Should Evictions Be Banned After Hurricanes and Climate Disasters?
Sonoma County, California, has adopted a moratorium on evictions during declared emergencies — a model that housing advocates want to see nationwide.
Damaged belongings outside an apartment building in Treasure Island, Florida, after the storm surge from Hurricane Helene.
Photographer: Thomas Simonetti for The Washington Post via Getty Images
At the height of the 2021 hurricane season, Congressperson Val Demings, who represented Florida’s District 10 in the US House of Representatives, introduced a bill that would have mandated an automatic 90-day moratorium on evictions in areas impacted by disasters. But the bill failed to pass, and the following year, when Hurricane Ian tore through central Florida, the costliest storm in state history triggered the kind of tenant crisis the bill was designed to help prevent.
State law allowed landlords to simply terminate the leases of uninhabitable units and return tenant security deposits. The impact hit low-income residents of apartments and rental homes alike. Residents of an East Naples mobile home park, for example, were ordered to vacate days after the landfall. In Orange County, the landlord of a low-income housing complex told tenants that their units needed to be vacated at the end of October, more than a month after the storm hit, pushing them into a competitive housing market with few affordable alternatives.