Eviction moratoriums didn’t stop judges in one Ohio city from ousting hundreds from their homes
Amber Moreland wasn’t supposed to be getting evicted from her Akron, Ohio, home.
For one thing, the federal government issued a pair of moratoriums on evictions during the pandemic. For another, the Akron Municipal Court adopted a rule early last year saying it would no longer allow landlords whose properties weren’t registered with the city and the county to give renters the boot.
But there was Moreland one morning this spring, her face pressed close to her phone, logging onto a Zoom hearing in which the judge, Magistrate Kani Hightower, would decide whether she would stay or go. The property manager, Gary Thomas, who was also the landlord’s father, was in the Zoom hearing, too, along with the Thomases’ attorney.
Last year, Moreland, a nursing assistant juggling part-time jobs at various care facilities in the area, had been forced to make a difficult choice that threatened her family’s fragile stability just as the pandemic hit. To prevent the spread of COVID-19 between nursing homes, her employers said she could work at only one location, effectively slashing her hours. She chose the one where her mother was in hospice care, dying from a heart condition.
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