It’s inhumane to evict renters before a hurricane. Put a stop to it, Florida | Editorial

Police have better things to do than evict renters when there’s a hurricane coming. Following an embarrassing local case, Miami-Dade now protects some renters. The Florida Legislature should protect them all.

The days before a hurricane makes landfall often are tense and stressful. Stocking up on supplies, covering windows and otherwise battening down the hatches, monitoring the likely path of the storm and keeping track of evacuation notices — all of this takes a toll on the psyche, even if the hurricane veers away at the last minute as Hurricane Dorian did.

So imagine what it’s like in the middle of all that anxiety to hear a knock on the door and to find police on the other side waiting to evict you from your home at the worst possible time.

Landlords pay the police to evict residents — they serve papers, remove any property inside and change the locks.

That happened to Maria Cazañes and her family in August as Hurricane Dorian was heading toward Miami-Dade. The eviction of the 75-year-old Miami Beach woman, her grown son, 81-year-old brother and about a dozen cats ignited a social-media furor that has helped bring much-needed change.

Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez was rightly outraged and ordered a stop to such evictions. Then last week, the commission legislation the County Commission passed an ordinance, sponsored by Commissioner Jose “Pepe” Diaz, prohibiting Miami-Dade Public Housing and Community Development or Miami-Dade police from helping evict residents of county-owned affordable housing during natural emergencies. It’s amazing we didn’t have this on the books already.

But that policy, though, is quite limited and would not have saved Cazañes and her family from eviction because they did not live in public housing. That’s why state legislation is needed.

Miami-Dade Sen. Jason Pizzo and Rep. Michael Grieco have introduced legislation that would pause all eviction proceedings during declared emergencies and for 15 days after. It should pass and become law; it’s the humane thing to do.

“It’s really an important next step for the Legislature to act to protect tenants, especially in times like a hurricane,” Alana Greer, cofounder and codirector of the Community Justice Project told Miami New Times.

Such protection is not just reasonable and compassionate, it would make sure that law enforcement’s priority is protecting people as a hurricane approaches, not kicking them out of their homes.

While Florida was in a state of emergency for Hurricane Dorian, 470 eviction notices were filed in Miami-Dade, according to Miami New Times, which broke the Cazañes story — and an additional 421 were filed in the days leading up to the emergency declaration.

As the Community Justice Project pointed out in a tweet, that meant more than 400 people had to decide between continuing hurricane preparation, going to the courthouse to preserve their rights or moving out in the midst of a weather emergency.

It wasn’t just Dorian. When Hurricane Irma was barreling toward Florida two years ago, more than 2,000 eviction notices were filed in the county during the state of emergency.

Unlike Dorian, Irma didn’t veer away at the last minute. It did billions of dollars in damage and left more than 6 million Florida residents without power.

Just imagine surviving a hurricane, trying to figure out how to manage without power for days on end and then being forced to deal with an eviction.

It shouldn’t have taken outrage over what happened to Cazañes and her family — much less local and state action — to implement a humane freeze on evictions.

Some common sense and empathy should have been sufficient.