Notices to pay past due rent have hit the mailboxes this month of public housing residents who have fallen behind.

For the first time in three years, their landlord, the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority, is starting to crank up its efforts to collect.

The 30-day notices are the first step in the eviction process. It is unclear whether RRHA plans to follow up the notices with court filings against those who do not pay.

Still, this is the first sign that RRHA might join private landlords who are aggressively enforcing payment terms. In July, such private landlords filed more than 2,000 cases seeking eviction of nonpaying tenants and a similar number was projected for this month.

Once ranked among the top Virginia court filers of eviction paperwork, RRHA dropped off that listing three years ago.

In 2019, RRHA imposed a moratorium on evictions after facing intense scrutiny and criticism of its practices, and then fell under a federal government-imposed moratorium on evictions after the COVID-19 pandemic ballooned in March 2020.

Even after announcing in January that lease enforcement would resume, RRHA has not moved quickly to evict tenants who either are not paying or paying partially.

According to a fact sheet RRHAcompiled, in the past eight months, before the current notices were issued, RRHA had only issued 54 late notices, filed eviction cases in court against only 13 families and ultimately evicted just one family, which happened Tuesday.

However, RRHA is under pressure from the agency that owns the apartments, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, to address the backlog of tenants who are behind on rent.

And there are plenty.

RRHA has reported that it manages 3,127 occupied apartments, primarily in the six big public housing complexes, Creighton, Fairfield, Gilpin, Hillside, Mosby and Whitcomb courts.

As of Aug. 10, RRHA stated in its fact sheet that 1,748 residents are behind in rent, or 56 percent, or about the same number as in February.

That number includes 108 renters who owe $5,000 or more in back rent and 900 households that owe between $500 and $4,999.

The late notices that went out this month were targeted to families that owe between $51 and $499, RRHA stated.

The authority has offered repayment plans that protect tenants from eviction proceedings, but only 34 families have signed up. RRHA also is temporarily suspending any eviction processes for 125 families after a now expired state rent relief program provided payments on their behalf in the past month.

Fifth District City Councilwoman Stephanie A. Lynch is concerned about the impact on homelessness if RRHA is forced to take further action to remove the nonpaying tenants.

Ms. Lynch, who chairs council’s Education and Human Services Committee, said that the current network of shelter providers would face increased stress even if only 100 of the 739 families ended up on the street after being evicted.

Collectively, those nonprofit providers only operate 315 emergency shelter beds, Ms. Lynch said, or too few to meet the potential demand, she said.

The annual July census of single homeless adults a homeless services group called Homeward conducted found 200 people were living in tents or in other makeshift quarters because there was no room for them – and that census did not count families with children.