The General Assembly passed SB 24 in 2022 and it was signed into effect by the Governor. It included the provision requiring this Interim Report. The following is the applicable language: That beginning on July l, 2022, the Virginia Housing Commission shall evaluate data submitted by the Office of the Executive Secretary of the Virginia Supreme Court relating to the eviction diversion pilot program.

There was very limited data available to analyze for this interim report. There were very few participants who used the Pilot Eviction Diversion Court (Pilot). The reasons were the stringent guidelines to qualify for the Pilot and the court closures and other available programs to avert eviction during the Covid-19 Pandemic.

This October, 2022, a group of legislators from the Virginia Housing Commission observed the General District Court proceeding at the John Marshall Court House in Richmond to see the Pilot being utilized. Those present included the Chair, Delegate Danny Marshall, Vice-Chair, Senator Mamie Locke and Senator Ghazala Hashmi; they were accompanied by Bryan Horn, the Director of the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development, and other housing stakeholders representing both the landlord and tenant communities. They watched Judge Devika Davis preside over the docket and rule on many landlord/tenant issues including unlawful detainer suits. The group didn’t see tenants using the Pilot because the tenants didn’t fulfill the criteria to be eligible to use the program.

The Judge explained to the observers that none of the tenants that day met the criteria to be considered for the Pilot. She said generally by the time the tenants and landlords come to court to resolve the tenants’ nonpayment of rent, too many months have gone by to fulfill the Pilot guidelines. More specifically, § 55.1-1262 A (5) that says …Has not been late within the last 12 months (i) more than two times in six months (ii) more than three times in 12 months. The usual course of action, she said, is the landlord and tenant wait until the third month to take legal action. The sample size for the program data provided by the Office of the Executive Secretary of the Virginia Supreme Court is very small. It was difficult to determine the Pilot’s effectiveness with such a small sample of users.

The cities of Richmond, Norfolk, Danville and Petersburg were all Pilot locations for the program. Only the cities of Richmond and Norfolk used the Pilot Eviction Diversion program at all, the specifications are outlined further in this interim report.

Because of the Pandemic and the availability of state and federal programs to pay rents during the emergency; most evictions in the Commonwealth were stayed until July of 2022.

One of the reasons there was a lack of data to be interpreted about the Pilot is that until July 2022 the many landlords and tenants utilized the Virginia Rent Relief Program (RRP) administered through the Department of Housing and Community Development. It provided funding for rental assistance for those whose housing difficulties resulted from the Covid-19 Pandemic and both landlords and tenants could apply. The Commonwealth received money through the Federal CARES Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act (P.L. 116-136) and from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA) (P.L. 117-2) Program (which exempted many tenants who live in units subsidized either directly by the federal government or indirectly including rental housing with a Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac insured mortgage or rental housing built with low-income-housing-tax credits, or rural funding) and those dollars funded the DHCD program.

Another reason there were fewer eviction proceedings during this time period is that the Governor declared a state of emergency related to the COVID-19 Pandemic, this was in effect until June 30, 2021. Also, during the 2020 Reconvened Session, House Bill 340, Virginia Code § 44-209 was passed. It allowed a tenant a 60-day stay for an unlawful detainer for nonpayment of rent. Caveats included the tenant being able to prove his inability to pay rent was a result of Covid-19. The remainder of eviction stays expired 90 days after the Governor’s declared state of emergency ended. Thus fewer tenants had a need to use the Pilot.

This report gives an overview of the requirements for the Pilot, the usage and the process of evicting in Virginia. It also looks at other states’ legislation to combat evictions that has worked and other legislation that has not been effective.

This Interim Report draws no final conclusions; those will be presented in 2023. More data will be gathered by the Secretary of the Supreme Court of Virginia in the up-coming year.

It is the hope of the Virginia Housing Commission that with a return to a more normal environment, a clearer picture of the Eviction Diversion Pilot Program ‘s usage and effectiveness in diverting evictions in the Commonwealth will emerge.