A year after a federal moratorium on evictions ended, eviction filings in Colorado are trending within the historical range seen over the past 20 years and haven’t surpassed 4,000 a month, according to a report Thursday from the Colorado Apartment Association.
Colorado recorded 3,871 eviction filings in September and 3,981 in August, based on counts from Denver County Court and the Colorado Judicial Branch statistical report. Over the past 12 months, the state has averaged 3,383 eviction filings a month. Over the past 20 years, eviction filings in the state have run in a range of 3,000 to 4,000 a month.
“It’s been a very stable return to normality and flat over the last four months,” Drew Hamrick, general counsel and senior vice president of government affairs for the apartment association, said in comments accompanying the report.
It can take about three months from a filing to when the sheriff moves someone out, Hamrick said, adding that fewer than 15% of filed cases result in someone being forced out of a rental property by a knock on the door. Most cases are resolved after tenants catch up on the back rent or move out voluntarily.
Colorado, with a population of 5.8 million, is seeing about 600 physical evictions, Hamrick said.
Heavy job losses, reduced incomes, and a novel virus that was making thousands ill raised concerns that people would fall behind on their rent and face eviction early on in the pandemic. Some renters went on strike, demanding relief. To head off a surge in homeless households while COVID-19 was actively spreading, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention barred evictions. That moratorium went away on Sept. 30 last year after a federal judge ruled it was unconstitutional.
Eviction filings are higher than they were a year ago, but they haven’t surged as some tenant advocates feared. For one, Colorado renters as a group managed to stay current at a higher rate than renters in other states. And federal rental assistance, while not always timely, was plentiful. Colorado received $690 million to help those who did fall behind.
The Colorado Department of Local Affairs said back in April it had processed more than 90,000 applications and provided $229 million in rental assistance, using up most of its allocation. Arapahoe, Boulder, Denver, Douglas and Larimer counties still have rental assistance funds.
The Emergency Rental Assistance Program is set to wrap up by the end of this year and Congress hasn’t allocated any additional funds. Eligible households may qualify to receive one more round of help, including those that have applied in the past, provided they haven’t received more than 18 months of assistance. Applications can take four to six weeks to process.
Those wanting to learn more can call or text 720-356-0174 or 1-888-480-0066 during normal business hours or on Saturdays from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. That number will not be staffed on Oct. 7 because of the Indigenous Peoples Day holiday on Monday.
Hamrick said landlords partnered with the Resident Relief Foundation to help residents struggling with the rent. That program still has $100,000 available and is also still taking applications.
