Rural SC counties are at risk as the eviction moratorium ends. Chester is among them.
Experts predict a “tidal wave of evictions” in South Carolina after a federal moratorium on them was set to expire Saturday, with poor, rural areas including Chester County expected to be hit the hardest.
The Centers For Disease Control and Prevention said in June that it would not extend the moratorium again, after several extensions since the COVID-19 pandemic began. The CDC enacted the moratorium to block evictions and keep people in their homes to stop the spread of COVID-19.
The Biden administration said Thursday it will allow the moratorium to expire Saturday, the Associated Press reported, after the Supreme Court signaled the moratorium would only be extended until the end of the month.
A recently updated report by the S.C. State Housing Financing & Development Authority (referred to as SC Housing) shows that 46.5% Chester County are “cost burdened” — meaning they spend 30% or more of their household income on rent.
Being cost burdened by rent means “you are paying too much money in rent to pay for your other household needs — medical needs, transportation needs. It can put a challenge on so many other things if all that income is tied up in housing,” said Chris Winston, a representative for SC Housing.
Data by SC Housing also shows that in 2019 there were 214 evictions per 1,000 renter households in South Carolina. (The same household could have been evicted multiple times..)
That number is unusually high, Winston says. “It is concerning when you have the risk of that many people being potentially homeless or put out on the street, or looking for somewhere to live at any point in time, for a community that size.”
It’s important to remember that the SC Housing is data was collected in 2019 — before COVID-19 and the financial strain it placed on the working class. High eviction rates were already plaguing Chester and, without renter protections, it will most likely return to that state.
“People in Chester were struggling to make ends meet,” Winston said. “Then throw on top of that, a pandemic would shut down so many businesses, so many restaurants, so many ways that people make their money. You’re in a situation where it was barely tenable before, and now you’re in a place where you’ve lost more money. And the only thing that’s kept them in their homes is that moratorium.”
Why evictions are so common in Chester
Census data shows that Chester County has a poverty rate of 17.7%. While low income in Chester makes more people rent-burdened, eviction is a problem all over rural South Carolina.
In 2016, the Eviction Lab project at Princeton University listed the city of Chester, considered the center of Chester County, at a 16.14% eviction rate.
On the Eviction Lab’s list of the most “eviction-prone” small U.S. cities and rural areas, Chester ranked 28th out of 100.
Six of the top 15 most “eviction-prone” small U.S. cities were in South Carolina. Forty-seven S.C. cities were in the top 100.
And the project found that in 2016, landlords were “evicting tenants in South Carolina 73% more often than in any other state.”
So why is eviction so common in South Carolina?
Winston says that while the state attracts retirees and renters who only come for the summer — known as “snowbirds” — demand for housing is driven up. “Housing has a real challenge with keeping pace with the population growth that the state has.”
So prices rise as demand rises; but many South Carolinians can’t afford higher costs.
“Lots of people work in fast food, retail sales, cashiers, laborers, freight stock…. Even at 40 hours a week, it’s difficult to pay that rent,” Winston said. If an individual makes at or just above minimum wage, they’re going to struggle.
In Chester County, the average per-capita income is $22,324 from 2015-2019 Census data. That means for a 40-hour work week, the average individual makes $11.63 an hour — just $4.38 above the state’s minimum wage of $7.25.
Living in a rural area adds to the burden of paying rent, with costs for gas or complete lack of transportation to travel to metropolitan areas where better jobs are available, Winston says. This is compounded by the loss of the textile plants that once fueled rural South Carolina.
Neighboring Lancaster County Council members called the end of the eviction moratorium “a perfect storm,” at a forum last week. Rural Lancaster shares a border with Chester.
It’s also easy for landlords to file to evict tenants in South Carolina. As of 2020, it only costs $40 to file to evict a tenant. Compare that to North Carolina, where the cost is $96, Tennessee, where the cost is $175, or Alabama, where it costs $279 to evict.
What is being done to help renters?
Neither the city of Chester council or the Chester County Council has discussed plans to mitigate this crisis, representatives said.
S.C. State Rep. Annie McDaniel, who represents Chester, said she has been getting many calls from citizens who are concerned about receiving aid and becoming homeless.
She has urged them to apply for aid, including the “SC Stay Plus” program, run by SC Housing, which is currently open for applications. The program is for emergency rental assistance, and is not a permanent solution, but it can help South Carolina residents to avoid homelessness.
Eligible applicants may receive 12 months of assistance with late rent and/or utilities payments dating back to March 13, 2020, the SC Housing website says. Funds can be used to cover rent and utility deposits, moving expenses, rental fees and application or screening fees.
To be eligible, households have to have one or more individuals that meet the following criteria: has qualified for unemployment or experienced a reduction in household income, incurred significant costs, or experienced a financial hardship directly or indirectly due to COVID-19; can demonstrate a risk of experiencing homelessness or housing instability; and has a household income at or below 80% of county median income.
Winston says that as of Thursday, $2 million of $272 million in funds for this project have been allocated.
McDaniel is concerned that the aid is not coming quickly enough, and that people will quickly become homeless after the moratorium is lifted.
“This is concerning to me. Either the process is too arduous or something is wrong. It would be shameful if people lost homes that were eligible for this money, and we’ve not allocated it,” she told the Herald.
Winston says that SC Housing is working to make the application process simpler and require less documentation. And there are plenty of funds left over, and still time to apply.
Eviction notices have to give a tenant 30 days to catch up on payments, so there could still be hope for places like Chester County if aid comes quickly.
But Chester is just one example in a state where a homelessness crisis is looming. It speaks to a statewide problem with housing affordability, and high eviction rates even before the pandemic.
The help available is only temporary, and not everyone is aware of it. On Sunday, many renters will be left without the protection to avoid eviction. And places like Chester will eventually return to where they started — or worse.
This story was originally published August 1, 2021 at 6:00 AM.
