District of Columbia v. Towers (2021)

Citation: District of Columbia v. Towers (2021)
Parent Document: District of Columbia v. Towers (2021)
Jurisdiction: DC (municipal)
Effective Date: 2021-05-13
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4882760/district-of-columbia-v-towers/ ↗

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24
        See Housing Resources, Gov’t of the District of Columbia, Muriel Bowser,
Mayor, https://coronavirus.dc.gov/rent https://perma.cc/B3MW-JPXW (last visited
May 6, 2021).
      25
          See Kyle Swenson, D.C. Announces $350 Million Program to Help
Residents Pay Rent and Utility Bills, Wash. Post (Apr. 12, 2021, 4:07 p.m.),
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2021/04/12/dc-rent-relief/
https://perma.cc/XE7V-AE4A.
      26
        See DC Unemployment Rate at 7.8 Percent in March, D.C. Dep’t of Emp’t
Servs. (Apr. 19, 2021), https://does.dc.gov/release/dc-unemployment-rate-78-
percent-march-0 https://perma.cc/DXC4-AF2Q.
      27
         The trial court’s observation that many individuals protected by the filing
moratorium were facing financial hardship before the pandemic simply underscores
the need to afford these individuals time to take advantage of the new forms of
assistance that are now available.
                                           14
       The property owners appear to take the position that they would nevertheless
be harmed by a stay because they are in fact entitled to judgments of possession and
a stay keeping the filing moratorium in place would impede them from establishing
that now and then quickly obtaining writs of restitution when the eviction
moratorium is lifted. This delay is not a cognizable harm, however, because it is
unclear that when the eviction moratorium lifts these landlords will be entitled to
evictions. Not only is it possible that some of their claims are currently unfounded,
events may transpire between now and then that defeat or moot out certain claims.
Again, the whole point of the filing moratorium is to give tenants additional time to
stabilize so that eviction is no longer warranted when the eviction moratorium is
lifted—not to create a new public health emergency in the form of a tidal wave of
evictions at a later point in time.

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