Eviction crisis still looms without rent relief, advocates say

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Wednesday announced a halt on evictions through the end of the year, a move that may shield the millions of Americans at risk of losing their homes due to the financial chaos sparked by the coronavirus pandemic.

But the housing crisis that has built up since March — fueled by job losses and the end of federal benefits in July — has already injected the market with so much instability that even a national moratorium may only be a temporary pause.

The moratorium provides no funding for rental relief, meaning unpaid rent and late fees will continue piling up for those who had been expected to slip into eviction proceedings in the coming months.

“Eviction has always been seen as a problem for low-income people, but I think there’s an extent to which this is now impacting people who are middle class,” said Palmer Heenan, an attorney with the Central Virginia Legal Aid Society. “Increasingly I’m seeing folks like nurses, firefighters, police officers and accountants.”

Both housing advocates and landlord associations say rental relief is the real key to stabilizing the market. That would require a major outlay of public funds, just as city and state governments are seeing revenue squeezed by the pandemic.

In March, after the pandemic dropped the economy into low gear and threw millions into unemployment, proposals began floating through state capitols and city halls about how to cushion the financial blow for the estimated 110 million American households in rental properties.

Some called for an eviction moratorium, freezing all efforts to shove people from their housing as the pandemic raged. Some called for rent-relief programs. In March, the federal CARES Act enacted a four-month moratorium on evictions from rental properties that receive federal subsides or other government backing.

The pandemic hit a national housing market that was already unforgiving for low-income renters. In the past decade, 4 million affordable housing units have dropped out of the market; the National Low Income Housing Coalition says 20.8 million renter households were cost-burdened in 2018 — meaning that tenants were spending more than 30 percent of their total income on rent.

In recent months, more renters have been borrowing money or using credit cards for their housing; and more have failed to pay at all, according to the National Multifamily Housing Council.

“They are pulling out all the stops to stay where they are, including selling plasma or borrowing money from loan sharks,” Shamus Roller, the executive director of the National Housing Law Project, said before the new eviction moratorium was announced. “There are going to be millions of evictions this fall without more government action.”

The federal moratorium differs from some local moratoriums, including that it requires renters to apply for the protection. The policy is for Americans who make under $99,000 annually or couples earning below $198,000. Applicants have to prove they attempted to pay rent and also sought existing federal housing aid. The moratorium does not waive late fees or other penalties.