STATES GOTTA DO IT
Biden says CDC can’t stop onslaught of mass evictions
WASHINGTON — The White House said Monday that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was “unable to find legal authority for a new, targeted eviction moratorium” and asked that states and local governments put in policies to keep renters in their homes.
Mass evictions could potentially worsen the recent spread of the COVID-19 delta variant as roughly 1.4 million households told the Census Bureau they could “very likely” be evicted from their rentals in the next two months. The prospect of mass evictions has led to criticism that the Biden administration was slow to address August’s end of the moratorium.
But the White House says it doesn’t see a path for it to extend the moratorium. That’s largely because the Supreme Court signaled in a 5-to-4 vote in late June that it wouldn’t back further extensions, with Justice Brett Kavanaugh writing that Congress would have to act to extend the moratorium. The White House noted that state-level efforts to stop evictions would spare a third of the country from evictions over the next month.
The Biden administration emphasized in a statement that $46.5 billion has been provided to keep renters in their homes, but “too many states and cities have been too slow to act.” It’s still investigating any additional legal options to forestall the evictions, but Gene Sperling, who oversees coronavirus relief plans, put the burden on states and local governments to get out federal aid and stop evictions.
“The president is clear: If some states and localities can get this out efficiently and effectively there’s no reason every state and locality can’t,” Sperling told reporters Monday. “There is simply no excuse, no place to hide for any state or locality that is failing to accelerate their emergency” rental assistance.
Sperling said the administration will look for additional legal avenues. Yet he stressed the complexity of the problem by saying the Trump administration developed guidelines for providing aid to renters and landlords that were unworkable. Those guidelines, which required extensive documentation, were changed once President Biden was in office.
“This is not an easy task,” Sperling said. “We as a country have never had a national infrastructure or national policy for preventing avoidable evictions.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday it’s “unfathomable” that Americans will be ousted from their homes during the COVID-19 crisis. Pelosi, backed by the Congressional Black Caucus intensified pressure on the Biden administration to immediately extend the nation’s eviction moratorium.
An estimated 3.6 million Americans are at risk of eviction during a COVID-19 surge after the eviction ban expired over the weekend.
Pelosi and the Democratic leadership has called it a “moral imperative” to reinstate the eviction ban until some $47 billion in already approved housing aid can be distributed to renters and landlords owed back pay. They called on the Biden administration to extend the moratorium through Oct. 18.
“We all agree that the eviction crisis is an enormous challenge to the conscience of our country,” Pelosi (D-Calif.) wrote in a letter to colleagues. “It is unfathomable that we would not act to prevent people from being evicted.”
Pelosi said Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen would hold a virtual briefing Tuesday with lawmakers as they push to more quickly ensure the states distribute the federal aid.
Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), the chairwoman of the influential Congressional Black Caucus, said the group has been in talks with the
White House. “Thousands of Black families and children could lose the roof over their heads at a time when the deadly pandemic is surging once again,” she said in a statement.
The CDC put the ban in place as part of the COVID-19 response when jobs shifted and many workers lost income. The ban was intended to hold back the spread of the virus by preventing people from being put out on the streets and into shelters.
Biden said Thursday he was allowing the ban to expire rather than challenge the Supreme Court.
Democratic lawmakers said they were caught by surprise by Biden’s decision, days before the moratorium was set to expire, creating frustration and anger and exposing a rare rift with the administration.
Congress was unable to pass legislation swiftly to extend the ban, which expired at midnight Saturday, and the House Democratic leaders have said it is now up to the Biden administration to act.
The administration and its allies in Congress have focused on the slow pace of pandemic relief already approved by Congress, nearly $47 billion in federal housing aid to the states that has not made it to renters and landlords owed payments. Biden has called on local governments to “take all possible steps” to disburse the funds immediately.