A report from Medium on California. "Jurdon Gold had been a renter almost his entire life. Born Oakland, Gold, like many in the Bay Area, had never lived in a house he or his family owned. That changed in 2015, when he and his wife began looking for a new place to live after their wedding. Originally planning to rent, the couple couldn’t find a place they could afford in the East Bay. As they began looking further afield, and made peace with the idea of commuting, they spotted a townhouse for sale in Vallejo, about 25 miles north of where Gold grew up."

"The mortgage that far from pricey San Francisco was something they could afford, too. Without ever planning it, the two became homeowners. 'We kind of fell into it,' Gold said."

"The couple’s time in their first home would prove short-lived. Gold’s wife got a postdoc position at Stanford University, diagonally across the San Francisco Bay. To avoid a three-hour commute that involved crossing multiple bridges, the two moved 50 miles south and began renting in Hayward. They quickly found a tenant for their Vallejo home."

"It was 2019, and Gold was now both a landlord and a renter. Thanks to the insanity of the Bay Area housing market, the rent in his new Hayward home was more than the mortgage payment in the Vallejo townhouse. 'Our mortgage in Vallejo is $1,440. Our rent out here in Hayward is $2,950. So it’s literally double,' Gold said."

"Then came Covid-19, which, less than a year after Gold became landlord, kicked off the most dramatic face-off between landlords and tenants in a generation. Throughout the spring, Gold watched his social media fill up with friends posting the hashtag #CancelRent and encouraging people not to pay their rent, even if they could still afford to. The posts were often accompanied by tirades against landlords."

"Gold struggled to get his feelings straight. He knew a bad landlord could ruin a person’s life, and what the active threat of eviction felt like. Gold also knew another fact to be true. He and his wife would quickly go bankrupt if their Vallejo tenant were to join the rent strike. 'We’re living pretty much month to month. We wouldn’t be able to afford our own rent if our tenant stopped paying,' said Gold."

"That tension is something Manuel, a young landlord who asked me not to use his real name in order to speak freely from the owners’ perspective, is grappling with. One the one hand he gets the politics of #CancelRent, just as the activists say they are sympathetic toward him. On the other hand, owning property for him feels like a personal accomplishment."

"Manuel was able to borrow enough money from friends and family to afford to buy his own place in Oakland. Today he sees the home he lives in as his retirement, and a fulfillment of the dream that brought his parents to immigrate. 'Personally I’m a pretty socialist person, but I also understand these things in a capitalist way,' he said. He has a mortgage to pay, and one of his roommate-tenants has been getting later and later on rent. Manuel said he’s been okay floating his roommate for now, but he knows he could lose his Oakland home if the roommate doesn’t eventually pay."

"The one thing that could get small homeowners like Gold and Manuel on board with #CancelRent is the way activists have also pushed for a mortgage cancellation. 'In that case I’d totally be on board,' said Manuel."

From CBS Los Angeles. "This week, both Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties extended their eviction moratoriums for another month through the end of July. While this move provides relief for tenants struggling to pay rent, some mom-and-pop landlords are now struggling to pay their bills. Homeowner Nasario Birrueta and his wife thought they were getting their dream home when they closed on an Apple Valley home back on March 12."

"'We put in a bid of $15,000 over their asking price to get the house,' Birrueta said. The couple also agreed to a 30-day leaseback so the previous owners would have more time to move out. But when it was time for them to move out, the previous owners sent a text saying, due to the shelter-in-place order, they are not moving out. 'I offered them $5,000 cash if they want to move out by mid-May, but they didn’t respond,' Birrueta said."

"Now, more than three months after the Birruetas purchased their new home, they still can’t move in. They say the previous owner only paid one month’s rent and hasn’t paid a dime since. 'There is a very good chance we may end up losing the house to foreclosure if this continues any longer,' he said."

"Mike Shalyapin is one of those small landlords. He owns two duplexes in downtown L.A. and was in the process of evicting one of his tenants when the stay-at-home order went into effect. Now, according to Shalyapin, those tenants have stopped paying rent. 'I was laid off from my other job, so the only source of income I have right now is from income properties,' he said."

"Tenants in California don’t have to prove economic hardship due to COVID-19 and they have 12 months to pay their rent back once the emergency order is lifted. 'My credit cards are maxed out. I don’t even know how to pay for my mortgage bill next month, and at the same time the city demands property taxes,' Shalyapin said."

The Los Angeles Times. "It wasn’t until the work was done that Marcelino and Josefina Rodriguez said they learned the truth. They had been signed up for a roughly $45,000 PACE home improvement loan at nearly 10% interest — even though they said a woman working with the contractor told them their new roof and water heater would be free through a government program."

"The Rodriguezes contacted the authorities, but the nearly $4,500 annual bill came due anyway — a financial hit for the household of four who scraped by on less than $30,000 each year as garment workers paid by the piece. If they didn’t pay, Marcelino, 67, and Josefina, 64, could lose the Pacoima home they’ve owned since 2001, one that provided them and their sons stability after years of bouncing from rental to rental. So to get by, they started selling food and one of their sons said he exhausted his savings."

"It was working — until the coronavirus slashed their incomes. 'I don’t know how we are going to pay,' Marcelino Rodriguez said in Spanish through a translator. To lose the house 'would destroy me.'"

"As the economy struggles to recover from coronavirus-induced damage, consumer groups are raising concerns of a coming foreclosure wave stemming from PACE home improvement loans. For years, the industry has been dogged by allegations that some home improvement contractors exploit a loan approval process with weak safeguards to mislead people into financing they can’t afford, by telling them either that work would be free or that it would be less than it ultimately cost."

"Consumer attorneys say they were seeing PACE-driven foreclosures even before the current crisis and now fear a surge as the recession cuts off economic lifelines for people already living on the edge. 'Our clients, who were barely holding on financially, are now falling off a cliff,' said Stephanie Carroll, an attorney with Public Counsel, which is representing the Rodriguezes."

"Before 2018, PACE loan eligibility was largely based on home equity with no required analysis of whether the applicant had the income to repay the loan — a step mandated for mortgage loans. Contractors could use lender systems to look up exactly how much a homeowner qualified for, allowing them to pitch products that would strip all available equity. Homeowners could then sign up on tablet computers that contractors handed to them and borrowers didn’t always need to speak with lenders to confirm they understood their financing."

"Complaints were particularly high among seniors and people who didn’t speak English. Some homeowners alleged contractors didn’t show them all the documents and even set up fake email addresses where loan documents would be sent and then forged. Nearly 145,000 loans worth $3.4 billion were outstanding at the end of 2017, before the laws took effect, according to state records. And consumer groups say the rules are still too lax, pointing to allegations of fraud such as those made by the Rodriguezes, who received their loan in 2019."

"'Any time you don’t have an ability to repay analysis, there is a greater chance people will be in loans that are unaffordable,' said Tara Twomey, an attorney with the National Consumer Law Center. 'What the PACE assessments take away is any cushion or breathing space to handle any setback.'"

"Public Counsel’s Nisha Kashyap, who is representing the Rodriguezes, said PACE lenders are required to verify a homeowner’s income and the fact her clients received a loan suggests something 'went wrong in the approval process.' 'This loan should not have been approved,' she said."

"Marcelino and Josefina Rodriguez haven’t received a foreclosure notice but have an underlying mortgage and fear they’ll eventually lose their home. 'It’s been a year of hell,' Daniel Rodriguez said. 'The damage that this stress can cause, that’s what worries me the most.' Marcelino Rodriguez called what has happened to his family an injustice: 'They always told me everything was going to be free.'"