This August, 18,000 renters in Essex County and their landlords will head to mandatory settlement conferences — hoping to avoid evictions in a process state court officials hope will give them relief from a huge backlog of cases as an end to the state’s evictions moratorium looms.

New Jersey courts are estimating 192,000 families could face eviction statewide in just the first quarter of next year, Superior Court Judge Stephen Petrillo said.

Twenty-four percent of New Jersey renters either can’t currently pay their rent or worry they won’t be able to in the next two months and fear eviction, according to a recent analysis from QuoteWizard by LendingTree, citing data collected in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Household Pulse Surveys.

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