at the chat to see okay.

So it is important to know what evictions look like in your community.

There's huge variation.

Huge variation.

We're going to talk a little bit about how to find that information.

You heard a lot about the moratoria and probably have been confused about the moratoria like I have.

The very clear answer is the  CDC's eviction ban is no longer in place.

On August 26th, the Supreme Court ended the moratorium.

Several states, cities, and counties created their own moratoria, and some of those, like in California, expired and have not been renewed.

Others are still in place or have special Protections for tenants at risk of eviction.

So the best place to find out what's going on in your area is this link that will go in the chat in just a second.

I will say one caveat that's really important to see when the date that page has been updated because this stuff is changing really rapidly.

So check that.

It is also, you can just ask or call your courts and ask what's going on with the moratoria in your area.

So moratoria is one thing to check.

The second thing to check is about right to counsel.

Across the country, renters have a constitutional right to due process, generally, meaning they have a right to be heard and dispute eviction in court.

Unlike in criminal cases, in housing court, the U.S. does not guarantee equal representation.

That did change.

It changed with a few states.

In 2021, Washington state became the first U.S. state to legislate right to counsel in eviction court, the right to an attorney, followed by Maryland and Connecticut.

They are, by far, the exception.

So another thing to check is what is the right to counsel in your area?

Nationwide with, only 3% of tenants have an attorney, and 81% of landlords do.

Not surprising there.

Again, a lot of local variation.

So check the moratoria  situation, the right to counsel situation, and then these are some ways to find actual hard eviction data in your community.

So a few options for finding this.

You may know the answer to this just based on questions at the desk or knowledge of your community or reading the newspaper, but there's some places to get some really, you know, very special data on what those filings look like.

So LSC.

I'm going to pause for a second to explain legal services corporation.

They have been a partner with us in this work for some time and nonprofit that funds access to those around the country and legal aide agencies.

If your local legal aide clinic is probably getting funding and support from the legal services Corporation.

So they have created an eviction tracker that provides access to multiyear trend data on eviction filings for 884 Counties in 21 states.

So it is a great place to begin to get a sense of the state of evictions in your area.

So if you're not in one of those 21 states, there are other places to get good data on this.

Eviction lab has a great  tracker.

That will go in the chat.

Other local agencies, local public housing groups, and universities often do this.

Atlanta has a local tracker, for example, and that link will be in the chat.

Oklahoma has a tracker.

It is worth digging around to see if you have any local groups doing this work.

And it is a great way to kind of get a sense of what's -- what are the filings happening?

There's great variation by county.

We do -- we created a job aid to help you use the tracker, relatively simple, but this will make it simpler.

Get a sense of the data and use that data to advocate for resources in your library.

This webinar and resources are a continuation of WebJunction to continue the partnership with LSC.

One significant outcome of the partnership was creating the pathways to legal justice  courses.

So it is a series of four free self-paced courses designed to help library staff be better equipped to answer civil/legal justice questions.

They are self-contained so if, you know, you feel like you have a decent grasp on this stuff, but feeling rusty on your legal reference interview skills, jump into course 4.

If you are new completely to the civil legal justice topic, explore these.

These are really foundational to the content I'm talking about today.

These eviction resources are expanding on sort of basic civil legal reference skills that you probably already have.

So we have developed this eviction resources landing page, just launched this week, so you are some of the newest users.

Bookmark this page as we will add to it over the next few months, but this is really where we are collecting what we're trying to create an excellent list of resources for eviction without being an overwhelming list, so I hope that will be  useful to you.

I'm going to turn it over to Deb now to talk about the phases of eviction.

Thank you.

>> Thanks, Brooke.

I'm Deb Hamilton.

I'm a librarian at Pikes Peak Library District and oversee the law section there.

We have inherited our courthouse legal library, so I help to get access to that and outreach and programming in that area: part of my outreach is I also serve on the board of directors of the justice center, a local nonprofit, and we offer free and noncost legal help, weekly clinics, and number of  educational resources for our clients, and I'm vice chair of the access to justice committee for the 4th judicial district here in Colorado.

I've also just recent lid published a book called "Helping Library Users with Legal Questions," and practical advice for research, programming, and outreach, available through the publisher, ABC-CLIO, and we have a discount code for you all today if you are interested in looking at that.

It is a 20% discount.

The code's there on the screen.

We popped it in the chat with the product linked.

That will be good through the end of the year.

So what I'm going to talk about here are the phases of eviction.

This will be kind of a high level discussion to give you a sense of the process.

One thing to keep in mind is that the timeline and the terminology for the eviction process is really going to vary by jury diction -- jurisdiction so it depends what state you're in.

This is all covered in a handout available on the event page  called "the five phases of eviction" so you can get an outline of the process there, but we're going to walk through it really quickly right now, and we'll talk about the notice, the filing, the hearing, the judgment, and then the eviction.

So the first thing that will happen is that the landlord needs to give notice of intent to file eviction in the courts.

So this will be served to the tenant so depending on what state you're in, it could be posted on the door, delivered in person, some states allow for both.

In the notice, the landlord is going to give the reason for why they are seeking eviction.

It could be anything from nonpayment of rent to criminal behavior to a variety of other grounds that violate some term of the lease.

The notice will also give a  timeline for response.

So how long the tenant has to respond before the landlord is then able to file with the  court.

This is best if we can solve the situation at this stage because once eviction is filed, it is going to end up on a person's rental history, and so if we can prevent getting to the next phase, that's going to be the best outcome for everybody.

Then the next phase is the  filing phase.

So after that initial notice period has expired and tenant has to the been able to cure the violation either by paying back rent or whatever it was, the landlord can file with the  court.

This, then, places it on the tenant's rental history, and a hearing date will get set.

You know, depending on where you live, sometimes eviction pieces are heard by county courts, and sometimes they are heard in district courts for the state.

The defendant or tenant may be able to file a response, which is oftentimes known as an  answer.

The defendant may be able to file what's known as a counter claim, which would be to sue the landlord back for let's say if they had not then been able to, you know, keep the property in good condition or something like that.

And so all of these timelines will be spelled out in the state laws, and so that is where the eviction laws database will be helpful for you as the timelines will be available for you.

So I'm going to pause here in the phases, and I just want to really stress the importance of prevention when dealing with folks who are in eviction proceedings.

If there's any way to prevent getting to the filing stage and connect people with legal assistance and information, the better their outcomes will be.

If we can rectify this before court, we can avoid a lot of the impacts Brooke discussed in her portion.

We can keep the filing off of someone's rental history.

Some ways that we can help is to provide information on laws and rights to help prevent, you  know, even getting to that  phase.

My library participates in quarterly renters' rates workshops to help get that information out before they are even in a situation that might lead to eviction.

I think the work shops are good for landlords so they know their rights and responsibilities too.

Connecting people with legal assistance is probably the best thing that you can do to help people.

Ultimately getting legal advice is going to be the most helpful for them, and we'll talk a little bit more about where to look for referral sources here in a couple of slides.

And I think part of this prevention piece is really the importance of communication.

Once a case gets filed with the court, they generally move pretty quickly.

Those timelines do not give people a lot of time to respond, and so if tenants and landlords can be communicating early on before it gets to those stages, I think that is what's best.

A lot of times I think we view the landlord/tenant relationship as being adversary corral, but it does not need to be that way.

If there's good lines of communication, they could work together to set up repayment programs, work through rental assistance applications  together, or find a way to terminate the lease agreement without going to court.

They might use Amy keel rescission of lease to get out of that contract.

Okay.

Back in the phases.

So then the next phase is the initial hearing, and I saw in the chat, and I also want to stress it as well, it is very important to show up for the hearing.

If the tenant fails to show up for the hearing, a default judgment will likely be issued against them, and that means they will be evicted.

If the landlord fails to show  up, the tenant could request the judge dismiss the case, however, not every state this automatically happens so this is another reason why it is really important for tenants to seek legal assistance so they know what rights they have once they are in court.

As well as, you know, legal assistance can also help tenants to know what types of defenses they may make, and, again, these will vary from state to state.

Next, we have the judgment  phase, so the judge will issue a ruling.

A lot of these cases it ends up being against the tenant, and then another timeline will go into effect where the tenant has a certain number of days after that judgment to vacate the property, and, again, those timelines will vary by jurisdiction.

A tenant may be able to appeal.

The process, again, varies depending what state you're in, and sometimes it's only accomplished if a defendant puts up a year's worth of rent while the case is being appealed.

This makes it really out of reach, especially if you are evicted for failure to pay rent.

And then the final phase is the eviction phase.

If the tenant fails to vacate the property after the judgment in that allotted amount of time they have, the landlord can file what's known as a writ of concession with the court that has the tenantry moved.

If it gets to this stage, the sheriff will execute that order a certain number of days after that filing of the writ of possession, and the sheriff will come and remove the tenant and their properties.

One thing to kind of keep in mind is that, you know, if the eviction case results in a  ruling or default judgment against the tenant, the tenant may also then be required to pay court fees, attorney fees in addition to the back rent owed, late fees, and maybe other monetary penalties.

Some jurisdictions do not require additional notice before the removal occurs.

Again, it just depends on your state, and some jurisdictions have abandon property statutes where landlords may put  belongings of the tenant into a storage facility, and then tenants have to pay to have their belongings released from that facility.

It gets very expensive, too, for the tenant to get to this phase.

So at the end of the presentation, we'll have a quick overview of the laws database, a very useful resource to connect you to your state-specific laws on landlord issues as well as evictions.

The thing I like about it is it gives a plain language explanation and direct citation to the specific law.

Sometimes the laws are hard to parse, but here you can get a sense of what it means and then see the citation to see where in your state's code to look at that.

There's also on the the WebJunction pace and LSC created a glossary of commonly used terms and phrases, and so I would recommend checking that out as well.

One thing to just keep in mind is that this terminology, too, can vary from state to state, and so one example is forcible entry and detainer.

Some states, this describes an illegal action of a landlord removing a tenant from the property whereas in other  states, in the state I live in, it actually describes the legal process through the courts where a tenant may remove -- where the landlord may remove the tenant from the property, so, again, it is good to be familiar with your specific state's laws through that eviction database.

You know, you're going to be looking at state laws for evictions and landlord/tenant relationships, and, generally, the law has both substantive and procedural portions.

You'll find things in different places of your state's code, and so, for example, in Colorado, in title 38, covering property, that's where you are going to find laws on the landlord/tenant relationship, but if you want to learn about the eviction process and procedural laws, go to title 13 and look at the court procedure section.

You may also find additional procedural information in your state's court's rules, usually available with your statutes or code or however your state refers to those laws.

Another thing to keep in mind is self-help resources at your courts.

This, again, variouses drastically from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but some have great websites with forms and instructions to help people through the process.

Other courts have court  employees to answer questions about forums and procedures, but not every state has that.

I encourage you to become familiar with what resources are available through your state and County courts.

And then I also just, again, I want to stress the importance of trying to refer patrons where to get legal assistance.

As an attorney might be able to tell the patron more about what their rights are and potential defenses they can mount in  court.

How can libraries help?

We're going to briefly go through a few things here.

We'll talk a little bit about legal reference work and the difference between legal information and advice, and I'm going to touch on the referral process and how to find partners in your community.

We're also able to help by finding basic information on forms and processes, and just by providing access to technology and information literacy instruction.

So the legal reference interview, if you go to the creating pathways to civil legal justice course, this gets covered in a lot more depth in course 4.

I encourage you to check that out if you are new to legal reference interviews, but in a nutshell, what our purpose is is to help the patron navigate resources and understand the research process that's going to lead them to binding primary authority.

So what binding primary authority is is just the laws from the specific laws from the correct jurisdiction that apply to the patron situation.

What we want to try to avoid in all of this is giving out legal advice or interpreting legal sources for the patron.

Just to briefly gloss through the process, again, it starts like a lot of other reference interviews where you determine subject matter by asking  open-ended questions.

What's the subject?

What's the scope?

The jurisdiction here, in step 2, we know this is dealing with state laws.

That's where you can help the patron to begin searching, help the patron determine a list of keywords for searching, and then showing how the sources work because a lot of times if you are looking at legal sources, complex numbering systems and things like that, you know, knowing where to find the authoritative sources online or in print if you have them available that way.

One thing I want people to be aware of is all states prohibit unauthorized practice of law.

In essence, acting as an attorney for somebody when you are not.

That would be providing legal advice or interpretations, and so how we avoid this as librarians is providing legal information and making referrals to places to get legal advice, but not doing that ourselves.

So just to break it down a little more, but there is actually a short video on the event page that will go into this in much more depth so check that out, but this kind of gives you a sense of what's considered information, what is considered advice, and so just, for  example, the first one, we can direct people to where they can find forms and instructions for forms, but they are going to need to make the selection for forms.

We're not going to recommend specific forms because that gets into the realm of advice, because if you ever looked at court forms, there's a lot of choices, and so the patron needs to be the one to make those selections.

So you can kind of just see a little bit down the line here where that division is, but check out the video on the event website.

I'm going to quickly hand it over to Jennifer to explain these annotation tools so we can do a quick exercise here on the next two slides.

>> Thanks, Deb.

We have option for you to grab an annotation tool.

I'm going to orient you as to how to find it.

If you hover over the slide, far left, you should see a long pill menu, and there's a second option that's a little quick the line icon, an then you should see menu like this on the right appear, and go down halfway to the square, and that's into the world's smallest arrow to the right of the square will open up another submenu with a  checkmark.

Once you clicked on that  checkmark, you can go to the slide and click on it.

We'll see, hopefully, a lot of check marks appear of tests on this slide, excellent.

Wonderful.

Thank you so much for taking such great directions.

We'll ask now that you pause your check marks and let Deb continue and we've got a couple of questions to ask you to consider.

>> Great, thank you so much, Jennifer.

All right.

So how this is going to work is we have a statement here, and I'm going to read the statement, and I want you to select whether you think it is advice or information.

So you'll just place your check where you think it should go.

Advice or information?

Locating and directing the patron to the online tenant's right document that covers the location where the patron lives.

Advice or information?

I'll give you a second or two longer here.

There's an overwhelming  response.

All right, let's go ahead and close out the checks, and this one is information.

So, yeah, most of you have got that right there.

I'm going to jump to the next slide.

We'll do one more of these.

Same parameters.

Advice or information?

Telling the patron is looks like the landlord is not adhering to the rights spelled out in the document.

Place your check in which box you think this is.

Give you just another couple seconds here.

And, yes, looks like the vast majority got this one right as well.

This is going to fall into advice here because you are  making an interpretation on the landlord's actions.

Thanks, everyone.

I'm going to go ahead and go to the next slide now.

So a big part of the work that we do is to make referrals, and so there's going to be resource handouts of where you can, you know, start to look for people to make referrals to.

I've put a few suggestions on this slide as well.

I would also recommend taking a look at course 3 of the creating pathways to civil legal justice class, because that will actually walk you through some activities and give you some ideas more further about where to find legal providers in your community.

Another thing to keep in mind is that each community is going to have different resources available, and that it is really important to try to build a relationship with the agencies that you are referring people  to.

That way you know the scope of the services offered as well as how they like to receive referrals, whether by e-mail, walk-in, or phone, so that way both the agency and patron have the best experience possible.

I think relationship building also gives the library an opportunity to support the organization that you are referring to because they might also have needs that the library can fill, such as free meeting space, promotion of the events, ect.

So, you know, that first bullet point is a lot of the usual suspects that I think you would probably think of on your own.

You know, a lot of these places either provide free legal assistance or clinics.

The last point here that I'd like to stress is perhaps other service providers might have some sort of legal component to the service.

So a lot of times, groups working with a specialized population, such as survivors of domestic violence, veterans, seniors, they may have a legal service to what they offer, and so it might be an attorney on staff to help with Protection orders or something of that nature.

Lawhelp.org is another great resource to be familiar with.

Here you can find information about legal services in your area as well as a lot of informational resources that will be specific to your state.

Again, I would encourage you to figure out what kind of self-help resources are available at your courthouse because that can be a great place to refer people to about forms and procedures.

Also, consider what sort of nonprofits you have that work with housing issues.

For this particular topic, because there may be housing counselors who can answer questions about landlord/tenant laws and give out information in that realm.

They may not necessarily be able to write legal advice, but they could connect people with some really great information.

The last thing I'm going to close with is a reminder that Brooke brought up as well.

I know this can be a bit overwhelming in that legal questions are stressful for people, especially eviction questions in particular, just because there is so much at stake, but, really, this is about doing what you are already doing.

Building solid community partnerships to make referrals, providing people access to technology, and providing access to information.

So I don't know if we'll stop for questions yet, but if we do, I am happy to answer some now, but if not, we're plowing ahead, the next presenter is Kris ton Wong, a Financial analyst from the Consumer Protection Bureau and will talk about the housing landscape and how to help people with rental assistance, so thanks, everyone.

>> Deb, this is Beth.

I'm going to interject briefly because there's been a lot of love for librarians in the chat, which is great.

Can you just be a little more specific about what a law library can do that will help a public library, and also maybe eliminate some of the difference from state law library's recommendations for court law, libraries, and so sort of the differences of where a couple of the librarians might turn to.

>> Yeah.

I mean, if you have access to a law library, you know, I think they can do a little bit more research, but they are more familiar with the different sources available.

In particularly, I mean, these types of cases, generally tend to fall more with forms and statutes, and so these are things that you can usually find pretty available, freely available online or through your local courthouse.

Where law libraries play an important law is you have patrons needing access to case law.

Case law is an area where there's no good free resources for so when you do case law research, you have to make sure the case is still current, and a lot of times the only way to do that is use a proprietary service like lexus nexus, and law libraries have access to that.

Sometimes, if you are not quite sure where to start and the law library is easily accessible for the patron, then it is just another handy place to refer people, so folks that, you know, sort of are familiar with, you know, referring people to statutes own how that works, they can provide help that way.

So I'm not sure.

I hope I answered.

There was a lot of portions to the question, Beth, so let me know if I missed something.

>> Well, I think that's very helpful, and I think just the general message is, please contact a law library.

They are amazingly savvy and very eager to partner and help.

So, with with that, let's go ahead and hear from Kristin.

>> All right.

Thank you, guys, for that great introduction.

I was going to say, I'm Kristin Wong from the CFPB, and today we'll talk about more data about what we've been seeing with renters, landlords, and the eviction crisis, and then I'm going to talk about, you know, about some resources that are available for both landlords and renters.

Before I start, a quick disclaimer.

Any opinions or views that I state are my own and may not necessarily represent the  bureau's views, and this document will not necessarily contain everything that I talk about today.

So just to, I guess, solidify some of the things that brook talked about, an estimated 7 million tenant households are currently behind on their rent.

That's a lot of people.

There has been a disproportional impact in the current crisis so black and Hispanic families are more likely to report being behind on their housing payments than white family, and so if you think about all of those negative outcomes associated with the eviction, that, you know, Brooke talked about, disparities and evictions,  housing security is really important in addressing the nation's broader inequities.

There's a really, you know, time crunch here.

You know, we have very little time to prevent millions from losing their home to prevent eviction or foreclosure, but there is help out there.

You know, it is not automatic.

We're really here with you guys to make sure we can, you know, boost awareness of the help that is out there for tenants.

Many are unaware of their  rights, and CFPB is a new, young agency, and not many people know about us, but we are really, you know, relying on you guys to spread the word of, you know, all the educational resources that we have.

So to start, you know, as I mentioned, I have more data for you guys.

I just wanted to talk about, you know, who are renters?

Who is, you know, facing this eviction crisis?

About 35% of all U.S. households and renters.

The renting population tends to be younger, lower income, and less white than the home owning population.

One-third of households are families with children.

What this chart is showing, you know, we see that Black and Hispanic households are more than twice as likely to be in rentals than white households, and from 2004 to 2019, those are the two different colors, the households that are renters particularly increased for Black households, and inverse of that story being that the home ownership rate in the Black community is back to levels seen before the fair housing act when housing discrimination was  legal, and a lot of that stemmed from the 2008-2009 financial crisis.

This shows, like, the, you know, ongoing impacts of the financial crisis.

Low income households are most likely to be renters.

This chart shows you 23% of high income households are renters compared to 69% of low income households, and we've seen the effects of the pandemic was felt more by low income households.

On top of all of that, you know, we've seen prices going up.

The national median rent increased 16.4% from the beginning of the year to September.

In a normal year, that would be, like, 3% to 4%, so, you know, people are feeling the price crunch.

You know, it is not in their heads, but it is a lot more this year.

So, you know, what does all of this mean?

What does this mean in terms of, like, what people are feeling right now?

This data is from the census pulse survey, which is census, doing a lot of quick surveys right now just to get the pulse of, you know, what people are feeling, and this is data from this October, and as you can see on the left, it is showing percentage of households, you know, who are, you know, behind on rent or who say they are not caught up on rent, and you'll see, you know, households of color have, you know, higher -- reporting -- more likely to report they are behind.

On the right, we have, of the people who say they are not caught up in rent, who thinks eviction is likely in the next two months?

Here, you know, I think it is just, personally, astounding how high the numbers are.

Again, you know, it's, like, almost half of households who are behind say they are worried about eviction, and, you know, we, as people mentioned, we have Protections out -- protections out there for renters.

People are not fully aware of them, and I think, you know, this chart makes that super, super clear.

So, you know, what is, you know, what type of help do we have?

So, you know, Brooke talked a little bit about, you know, some of the state Protections that are out there.

There's also, you know, rental assistance money that, you know, is being given out to people who are struggling, and so, you  know, there's a lot of state and local governments as well as, you know, just local organizations that are providing rental assistance.

What I say is the biggest program right now is the federal emergency rental assistance program.

It is over $45 billion that's being given out in two phases.

And, you know, to be clear, this is, you know, this is not, like, a loan.

This is just straight aide.

I think a lot of times renters see this, and go, Oh, what's the catch?

There's not a catch.

And this federal money is being, you know, organized by the treasury department, but it is distributed by local programs, and so, you know, each -- there's, you know, broad requirements, but each local program has its own nuances, and so there's, like, a different flavor of rental assistance for, you know, each jurisdiction that you're working with.

Most of these programs are taking landlord applications.

You know, if you are also taking applications from tenants.

The money, generally, is used for unpaid rent and utilities.

Important people know that utilities are clumped into this, and then some programs are covering future rent or moving costs.

Payments are going directly to landlords and utility companies, so, you know, it is really important there's communication between the landlord and the tenant.

As of September 30th, state and local governments made over 2 million emergency rental assistance payments and distributed over $10 million.

One way to say, Oh, that's so much money out, but the other way, is, like, there's so much money to go, $10 billion and  $45 billion is not a lot, and so there's room for people to take advantage of this.

So, you know, I'm sure, maybe you're thinking, okay, if treasury money and money led by the treasury department  stewarding the money, where does the CFPB come in?

Once the pandemic started, we put together a website where consumers can go to get all the information they need on getting housing relief, and they recently launched a rental assistance finder tool that  helps you locate and contact organizations that are distributing this money, and so you can select your state, you know, this person here,  Colorado, select your County, and then it will show you all the programs that could potentially, you know, be potentially you could apply for, and so, you know, if you are working with someone, you can kind of, like, show them, you know, where the tool is, how to use it, and it is a way you just kind of connect them with information they need.

Once you give your list of programs, they provide you with the websites as well as phone numbers you can use to contact.

Other resources that we have on the website is, you know, as I mentioned, we have general education.

It is directed, you know, at consumers, so it is written in plain language.

You don't have to be a, you  know, housing expert to understand everything that's there.

And there's informations on just, you know, what to do if you face eviction.

There's general information about rental assistance.

So answers the common questions about eligibility and coverage, and how to talk to your landlord about payment agreements, you know, tenant and debt collection rights, including those that apply outside the pandemic, and where to find help.

You know, there's ways to find your local bar association or legal aid office, and we have a search tool that helps people find a housing counselor.

You know, generally, if you go through a HUD housing counselor, you'll be able to find free  help, which, you know, is really helpful for people who might be struggling.

I wanted to talk about, you  know, landlords, because they are another really important piece of the picture.

So, you know, you are a small landlord, ideally think of those who own a fewer than ten properties, so not a big management company, but maybe someone in a duplex, someone who moved, a retired couple, could be someone for whom their main source of income and  collectively own a surprisingly large amount of rental units, you know, more than half, and also a large amount of the rental units that are the more affordable properties.

Because they are smaller, they are vulnerable to rental short falls, and we've seen small landlords have been struggling during the pandemic, and, you know, I put this chart here just to, you know, I think it challenges what some assumptions people may have about landlords, and so this chart is from urban institute in avail, a platform for DIY landlords.

You know, it is naturally going to have, you know, serving people who are the smaller landlords, and they find that a good portion of their users have incomes below $75,000, and they own only one property, and they also have a mortgage on that property.

And they also found that, you know, many of the more financial landlords are Black and his panic, and helping small landlords is also kind of, you know, one of the pays we address racial disparities.

Owner housing hub website.

This website has resources dedicated towards landlords, and so, you know, there's information, again, on rental assistance, setting up payment agreements, and also there's, like, a ton of information about mortgage relief.

Some key things to know about rental assistance from the landlord's point of view.

First, just, you know, landlords can apply.

It applies to them.

Often we need the assistance of landlords to apply.

If tenants are eligible, you'll be eligible.

We know big landlords are  applying for assistance so it is important the small guys are doing it too, and, you know, rental assistance could cover up to 18 months of rent, and so, you know, we know often landlords, like, do want to help tenants, and this is a way to help their tenants and also, you know, recoop some of what was lost.

Additionally, we don't only talk housing.

The pandemic touched all aspects of consumers' finances, and there's information on student loans, avoiding scams, and there's other links to other federal agencies that touch on things like unemployment, leave, and health benefits.

We have resources available in seven languages, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, and Arabic.

Additionally for, you know, service providers, libraries, there are resources that you can take from, you know, resources that we developed that we are happy for you guys to take and use and share.

You don't have to reinvent the wheel.

So, you know, you can go to our website, and you can, you know, print out, you know, handouts, take sample e-mails, social media posts with lots of information on rental assistance.

Finally, you know, we are really happy to take any sort of  feedback from you guys.

Any type of opportunities, like, you know, you have to get the word out, and then, you know, also, you know, sign up for e-mails to get the latest  updates from the CFPB.

With that, I will pass it back to Brooke.

>> Great, thank you, Kristin.

Deb referred to the evictions laws database talking about specifics around your state's variation.

So LSC partnered with temple university health law research to create this datalaws data base, a comprehensive online tool allowing users to explore the entire legal process of eviction from prefiling to post judgment in communities across the country.

There's a state and local data set that covers state territory level eviction laws for all 50 states, DC, and the U.S. territories, so really comprehensive.

You'll get to a page that looks like this, and you get to choose your state, and then I chose Missouri, and you'll start to see the level of detail we're talking about here.

So those little yellow squares allows you to click on that and get some of that more detail and plain language translation.

There's so much local variation so this is really important.

If you are ready for this level of detail and understand your state's laws really intimately, I recommend taking a little tour here.

We will be producing a job aid and video on how to use this data base in the next month or two.

This is a local dataset produced for 30 jurisdictions you will see on this slide.

These were chosen for the demographic, SCS, and legal differences among American communities, and so you get even more granular detail and specific detail if you're in one of these.

Similar things, but with the local laws.

I want to thank our partners today, LSC, OCLC, wonderful to have this time with you, and here's some -- we've given you a lot of resources, and I hope you bookmark that landing page for one-stop shopping.

I will highlight that webinar, sorry, the learning guide for the webinar as a way to take the learning, like, do, you know, so much of this is local, and we give you a higher level view, and now you can take that learning and see what it looks like in your local area, and the learner guide will help you guide you through that and think about actions you might want to take in the library.

There's a foundational course I mentioned.

I really want to encourage you to come on December the 8th.

It is a follow-up conversation from this, so we want to answer questions that did not get answered today, answer questions that come up as you do the diving and realize, like, I don't understand this, and I thought I understood rental assistance, but I found  confusing things.

Bring your questions to that.

We'll have two speakers at the beginning, so it will be a time for back and forth, but the beginning will have two different speakers, and someone was specifically asking for examples of partnerships.

One is Beth Hill at the Kansas City Public Library sharing her experiences, and it is  highlighting community  engagement around eviction, and then another is from the other side, so from the partner's perspective.

Someone from Deb's community, from city government, talking about what it's like to partner with the library around rental assistance and tenants' rights and things, so we hope you will join us December the 8th.

The link -- excuse me -- is in the chat, and there's a question as you register, sorry, a box, where you can input a question if you already know what your question is, go ahead and tell us so we can use them as we prepare.

And I think we are all happy to be e-mailed with questions, so, please, follow up.

We can take the last minute or two, Beth, I will see if there's anything you want to surface right now.

>> Well, since we're running right up against the hour, I'll pose a quick question for Kristin.

It seems counterintuitive the landlord is appealing for the emergency rental assistance.

Can you confirm that?

I think it's not always true, but can you just speak to that briefly?

>> Yeah.

So I think some landlords, you know, maybe they've missed, you know, multiple months of rent, so let's say, you know, six or seven months of rent behind, and the landlords, you know, they will benefit from getting, you know, that back rent instead of trying to get that money from the tenant who, you know, they already know doesn't have that money.

So I think that's kind of one of the incentives that, you know, the landlord will have, and  then, you know, also, just a lot of applications are, you know, looking for the landlord because the money's going directly to the landlord.

So, yeah.

It's important that the landlord is involved here.

>> And that relates to what Deb said very early on with communication being so  important.

Library staff can foster communication and help people understand that.

It is very positive step forward.

We're at the top of the hour, and so, Jennifer, wrap us up here.

>> Excellent.

Yes.

Thank you so much to Brooke and Deb and Kristin for your  support, and our captioner.

We'll e-mail you later today once the recording is ready, and I apologize, again, for the strange new bug in Webex that your posts in chat all didn't go to everyone.

I will try to make sure that the version we post is a little bit more comprehensive, and so you can look for that later.

I'll also send you all a certificate, probably next week, for your attendance today, and, again, send your colleagues to the WebJunction course catalog to view the recording and get certificates there.

I will also mention that as you leave today, we're sending you to a short survey, and this would yet be another opportunity for you to provide feedback that will help us inform our subsequent work with eviction related questions, and so we will share that with our presenters.

We really appreciate your  feedback and they'll be a link to the survey in the follow-up e-mail if you have to head back to a reference desk right now.

Thank you, again, everyone have a great rest of the week, and we'll look to see you in December.

Thank you so much.

	
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