On this past Tuesday, August 2nd, President Biden announced a new limited moratorium on evictions.
Millions of people across the nation are still relying on a federal ban on evictions to keep them and their families housed. Across Georgia, people who relied on the eviction ban held their breaths as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced a new moratorium that expires Oct. 3.
It applies to U.S. counties with “substantial or high levels” of COVID-19, which impacts 90-percent or better of the nation. Like past eviction bans, however, the CDC’s action is likely to be challenged in court.
Gene Sperling, overseer of the White House's rollout of COVID-19 relief, told reporters on Monday that President Biden had quadruple-checked whether or not he had the legal grounds to extend the moratorium unilaterally; but a Supreme Court ruling blocked the CDC from extending its past moratorium beyond the end of July. A last-minute effort by Congress to extend the ban failed as the Supreme Court had made it clear that Congressional authorization was needed on the matter.
Sperling addressed Capitol Hill Democrats who argued that the White House should have acted sooner to extend the July moratorium...Sperling also said that Biden has asked both state and local governments to extend or pass eviction moratoriums themselves. He noted there are still billions of dollars in rental assistance available due to complicated stipulations placed on access to the funds by the Trump administration.
President Biden's team is working on simplifying those stipulations to move the money easier and faster.
A survey by the US Census Bureau shows that one of every five renters in Georgia is behind on rent payments. The pandemic that triggered the loss of tens of millions of jobs around the country is a situation that has yet to be alleviated, and has even been re-sparked by the traveling of the new delta variant of the COVID-19. Officials say a cyberattack earlier this year dramatically slowed distribution of federal rental assistance, but a bank full of money for rental assistance has not been distributed as of today.
A public health crisis is not a good time for people to be wandering around in the streets looking for a place to stay, but not everyone was eligible for the last moratorium that expires in October.
Evictions took place in Georgia courts and writs of eviction are already scheduled to be executed regardless. Yet...
Evictions harms people on several levels, including their ability to rent again, their mental health, and their physical stability-especially for students who will soon be returning to school. Housing in Georgia for homeless persons is already scarce enough, so more homelessness is only a new tax bill for the government to have to take care of.
Ultimately, what is lost in landlord revenue will be billed back later in the form of higher taxes, mainly because of government efforts to find some kind of housing for families who will have nowhere to go.
Attorney Lynn Wilson said "Rental property owners want to negotiate — especially if there is federal money to sweeten the pot...and there will likely be a lot of encouragement for that from the courts... These owners have little incentive to evict - eviction is always a last resort.”
Once an eviction has been ordered, is any further negotiation possible?
Sure.
The landlord and tenant can reach a new agreement to legally modify the eviction order, and if the landlord takes money from the tenant, it may be a bar to the eviction.
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