Gaps in California eviction ban + Newsom reveals ‘Phase 2’ numbers + Protecting back wages
It’s Thursday! The week’s nearly done and you’ve almost made it to the weekend! Thanks as always for reading!
SHOULD NEWSOM DO MORE FOR TENANTS?
The first of the month has come and gone, and for many Californians, the rent is due. A trio of groups are arguing that California Gov. Gavin Newsom didn’t go far enough in his executive order banning landlords from evicting tenants affected by the coronavirus.
The Western Center on Law and Poverty, California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation and Disability Rights California put out an analysis Wednesday that arguing that the order “provides little practical help for renters during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Newsom’s order extends til May 31, and covers people who have a COVID-19-related loss of income, provided that they have documentation to that effect. Tenants must notify their landlord within seven days of their loss to be protected.
The groups argue that Newsom’s order is not a moratorium on evictions.
“All other unlawful detainer cases are unaffected by the order. This includes cases where the tenant can’t meet the documentation requirements, evictions alleging other breaches of a lease, no fault evictions, and others. These evictions can move forward so long as the courts are open,” according to the analysis.
Even tenants who are covered by the order can have landlords take action against them, up to and including obtaining a court order directing the sheriff to remove the tenants from their homes, according to the analysis.
“We have heard over and over again that staying in one’s home is the most important things people who have housing can do to stop this pandemic. Allowing evictions to proceed is inconsistent with this directive,” the groups said.
The groups called on Newsom to enact a strong moratorium on all evictions, regardless of the underlying basis, for the duration of the COVID-19 emergency.
“Only those evictions meant to address a concrete and significant safety concern should be allowed to move forward during this time,” the groups said.
CALIFORNIA NEED MORE BEDS, VENTILATORS, MASKS
Via Sophia Bollag...
Gov. Gavin Newsom and his top health official have talked for more than a week about California’s need for 50,000 more hospital beds, 10,000 more ventilators and tens of millions more masks to battle coronavirus.
On Wednesday, they revealed those numbers are just “Phase One.”
“If you extrapolate that out… we’ll exceed that Phase One surge capacity of 50,000 (beds) somewhere in the middle part of May,” Newsom said at a Wednesday news conference.
At that point, the state will need 66,000 additional hospital beds, not 50,000, to accommodate the projected surge of patients, the Democratic governor said. The state’s pre-coronavirus hospital capacity was 75,000 beds.
Even that would not represent the peak of projected infections in the state, a charge displayed at the news conference showed. The governor said roughly 40 percent of the beds should be set up for patients needing intensive care.
The state’s stay-at-home order has bought California time to prepare, and national charts show the state is doing better than others at preventing the spread of infection. But the state is still scrambling to acquire the needed beds and ventilators for Phase One.
Of the 10,000 ventilators Newsom says are needed, the state has obtained 4, 252. Phase 2 projections say 30,000 ventilators could be required.
“There is simply not a purveyor of ventilators in the world that has not received a call directly from me or the team,” Newsom said. “We’ll keep at it. The whole point is to buy more time. As long as we’re at the lower end of that curve, that will give us more days, more weeks to find those additional ventilators.”
AG CALLS ON TRUMP ADMIN TO HELP EMPLOYEES
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra joined 17 other attorneys general in sending a letter to U.S. Secretary of Labor Eugene Scalia, urging him to halt the implementation of the “joint employer liability rule” during the COVID-19 emergency.
According to the Department of Labor, a joint employer is any person or entity who is jointly liable with the employer for an employee’s wages.
“With unemployment claims skyrocketing, our workers need every tool available to retain the wages they have earned,” Becerra said in a statement. “There couldn’t be a worse time to put the pay of hardworking Americans at risk. Our federal government must put working families front and center and we’re calling on Secretary Scalia to do his part.”
Becerra’s office said that the Labor Department decision could cause employees to lose out on the ability to collect back wages, and that workers most likely to be affected by the decision would be those earning hourly wages.
California is embroiled in a lawsuit against the Donald Trump administration that seeks to overturn the rule, with Becerra’s office arguing that a “growing numbers of businesses are outsourcing functions to third-party management companies, independent contractors, staffing agencies, or labor providers.”
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Proud to work with @GavinNewsom & partners to help bridge the digital divide in our home state. We’re providing 4,000 Chromebooks to California students in greatest need & free wifi to 100,000 rural households during the #COVID19 crisis to make distance learning more accessible.”
- Google CEO Sundar Pichai, via Twitter.
Best of the Bee:
Devin Nunes calls California coronavirus plan ‘way overkill’ the same day Trump praises it, via Kate Irby
Some evidence shows wearing a face covering may reduce spread of coronavirus, but masks are still no substitute for physical distancing, California’s top public health official said Wednesday, outlining new official guidance, via Sophia Bollag.
Despite the coronavirus outbreak that has led to the suspension of census field operations, the U.S. Census counts are on track in California, officials say. Small adjustments in dates have been made to make sure people are counted, via Theodora Yu.
It took the coronavirus pandemic less than a month to triple California’s unemployment rolls and plunge the state’s economy into a tailspin comparable to the Great Recession, via Dale Kasler and Phillip Reese.