Despite a moratorium, evictions are on the rise against Hawaii’s most vulnerable renters, including low-income pregnant and immigrant women, the Hawai‘i State Department of Human Services Commission on the Status of Women said Monday in a press release.

The commission is calling upon the state and City and County of Honolulu to launch a public information campaign aimed at preventing evictions, which are in violation of Gov. David Ige’s continuing COVID-19 emergency order.

Although the ban on evictions has been extended through Sept. 30, and violating the order can be prosecuted as a misdemeanor with penalties of up to a year in jail and/or a $5,000 fine, the commission said it has been hearing from women facing eviction pressures since the state’s March lockdown, imposition of a visitor quarantine and resulting widespread loss of jobs, said Khara Jabola-Carolus, executive director.

“As an essential resource seeking to ensure equity for women, the state commission has been hearing testimonies and concerns that landlords are harassing, threatening and using the crisis to engage in illegal evictions, particularly of immigrant, pregnant and other women who’ve lost their jobs because of having to care for their children and so can’t pay rent,” Jabola- Carolus said.

Exacerbating the problem, the commission says, is that many renters and landlords — and even some Honolulu Police Department officers — are unaware of the existence of the eviction moratorium, or think it has expired.

“When called, many officers respond this is a civil issue and they can’t do anything,” Jabola-Carolus said, “whereas now they could cite the landlord for violating the emergency order.”

However, she said, because many landlords as well as tenants are suffering financial losses in the pandemic, the commission was recommending that prevention of eviction through communication should be the government’s first response and enforcement the last resort.

“Thirty-two percent of the city’s COVID-19 response money received under the federal CARE Act went to police, who issue citations for quarantine violations but should at least be trained in holding landlords accountable, giving warnings and information, and last of all citations,” she said.

“Even prior to the pandemic and emergency orders, HPD was rarely involved in evictions,” HPD spokeswoman Michelle Yu responded in an email; she requested information on “any specific cases (names, dates and locations)” that the department could look up.

But “the lens the police are taking, looking at each individual case, is really too far down the line” compared with preventing disputes before they escalate, said Deja Ostrowski, an attorney with the Medical Legal Partnership of Hawaii, which represents the Kokua Kalihi Valley health center and who declined to provide specifics, citing confidentiality concerns.

Ostrowski and Jabola- Carolus said that, rather than serve legal eviction notices, landlords often turn off utilities, lock tenants out, throw their belongings into the street or threaten harm; on the neighbor islands, sexual abuse of women tenants has been reported, Jacoba- Carolus added.

“Even when women know their rights, what we’re seeing is most tenants are choosing to leave because it’s just too uncomfortable and threatening to live under harassment and face safety issues, especially when you have children,” Jabola- Carolus said.

“These allegations are disturbing, and if founded, shameful,” Gov. Ige commented in an email. “We encourage anyone feeling threatened to call the (state Department of Consumer Affairs) landlord-tenant information center at 586-2634.”

In addition, he added, “those who believe they are being targeted or harassed because of their gender or race should contact the Hawai‘i Civil Rights Commission.”