Federal Help Badly Needed As Court Overturned National Eviction Ban

Thousands of struggling American families who are facing eviction after asking for help from the Federal government after a court ruled out the nationwide eviction moratorium.

This recent development caused more problems to tenants who will not be getting tens of thousands of financial aid from the Federal government in time in order to avoid being removed from their homes. The moratorium has protected millions of Americans who were financially distressed and failed to pay rent during the pandemic.

A federal judge said that the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) lacked the authority to do so. Judge Dabney Friedrich of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said that the CDC exceeded its authority when it enforced the moratorium last year. Since September last year, the CDC has stopped a lot of evictions all over the country, protecting thousands of tenants from being kicked out of their homes. The ban was supposed to ran until January 2021, but President Joe Biden announced the extension of the moratorium, first until April, then it was extended further up to June. It is estimated that 1 in 5 renters in the country are financially broken and are having a very tough time making rent or are behind in their rents due to the current coronavirus pandemic. And states are all rushing to distribute and disburse around $50 billion rental assistance which Congress have allocated.

A lot of housing advocates firmly believe that the eviction ban have helped the people affected by the pandemic and their families, saving them from being forced out to the streets, or go to shelters and have asked to continue this ban even after June 30.

They also stated that without the moratorium, the only thing that stands between the troubled renters and tenants, and eviction is about $50 billion rental assistance which congress have allocated for this very purpose. Advocates further said that only a few of these tenants have actually received any of the cash. It is up to their respective federal governments to distribute the rental assistance, to which the advocates fear may not make it to the neediest people if the new court ruling will be imposed on the moratorium.

 “Unfortunately, rental assistance funds are not reaching struggling families nearly as quickly as is needed,” Oren Sellstrom said. “Here in Massachusetts, tenants report that submitting a rental assistance application is like sending it into a black hole,” the litigation director for the Lawyers for Civil Rights in Boston added.

Last year, the government failed to do much better as several states did not spend the federal coronavirus relief monies they had allocated for rental assistance. New York, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Mississippi and Kansas were among the states that the advocates have mentioned.

Diane Yentel who is the CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition said that some of these issues are being seen now like more and more landlords refusing to join, programs refusing to dole out cash directly to affected tenants and cumbersome application processes.  

“Several court rulings have attempted to strike down the moratorium, but all had limited application,” Yentel said. “While this ruling is written more starkly than previous ones, it likely has equally limited application, impacting only the plaintiffs who brought the case.”

Yentel is quiet positive that despite the judge’s ruling against the moratorium, renters from all the country will not be stripped off of the CDC’s protection.

Caitlin Cedfelt further added that “the CDC moratorium is very essential to our efforts to prevent people from getting evicted before they can get rental assistance.” Cedfelt is a staff lawyer at Legal Aid of Nebraska.

A lot of landlords who challenged the eviction ban said that the court’s decision to nix the moratorium increased the pressure on the federal and state governments to expedite the process of distributing the rental assistance.

In an email interview, the President and CEO of the National Apartment Association, Bob Pinnegar, stated, “Instead of propping up legally-questionable policies, government at every level needs to cut the red tape and focus on distributing the $46 billion in rental assistance efficiently. Getting rental assistance funds into the hands of those renters and rental housing providers who need it most is the only way to prevent irrevocable harm to our nation’s housing supply.”

Gene Sperling said that the administration of President Joe Biden recently announced changes pointed towards doing just like that. Government agencies implementing the rental assistance program will be required to provide help and assistance directly to affected tenants if their landlords opted not to join the program.  Sperling is the White House coordinator of Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan.

Congress has passed a whopping $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package aimed to help the country defeat the pandemic and help the economy get its feet up. Moreover, the waiting time for delivering the help to troubled tenants will be cut into half should their landlord refused to join, the White House coordinator said.

“We need to make sure that as we implement these emergency funds that we are nimble enough to address growing needs,” Sperling reiterated.

Last year, in order to combat the effect of the pandemic to the financially distraught American tenants who failed to make payments on their rents sighed some relief after the eviction ban was implemented. This moratorium prevented thousands of American families from being evicted and moved to cramped shelters and share space with other families, or be with relatives or friends, a situation which health officials could aggravate the spread of the highly contagious virus.

Allowing evictions at this point in certain states caused by as much as 433,700 excess cases of Covid19 and more than 10000 additional deaths between March and September, just before the moratorium went into effect across the country.

The people behind the eviction ban argued that the moratorium is very necessary at this very point in time, citing that the global health problem which we are all facing is still very much a threat and lots of people, families are at risked of being removed from their home or foreclosure.

Housing advocates said that the national eviction ban is badly needed to stave off an unprecedented displacement of countless tenants and renters, which could worsen the health problems that we are facing right now. Removing it could aggravate the situation just as the country is turning a corner.

About 4 million people in the country are reportedly facing eviction or foreclosure within the next two months or so. The Census Bureau’s biweekly Household Survey said that more and more people are at risked of eviction or foreclosure in the next couple of months.

In an email interview, the Executive Director of Right To The City Alliance, Dawn Phillips said, “In the short term, Congress and the Biden Administration have the power to strengthen the moratorium across the country.” The director of the national coalition of 90 housing justice organization added that the Biden administration and Congress can stop all evictions for the remainder of the pandemic.

A few states have picked up the slacks themselves. The state of Connecticut and the City of Philadelphia both has their own eviction ban for their constituents.

“While we are ahead of the curve in working to get our rental relief money out compared to our peers, we still have a long way to go. We are trying to work with tenants and landlords to put together something that allows people to stay in their homes a lot longer.” Democratic Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont said.

Lamont also indicated that the moratorium of Connecticut would probably be in place for one more month.

Lawmakers in Philadelphia credited a local eviction ban aimed to help reduce the number of evictions from 20,000 per year to only about 5,000 last year.

Aside from the local moratorium, a program was implemented last September requiring landlords to apply for rental assistance before they go to court to evict their renters. The so-called diversion program has helped prevent thousands of evictions.

City Council member Helen Gym said that they have developed and created alternatives to evictions. Gym was one of Philadelphia’s city councils who have put this program into motion.

A spokesman for the Department of Justice (DoJ) said that they are planning to appeal the decision. It also seeks a stay of decision, meaning that the moratorium will remain in effect while the case is being heard.