FRANKFORT, Ky. — Thousands of families are at risk of being evicted in Kentucky.  

“We don’t just have to deal with the current, right, which is we don’t want people put on the street, not during COVID-19,” Gov. Andy Beshear (D) said. “But I also don’t want them emerging from this when we get through it with so much debt piled up that they’re going to be evicted in large numbers afterwards.”

Lawmakers heard testimony Thursday about the problem from legal groups representing tenants, and they didn’t paint a rosy picture.

“The commonwealth of Kentucky now faces a housing crisis of unprecedented proportions,” Legal Aid of the Bluegrass Executive Director Josh Crabtree said.

Crabtree, citing numbers from the Eviction Lab at Princeton University, said 221,000 households— 44 percent of all renters in Kentucky— are unable to pay rent or are at risk of eviction.

The collective debt of those renters is $212 million, Crabtree said. 

Apartment Association of Kentucky Executive Director JD Carey said it isn’t a good situation for landlords, either.

“Many landlords have gone without rent from tenants for six months,” Carey said. “While landlords can cover a month or two of non-paying tenants, even a small percentage of tenants failing to pay for six months creates a significant hardship for landlords.”

Carey said the percentage of renters who can pay rent but don’t because of the eviction moratorium put in place by the state is small, but enough to drag down property owners operating on thin margins.

Other testimony during Thursday’s Interim Joint Committee on Judiciary meeting included discussion about inconsistent enforcement of eviction orders at the county court level.

Beshear teased an announcement on a plan to deal with evictions this week, but now he’s pushing that news off to Monday. He said the delay is because the solution involves money from the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. 

“And that means we have to set up the administration part of it to have the dates that everything can be up and running, and that’s a lot of work that we’re doing really fast behind the scenes,” Beshear said.

Beshear said the new plan will be funded by several sources and should help both tenants and landlords.

The Kentucky Supreme Court issued an order in July allowing eviction proceedings to resume, but Beshear said his order should block enforcement of an eviction order for nonpayment of rent.

Evictions for other reasons were not affected by moratoriums put in place at the state or federal level.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order earlier this month pushing federal officials to consider extending a moratorium on evictions for federally-backed housing.