More than 3.6 million Americans are at risk of eviction, some in a matter of days. It’s happening as nearly $47 billion in federal housing aid to the states during the pandemic has been slow to make it into the hands of renters and landlords owed payments.
- The nationwide moratorium on evictions expired Saturday after Democratic lawmakers failed to pass a bill to protect millions of people who could be forced from their homes during the pandemic.
- Some progressive Democrats slammed Democratic leaders for beginning their summer recess before extending the moratorium. Democratic Congress member Cori Bush began camping out on the steps of the Capitol on Friday in protest.
- Rep. Cori Bush said, “The night was necessary to continue this awareness because we need the powers that be to understand that we’re not just going to let this go quietly, when the lives of actual people that we’re supposed to represent, like actual whole people, like human beings, actually are at risk by this policy decision or the lack of one. So, we’re out here.”
- After Congress failed to extend the moratorium, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic lawmakers urged President Biden to take executive action, but the White House claims its power is limited due to a recent Supreme Court ruling. Justice Kavanugh said it was his view that congressional authorization would be necessary to extend the moratorium.
- The White House has been clear that Biden would have liked to extend the federal eviction moratorium because of the spread of the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus. But there were also concerns that challenging the court could lead to a ruling restricting the administration’s ability to respond to future public health crises.
However, by the end of March, 6.4 million American households were behind on their rent, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. As of July 5, roughly 3.6 million people in the UD said they faced eviction in the next two months, according to the US Census Bureau’s Household Pulsemoratorium.