CDC Puts In Place "Temporary" Eviction Moratorium for Much of the US

On Tuesday evening, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced a new “temporary” eviction moratorium. The new order expires on October 3 and covers counties experiencing “substantial” or “high” levels of COVID-19 spread. At the moment that includes 80% of US countries or 90% of the US population.

The action comes after President Biden asked Congress to extend the moratorium late last week, just as the previous extension was coming to an end on July 31. 

Presumably, this latest moratorium will be met with further legal challenges.

To date, there’s been no public indication that the executive branch had the right to broadly implement a moratorium extension. The Supreme Court explicitly ruled in June that the CDC lacked the constitutional authority to extend the order without the approval of Congress.

The chance for passage in Congress has seemed poor. Not even the House had cleared a measure, because of opposition by Republicans and divisions among Democrats. Chances in the Senate were slimmer.

The intent of the new eviction moratorium is to buy time for states and localities to distribute existing aid to renters and landlords, according to the New York Times. Congress had authorized $46.5 billion in December 2020, but only $3 billion has been distributed according to a letter Nancy Pelosi had posted on Friday, July 30. The money could help keep tenants in their apartments, getting critical income to landlords, especially smaller ones, that need the money to pay their mortgages and other bills.

The new measure was  met with dismay by the commercial real estate industry. “This move does nothing to speed the delivery of real solutions for America’s renters and ignores the unsustainable and unfair economic burden placed on millions of housing providers— jeopardizing their financial stability and threatening the loss of affordable housing stock nationwide,” the National Multifamily Housing Council said in a statement.

The association also blasted the slow pace of rental relief. 

“It is unacceptable that some localities continue to delay distribution of benefits, and it is unacceptable to continue to ask housing providers to carry the financial burden of this pandemic.”