Of all the odd things to come out of the pandemic the past 18 months, one at the top of the list is coronavirus somehow meant rent was never due.
The eviction moratorium put in place in 2020, and then extended again and again and again by Joe Biden’s administration has come to an end. But it took a Supreme Court ruling for landlords and investment property owners to finally find out they will be seeing a rent payment come in.
Thursday the court ruled that evictions can resume across the U.S., which halted Biden’s plan of enforcing another temporary ban.
In an unsigned opinion, the court said that the CDC lacked the authority to impose an eviction moratorium under federal law without congressional authorization.
Here’s an excerpt of the opinion. “If a federally imposed eviction moratorium is to continue, Congress must specifically authorize it.”
The liberal judges argued that the delta variant led to an increase in COVID-19 cases, and they voted to keep the moratorium in place.
Does this mean that the 3.5 million people in the U.S. that currently face eviction will be forced to leave? Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary sure hopes not. She said that Joe Biden
“is once again calling on all entities that can prevent evictions — from cities and states to local courts, landlords, Cabinet Agencies — to urgently act to prevent evictions.”
The ironic and sad element to this story is the fact that there is $46.5 billion in rental assistance available that Congress approved for renters in trouble, yet a report this week said 90% of those funds had not been distributed.
It’s a microcosm of government inefficiency and just another sign that some people working for Joe Biden are simply in over their heads.
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