Live. Documentary writer and producer and director of the new pbs frontline report facing eviction, Bonnie Bertram joins us live from new york. That film airing tonight, debuting tonight on frontline at 10 00eastern and nine central, welcome to washington journal. Great to be here. Idwhy did you take up the issue e of infections . We have been considering doing a story on housing in february 2019 and 9. When the pandemic hit we realized quickly this was going to be a big story so we pivoted and we decided that once the government said that they needed to stay at home we thought housing was going to be a critical part of staying healthy during the pandemic so its hard to remember now but taat the time we couldnt travel so we wanted tocapture the stories of people across the country but we couldnt go anywhere. So emily, my associate producer i work with and i quickly got con the phone and startedcalling legal aid offices across the country. We call other journalists, judges to see who would let us film because again, its so hard to remember but it was hard to get access because nobodywanted to meet a stranger. You invite somebody into your house who knew what area where you were going to be breathing so we assembled people throughout the country and got access to those who graciously allowed us to follow them through this fraud journey they were on to try to say house to. How did the pandemic make the crisis of eviction works . Well, because staying home is the difference really between whether you couldstay safe or not. Its an extraordinary moment in time when you think about what happened. Basically President Trump told everybody nobody gets evicted, everybody stay put and those four walls that we lived in became our entire world. I think everybody looked at housing in a different way. I know i did and my family did. This was our tiny world and it suddenly got very small. One of your experts in the film, the documentary airing tonight is with the infection lab. Tell us about the eviction lab and why you used them as a resource. They are an Incredible Group of sociologists out of Princeton University and its hard to collect data on eviction and they do an amazing job so we were lucky enough to meet Emily Benford who was a researcher there and we stayed with her through all the months of our reporting and were checking ke in with her to make sure we were staying on top of things and understanding things properly. So theres just a tremendous resource and they were on board with this project from day one so we were grateful to have them participate. You could see in watching your film ahead of this interview that its not just a problem of the renters and people who get convicted, its a problem with landlords. Smalltime in particular landlords. Thats been interesting and i feel so lucky to have been able to be on this story for months at a time because you could see it evolve. As the moratorium ground on and d landlords were not allowed to evict people sympathies sort of turned and people realized that the landlords shouldnt really be bearing the brunt of the financial its that the pandemic put on everyone so it highlighted this issue of the tenant landlord related relationship. The pandemic put a spotlight on them in a way we havent seen for a long time and so one of the things that we were very interested to see happen over the course of time was that texas was the first state in the country to mandate this addiction diverging program. That judges really tried to get tenants and landlords to talk to each other and if they had agreed to cooperate in this program the judge would give them a 60 day abatement period so they could try to work out their problems and frankly get more time to get the rent relief coming through the federal government. So that tenant landlord relationship was an interesting thing to keep an eye on during the pandemic. I want to make sure we open up our phone lines and heres how were separating the lines for our conversation with Bonnie Bertram on the documentary facing eviction. The line for those of you who are renters, 2027488000. If youre a landlord of any sort to 2748 8001 and for all others 2027488000 two. We do Bonnie Bertram want to show some of the clips from the film that airs tonight but i want to ask you first about that cdc moratorium on election. When was that put in place and did that solve the problem or further complicate theproblem . Housing experts would tell you it helpedsolve the problem. The cdc issued a moratorium in 2020 and it was a more broad and farreaching moratorium than what had initially been presented as part of the care zach so when the moratorium came into play , it made its, it gave wider protections to tenants and it helps millions of people, tens of millions of renters who were facing eviction and help them feel more secure. You think that part of the problem was complicated between the cdc moratorium and each state having its own laws that govern infections and renters rights . That was another interesting thing. We all heard this phrase Eviction Moratorium and itwas so bizarre because never before in history had anybody thought of an Eviction Moratorium. We really wanted to take a deep dive into that and explore what the Eviction Moratorium was because it sounded great. Here was this National Program is going to keep tenants house and give money to landlords but we found out is the way it was enforced and the way it played out came down to such a local level. Not just a state level. Not just a county level or even a city level but often times what judge you happen to be assigned to or what constable came to your door to evict you. There was a lot of discretion and a lot of hodgepodge approach to how those policies were played out. Bonnie bertram is the director of the pbs frontline and retro report documentary film debuting tonight, facing eviction debuts at 10 00 eastern, nine central and will stream on on the pbs. Org frontline will get your calls and youve separated those phone lines differently so make sure you call on the separate line but i wanted to play part of the film where we hear from the woman Alexis Hatcher and her situation. Moratorium on convictions is unconstitutional. The judge ruled while individual states have the power to put such restrictions in place the federal government does not. And then separately the Texas Supreme Court began allowing infections to move forward which left many people alike Alexis Hatcher in a precarious situation. She became one of the first in the state to be evicted. She had been a manager of na shoe store which closed during the pandemic. She lost her beincome and fell behind on her rent. Court documents show hatcher filed the necessary declaration still this week the judge allowed the eviction to move forward. To what happens with alexis and when the cdc moratorium was put there it didnt go away but texas of course decided that that cdc were no longer applied in texas. As crazy as that is. They started allowing landlords toevict people at will. In texas you have one of the first states to challenge thesucdc moratorium and successfully so. Throughout the pandemic emily was tracking how states were handling evictions. Much of the tenants experienced during the pandemic was dependent upon the zip codes they lived in. Whether or not you stayed in that home depended whether or not your landlord was going to comply with the moratorium or a local. Oratorium for that matter what sheriff showed up at your door and what judge you appeared before. And Bonnie Bertram the narrator saying Alexis Hatcher, one of the first convicted under texass law. How did you connect with her or were able to be there when the day shes being essentially evicted . So we have been in touch with mark melton who is an amazing attorney in dallas. He was a tax attorney but he quickly realized that tenants had so many questions about how to navigate the moratorium on evictions and he assembled a group of dozens of attorneys who were all volunteering and working pro bono to answer peoples questions so we had been in touch with mark and mark said theres an eviction going on right now because alexis was the first person in texas to be evicted under this weird gap where alexis thought she was covered by the cdc moratoriumbecause if youre a renter you hear theres a cdc moratorium, no evictions so she figures she was covered. Texas as Emily Benford said and mark referred to in the piece. Texas Supreme Court did not extend an emergency order and the emergency order was the instrument by which judges were able to enforce the cdc moratorium so basically they were saying ppTexas Supreme Court was giving judges the discussion on how they wanted to,whether or not they wanted to abuse the cdc moratorium and apply to cases. Where is alexis after today . We are happy to report she and her daughter are in an apartment. They have signed a 12 month lease and they have an option to extend it for longer and she is not sure shes going to be there. But shes really the rare story because more often than not when people get evicted it sort of catapult them into this world of uncertainty that impacts almost everything. It disrupts their childrens schooling andmakes it more difficult to find a job. So alexis really was back on her feet and went through this and it was the best possible outcome. I dont know what is there a direct connection between these tevictions . There must be. I will tell you that the moratorium on evictions did prevent millions of people from being evicted but what were seeing now is if actions are rising back to the levels where they were free pandemic and we have a crisis of Affordable Housing in this country and thats what it boils down to so yes ic i would say thats one of the leading predators of homelessness, having housing you cant afford. The director of the film facing eviction from pbs frontline debuting tonight. For those of you are renters the line is 7488000. Landlords ofany type ccii7488000 one and all others 2027488000two. Gladys is next in los angeles. Our landlord in california, go ahead. Im calling because i wanted to say what happened to me due to the moratorium. I had managed because of the multiple moratorium, can you hear me . We can, go ahead with your comment. I was taken advantage of at the moratorium. He decided it was covid19 related which it wasnt. He rolled his brother, all their three kids into the unit and i couldnt evict them. I tried to go to court. When i finally get to court i had to pay thousands of dollars to get him out. He got help and didnt have to pay anything. Here in los angeles in the city we still have the moratorium on so i think its a disadvantage to landlords lo for people like this who take advantage of the system. So i just want to. How much did you end up losing in fees because of this . I dont know, 10,000. Which seems not a lot to a lot of people but being a small landlord, he destroyed the property before you left. Gladys in los angeles and similar to somebody you interview in the film if we can show that just a bit. Gladys, you happen to live in a city that has Strong Tenant protections. Youre absolutely right, the mature moratorium is still in effect and in the course of our reporting we met a t wonderful woman named diane bolden who is a property provider and she went through something similar where she felt she had to evict her tenant and she lost rent. I will tell you gladys she was able to recover losses through some rent Relief Programs so you should see whats available because i know there are some organizations that are trying to help people like you get some of that money back that they lost from the pandemic. To shreve ohio, richard, good morning. Its a major question we have is people got paid that extra money. I cant think of what you call it. The 600, you got that on top of your unemployment. Why werent these people able to pay their rent is my first question and ivegot another question. I guess i would tell you that the rent costs more than themoney they bought. Richard. If they paid is up to that point, they should have been making the same amount of money as they were if they would have been working with that extra money the government gave them for the year. You know whats surprising, over the last 10 years the number of people who are considered rent burdens, paying more than 30 percent of their income has skyrocketed in recent years and i know its true in ohio and itstrue everywhere. People who were low income earners years ago used to struggle to pay food and now they struggle to pay rent so the cost of housing has gone up a lot and you know, i cant tell you why they didnt pay. I know that renters and property providers alike needed money. Your documentary gets into the federal rental assistance programs created during covid and lets watch some of that [vpart of the film. Congress passed rental assistance and that ended up amounting to over 46 billion which was the amount of family associations and apartment associations said they needed to make themselves whole. And the pandemic stretched on tenants were fallingdeeper and deeper into debt. The same way weve never had a moratorium before we have never had the National Infrastructure for rental assistance so states were illequipped to actually disperse it to communities. In fact by the end of june 2021 only 3 billion of 46. 5 billion had been stripped distributed to the landlords who needed it to prevent that housing displacement. And the tenants only 39,000 and change, and thats a very large sum of money that affects everything about the building. In california. Although the governor has proclaimed that theres went really, and print relief is coming, and we have had to apply. We have applied for the threend tenants, but, unfortunately, due to some of the administrative difficulties in complying with the application process, the money still has not come through. E host Bonnie Bertram, the 46 billion out there, it seems like why cant that money get out to landlords like that man there in california . Guest so we stopped filming last fall and and the subsequent months after we interviewed this gentleman, which counsel, a lot of the money has been distributed. In fact, i think the coffers are expected to run dry in another month or two. By this fall all the money will of god out there. At the time that we were putting this together the money was slow to get funneled out but in the subsequent month like over the summer and got distributed in a much more efficient manner. Host ledger from anthony who is going from pueblo, colorado, are renters line. Tell us your story. Caller howre you . Host fine thanks. Caller thats terrific. Unfortunately i was given a t judgment with a place i inherited back in 2016, excuse me, late 2015 with infrastructure failure. And now after six years they are holding me for almost 12,000 bucks. I went through the court system and i was able, you know, with the pro bono stuff to ring down to about seven grand but i mean its like im not responsible for this. This is bad infrastructure stuff tried stuff. Guest are you a landlord, anthony . Caller no. Unfortunately i am a tenet. Guest and youre expected to pick up the tab for an infrastructure failure . Caller yes. Theyve had problems with the plumbing. They have had problems with everything. Even the judge come his judgment was my head is spinning but he had Better Things to do with his day and everything, but my pro bono lawyer and everything we did everything we could to fight it. Host when did you get evicted . Ca caller i was evicted back in june, june i believe the second. Host of this year . Caller yes. Due to job, unfortunately i lost my and i wasnt able to come up i tried to make it right and it wouldnt go with me. Host anthony, colorado. Bonnie bertram, your thoughts . Guest i was going to say one of the things that came out of the pandemic is this relationship between landlords and how come if they can be improved, the outcomes can be better for people staying in house because nobody wants to do an eviction. The landlord doesnt want to do it. The tenant does want it happen today. Tax is is one of the places where the tenant you met earlier in the earlier clip, texas with the first date to mandate this eviction diversion program, that order judges to tell plaintiffs and defendants, tenants and landlords that if they could both participate in this program it would help give them more time for that mental relief when to come to because thats what the landlord wants and thats what the ten want. One of the Silver Linings of all the housing trouble stirring the pandemic is i think people recognize that the landlordtenant relationship is very key to help stave off evictions. One of the things we discovered in a reporting is nearly half of you for the housing and the United States is provided by these small momandpop property providers and landlords. That to us was a surprise. Host here is steve. A couple landlords, first steve who was in park illinois. Good morning. Caller good morning. I wanted to ask the guest if she has any experience in Property Ownership or management come have you ever owned a building . Have you ever worked for a company that rented properties or if youve ever worked for a law from the date evictions . Im just curious. You are obviously an advocate for tenants, and think if you have the same experience as a landlord guest thank you for the question. I have rented. I have sublet my home, and my family are housing providers. I really worked hard to be fair to everyone in the story facing evictions and hope you watch it tonight because i think youll see that we were fair in profiling landlords, like diane golden and rich kessel who i mentioned in los angeles and sandra in dallas to talk about how it wasnt fair that they were expected to bear the brunt of the financial burden of the pandemic. I will say that im very proud that the wall street journal reviewed our film, and so, and refuted, favorably. I hope that as a feather in our cap in terms of helping people like you feel like im not weighing in on one side or the other. Host here we go to brooklyn and mary j. Also a landlord inan brooklyn. Mary jane, good morning. Caller good morning. I want to talk about, as a landlord i want to talk about the privilege tenants have because my husband, we own a property in new york. We live host mary jane, youre getting confused. Make sure you mute your volume on youre television. Go ahead with your comment. Go ahead. You know what, caller we own a property host shes getting a little confused. I apologize. When you call in yet to make sure you mute your volume on achieving approval for the confusion. 2027488000 for those who rent. Landlords can call 2027488001 and for all others 2027488002. Bonnie bertram a question for you by text from patrick in michigan. Have you measured the impact that corporations of fat on evictions beginning with lowwage jobs to current trend of corporations buying up massive amounts of housing . Guest wonder the things people, housing experts were worried early on in the pandemic was come which i mentioned before, the sort of smalltime property owners. That there was concern that if they missed too many months of rental income that they were going to have to miss mortgage payments and get foreclosed upon, and a lot of that Housing Stock in the United States that is provided for low income tenets was going to disappear and fall into the hands of corporate entities. I think that the federal rent Relief Program helped avoid that problem, and what has been interesting to watch is that what we are seeing is that corporate Property Managers are now moving not so much into the Apartment Building sector but into the single home sector. So if you wanted to rent say like like a threebedroom two bastogne, that is being more and more brought up and manage more by property bath home more by property corporate real estate organizations. Host lecher from philip on the range of light in los angeles. Morning comic data for the opportunity to speak. I would like to ask if you are familiar with an organization in the Los Angeles Area called housing is key. I dont know if you can hear me host yes, we can. Caller okay. I dont know if you are or not but i applied through this organization to get some mental relief during covid. I and 82 years old, old and i am disabled. And i waited for eight months after they said they had all my documents, all my paperwork, everythinghe they needed to process my application. I called them every other weekhe to see how the application was proceeding, and then i find out after all this time that they denied me because i had to borrow money because i had waited so long for them to help me that i borrowed some money to pay back money that [inaudible] and they denied me because [inaudible] host philip, you are i was sorry, i had to let you go, you are breaking up a little bit. Bonnie bertram i dont know if you come he didnt get to all of his comments but your thought. Guest i think what hes referring to is sort of theag administrative snags that people were experiencing, and the landlord in los angeles on his and he was experiencing the same thing. Its like any sort of government program. They dont always run smoothly or as quickly as we would like them to. But i will tell philip and other people out there that federal relief money, that 46. 5 billion, has been mostly distributed and spent. So i do think in the city of los angeles and in the county of los angeles there is still money to be distributed. So folks shouldnt give up, and i think he said housing is key is who he is working with. We were working with different organizations on both the landlord and the tenet side in l. A. So i know there are a lot of resources out there. Host you are a senior producer, director of this film facing eviction which are doing in partnership with frontline tonight. Retro reports a nonprofit News Organization what other sorts of stories have you covered for them . Guest i did a story about how it was that people this is before the pandemic and the covid vaccine, but how it was that people came to be skeptical of vaccine efficacy. And we did that in partnership with the new york times. I did a story about, about women being harassed online, in social media. I did a story about sort of the history of transgender rights in terms of the larger context of gay rights, the fight for gay rights. The story was interesting because retro reports, look at the todays headlines and ato stroke lead lines. Were constantly evaluate what led to the moment. When defendant first hit and we wanted to look at housing, we looked back and we were thinking okay whats a historic precedent . What can we look at that will inform this moment . What is happened before . So he kept digging digging digging your emily and eric and my amazing team at retro report so we looked at pflugerville, the sort of slums that grew up around the depression. We couldnt really findon a historical antecedent and then we realize because that moment,i this moment was unprecedented in history. So we wanted to capture this very moment and document it as a historical rarity in time because it really put such a bright light on housing. We are leaving this to keep our more than 40 year commitment to live coverage of congress. The senate isna about to gavel back in following a recess for the weekly party caucus lunches. This is live coverage here on cspan2. A senator just starting out is finding a safe, affordable place to live. Mr. Reed the simple fact is that we dont have the supply of housing to meet demand. Indeed we have a shortfall of seven million Affordable Housing units, according to the National Low Income housing coalition. Certainly the covid19 pandemic reduced Housing Production and created kinks in the supply chain for important Raw Materials like lumber, but the truth is that we w