- As the Delta variant causes a surge in coronavirus cases, the nationwide ban on residential evictions in the United States will expire on Sunday.
- Although billions of dollars of federal funds are budgeted to help them get out of trouble, millions of Americans will still find themselves homeless.
- President Joe Biden urged Congress to extend the 11-month moratorium on deportations, even if the previous ruling deemed it impossible.
Starting Sunday, when the nationwide ban on evictions expires, millions of Americans may find themselves homeless, even if billions of dollars in government funds are used to help them sit idle.
As the rapidly spreading Delta variant dominates the country and there is a high demand for rental housing in the popular real estate market, a wave of evictions will follow.
US President Joe Biden urged Congress on Thursday to extend the 11-month deportation ban, after a recent Supreme Court ruling meant that the White House could not extend the measure until September as expected.
Democratic leaders in Congress are pushing for an extension, but it is not clear whether they have the right to vote, even among the moderates in their own party, to prevent the ban from expiring.
Read | Texas federal judge lifts U.S. Covid-19 deportation ban
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement that after the failed move to pass the extension, the House’s efforts stalled on Friday, “no Republican will support this measure.”
The day before, she had said that the extension was called a “moral obligation.”
She also called on the governor and local officials to “take all necessary measures to distribute the rent assistance already allocated by Congress.”
Unlike other pandemic-related assistance (such as stimulus checks) distributed from Washington, it is the state, county, and city that is responsible for developing plans from scratch to provide specialized assistance to renters.
Data box | Biden pushes to pay for vaccination: this is the latest news about the spread of the coronavirus
The US Treasury Department stated that as of June, less than three weeks after Biden took office, only US$3 billion benefited families of the US$25 billion in aid provided to states and localities in early February.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States ordered a moratorium on evictions in September 2020 because the world’s largest economy lost more than 20 million jobs during the pandemic shutdown.
The CDC is concerned that the increase in the number of homeless people will increase coronavirus infections.
Although more than half of the lost jobs have been restored with the reopening of businesses, many families still have not kept up with the rent arrears.
The latest family pulse survey conducted by the Census Bureau in the first week of July showed that among the 51 million renters surveyed, 7.4 million were in arrears with rent, and nearly half of them said they had been caught in the next two months. The risk of eviction.
Where is the help?
According to data from the Ministry of Finance, as of the end of June, only about 450,000 families had received assistance through the emergency rent assistance program, and some states and localities had not yet paid any funds.
The Treasury Department launched a campaign this week to promote the plan and help the authorities get their systems up and running, simulating the systems in Virginia and Houston, which have successfully helped families in trouble.
After taking over, the Biden administration immediately relaxed the paperwork and qualification requirements for the program, but the Treasury Department said that management is still in the hands of state and local officials.
The White House also transferred responsibility to the states.
Biden said: “There is no excuse in any state or place not to expedite the provision of funds to landlords and tenants who have been harmed during the pandemic.”
He added:
Every state and local government must come up with these funds to ensure that we prevent every eviction as much as possible.
Biden added that although the White House cannot take action, nothing can stop state and local authorities from establishing their own protective measures.
‘Go all out’
Pelosi called these delays an unfair “bureaucratic situation.”
Maxine Waters, a California Democrat and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, introduced a bill to extend the ban on deportations.
“I am doing my best now,” she wrote on Twitter on Friday.
But some Democrats opposed the move, and a congressional source confirmed to AFP that several people plan to leave the town instead of voting, making it difficult for the party to use their weak majority to push for a bill.
A few states and Washington, DC have implemented their own temporary eviction protection measures, and the White House has also asked government agencies involved in housing to extend the ban on evictions of federally insured properties under their control.
Another 21.5 billion US dollars can be used for the second round of financing, but will not be released until the first round of funds is exhausted.
Don’t miss a story. Choose from our newsletter Send the news you want directly to your inbox.
