The roughly 3.6 million Americans who face eviction in the next two months are left in the lurch as Democratic lawmakers are struggling to re-instate an eviction moratorium that expired on Friday. It’s an uphill battle; Senate Republicans can filibuster – and effectively kill – any extension and Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh has indicated that he’d strike down a White House attempt to prolong the pandemic-era policy.
The unified conservative opposition has led to Democratic in-fighting. President Biden, heeding Kavanaugh’s warning, urged Congress to legislate an extension last week. But there weren’t enough Democratic votes in the House, even as progressives rallied public support.
Over the weekend, Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) slept on the steps of the Capitol alongside housing advocates. Bush has experienced bouts of homelessness and she’s been a champion for more renter’s relief. CBS News provides more details on Bush’s protest:
She was joined by Congresswomen Ayanna Pressley and Ilhan Omar. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Democrats cannot blame Republicans because Democrats are in the majority. She also criticized the White House for waiting until just days before the moratorium’s expiration to call for congressional action.
But several House Democrats are balking at passing a new moratorium, weary of ostracizing small landlords with a piece of legislation that is doomed to fail in the Senate anyway. So Speaker Nancy Pelosi has urged the White House to act instead.
“We all agree that the eviction crisis is an enormous challenge to the conscience of our country,” Pelosi said. “But the House passing the eviction moratorium without the Senate acting does not extend the moratorium. Instead, the money must flow, and the moratorium must be extended by the administration.”
In essence, the Speaker and the President are blaming one another.
Compounding the frustration is the status of $45 billion dollars in rental assistance already approved by Congress. Only a fraction of that has been distributed – some $3 billion – as states struggle to standup programs that are easy to use for the millions of Americans who need help with back rent.
The Washington Post explains that the Emergency Rental Assistance Program has been characterized by housing advocates as “flawed from the get-go because it relies on state and local governments across the country to create and administer their own programs. While some states quickly set up programs, others struggled to locate people in need or else received so many applications that the onslaught overwhelmed staff and software systems, causing months-long delays.”
Some programs require renters to fill out dozens of pages of paper work and provide information for the past six months of income.
Amid the political wrangling and bureaucratic shortcomings, evictions may soon resume. From The Associated Press:
Around the country, courts, legal advocates and law enforcement agencies are gearing up for evictions to return to pre-pandemic levels, a time when 3.7 million people were displaced from their homes every year, or seven every minute, according to the Eviction Lab at Princeton University.
Some of the cities with the most cases, according to the Eviction Lab, are Phoenix with more than 42,000 eviction filings, Houston with more than 37,000, Las Vegas with nearly 27,000 and Tampa more than 15,000. Indiana and Missouri also have more than 80,000 filings.
Some states, like New York and California, have evictions bans that are still in place.