New London ― It used to be that a landlord, following an eviction, could simply toss a tenant’s belongings to the curb.

Those days are gone. The state legislature revised state law more than a decade ago to protect a tenant’s rights by removing language in state statute that stated “possessions and personal effects may be set out on the adjacent sidewalk, street or highway.”

Instead, the state legislature included a provision that mandates municipalities store for at least 15 days the possessions of a person who had been evicted. Within that 15 days, the tenant can get them back or leave them to be auctioned. That provision is now being debated by the state legislature considering a bill to repeal that language.

With a steady rise in evictions, the city has taken on the role of helping to direct people in need to available resources. Those resources are a collection of non-profit groups with various programs aimed at stemming the tide or evictions or coping with the ever increasing costs of maintaining a home.

There are three phases to eviction proceedings: notice to quit, summary process and the execution.

While most individuals and families facing eviction take steps to move well before the final deadline, New London city records show that up to 100 or more a year have not moved out by the time a state marshal arrives to serve a final eviction notice.

The city has for years charged its neighborhood coordinator with the role of eviction and relocation officer, part of the community development division of the Office of Development and Planning. The position is presently held by Keishla Mota-Santos.

The position, among other things, encompasses the planning and coordination of the property storage and working with the families and individuals who need help.

Mota-Santos said she fields calls to the city’s help line, which was initially set up during the pandemic as a catchall to help direct people towards resources that included vaccines, food pantries, updates on the housing moratorium and emergency pandemic funds. These days, Mota-Santos said she is getting calls when people receive an eviction notice.

Evictions in 2022 in Connecticut surpassed pre-pandemic numbers. There were 22,796 evictions statewide in 2022, according to data collected by The Connecticut Fair Housing Center. The number exceeded evictions reported in at least the previous five years.

Between Jan. 1, 2022 and Jan.1, 2023 there were 532 eviction filings in New London and 974 more facing eviction, Connecticut Fair Housing reported. In New London, 48% of those being evicted were white, 29% Latino, 18% Black and 59% women. Similar numbers are reported in Norwich, where 539 are in the eviction process.

While the city does not have rental assistance funds, it does have the list of local agencies with various assistance programs, such as TVCCA, Catholic Charities, the Salvation Army Jewish Federation and the New London Homeless Hospitality Center.

The city’s Department of Human Services in 2022 directed $300,000 in federal pandemic aid money to fund creation of the The Homeless Hospitality Center’s Housing Resource Center. The center has since been working with both renters and homeowners to navigate the various resources available, in part, to help avoid evictions.

New London Human Services Director Jeanne Milstein called the situation with eviction part of a “housing tsunami.” The city is fielding calls from families and many senior citizens who are not only getting evicted but from people losing their homes because they can no longer afford the mortgage payments.

The Housing Resource Center is a critical strategy, Milstein said, and part of the city’s ongoing effort to build see to the well being of the city’s residents. .

In addition to one-on-one counseling, the center is helping individuals fill out applications for the UniteCT funding, a program administered by the state Department of Housing, which at one point was offering up to $10,000 to help pay back rent to landlords.

As of February, 2023, there is still up to $5,000 in UniteCT funding available to tenants through the Eviction Prevention Fund.

“This is a problem that’s not going to go away. All of these people who are housing burdened and can’t afford rent are at risk of becoming homeless,” Cathy Zall, executive director of the New London Homeless Hospitality Center, said.

The counseling, Zall said, includes “hard conversations about ‘well, you’ve had your apartment for years but maybe now its time to get a roommate...or try and get more hours at work.’”

“We need creative things like shared housing because people can’t afford their own place, given where the market is,” Zall said.

Zall doesn’t place all of the blame with landlords since they are facing skyrocketing utility costs and higher taxes.

And while Unite CT money may not cover all of a tenant’s back rent, Zall said that it is possible that a landlord is willing to work with a tenant who can reach an agreement on future rent.

Once the court has ordered a tenant to move out, a state marshal is notified by the landlord and in turn contacts the tenant, notifying them of the final move out date.

State Marshal Nicholas Poppiti, who handles cases throughout New London County, said the landlord pays the marshal service for serving the notices and organizing the moving process. The landlord is also responsible to pay the marshal for moving costs, and may have to pack, load and move and unload the belongings at the city’s designated storage facility ― which in New London’s case is at commercial storage facility in Waterford.

Because of the large number of evictions going on, Poppiti said there are times when the movement of belongings has to wait for space to free up. The city must store the belongings for at least 15 days, after which time they can be sold at auction. The city charges a flat rate of $75 for up to 15 days of storage.

“I normally try and give people two weeks notice to move themselves out,” Poppiti said. “It’s tough right now to find a place to live. You have to take into consideration the size of the family, the season, the weather, school for the kids. I try to be reasonable. To be a marshal you have to be human too. You can’t be a robot. You can’t treat people like they don’t matter. It’s catastrophic to be evicted.”

He estimates that 85% of the people he serves are out by the eviction date. He averages about two evictions per month, and is one of 16 marshals working in New London County. Poppiti said there are a handful of cases where the tenants are still at home.

“Some are in denial. Some are working the system to the last minute” he said.

In cases where the tenant has obvious hardships and doesn’t have a place to move, Poppiti said he will refer them to the city, which works with a host of social service agencies.

“There’s only so much I can do,” Poppiti said.

Often times, Poppiti said what is left behind is unwanted items ― beat up sofas, mattresses or broken television sets. Other times there are large items the tenant simply doesn’t have the resources to move.

Numbers provides by the city of New London show they handled storage for 77 evictions this year, up from the prior two years when there was a moratorium on evictions and federal rental assistance was still flowing. The number is down from the 115 in 2018 and the 102 evictions in 2019, city records show.

The city, in 2022, spent $9,051 on storage and cleanup associated with evictions, paid through federal funds.

Evictions in New London typically run the gamut from tenants in denial and unprepared when the movers show up, to those cases where the tenants simply have refused to leave, said Judi Cox, New London’s former neighborhood development coordinator.

“It’s not just New London, there just isn’t enough affordable housing. It’s happening everywhere,” Cox said.

Tenant facing eviction can call the UniteCT call center at 1-844-864-8328 to schedule an appointment at a resource center.

g.smith@theday.com