Millions of American families who have not been able to pay their rent for months because of the crisis risk being evicted from their homes from Saturday, July 31, as the moratorium that protected them expires. On Friday, elected representatives of the House of Representatives failed to agree on an additional period for tenants in difficulty. However, there is an emergency, all the more so in this period when the Delta variant is once again causing cases of Covid-19 to flare up.
A parliamentary committee had proposed to go until December 31, but its support was not sufficient. A reprieve until October 18 was then submitted for discussion. “Unfortunately, not a single Republican supports this measure. (…) It is extremely disappointing that Republicans in the House and Senate have refused to work with us on this issue ”, lamented Friday evening the Democratic President of the House, Nancy Pelosi, in a statement. “This is a public health concern”, declared Karine Jean-Pierre, spokesperson for the White House, during the daily press briefing on the same day. House of Representatives elected officials are now on vacation until the end of August, and will be followed by senators a week later, casting aside any hope of a quick deal.
According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, an independent research institute, more than 10 million Americans are behind on their rent payments. And some 3.6 million tenants believe they risk being evicted within two months, according to a study by the Bureau of Statistics (Census) conducted in early July with 51 million tenants.
President Joe Biden also asked Congress on Thursday to extend the moratorium. But the critics fuse, many reproaching him for having waited until the last moment. “We are three days away from end of unconstitutional moratorium on CDC deportations [centres de prévention et de lutte contre les maladies], and what is President Biden’s solution? Blame the Court and call on Congress to fix it ”, had deplored the Republican vice-president of the financial services committee of the House of Representatives, Patrick McHenry, adding that the Republican members of this commission had established a text to be able to extend the moratorium, without having received any response.
Financial aid blocked
This suspension of evictions was put in place in September 2020, by the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC), the main public health agency in the United States, then extended on several occasions.
“Keeping people in their homes and out of crowded places or places of assembly – such as homeless shelters – by preventing evictions is a key step in helping to stop the spread of Covid-19”, argue the CDC on their website. But a Supreme Court decision last June stipulated that the renewal should be adopted by Congress, and no longer decided by the centers.
This moratorium succeeded the one planned in March 2020 by the Trump administration, to prevent the millions of people who had lost their jobs because of the pandemic from being homeless. But, according to the CDC, it “Did not concern all tenants”.
To add to this Kafkaesque situation, the money provided by the federal government to help tenants in difficulty pay their rent barely made it into their bank accounts. It is paid to states and local communities, which are then responsible for distributing aid to households. However, this requires the establishment of complex systems to collect requests, verify situations, pay the money … Thus, of the 46 billion dollars provided by the government, including 25 billion disbursed at the beginning of February, only 3 billion. have arrived at their destination.
