The U.S. Center
for Disease Control and Prevention issued a nationwide order halting evictions
through the end of the year. The order covers 43 million U.S. residential
renters if they meet income and other eligibility requirements. The order will
go into effect September 4 and is set to expire at the end of the year.
The CDC’s order is more expansive than the eviction moratorium that was part of the CARES Act. The CARES Act covered about 12.3 million renters in apartments and single-family homes that were financed by mortgages backed by the federal government. The current moratorium applies regardless of how a rental property is financed.
The CDC order
goes far beyond the federal eviction mortarium passed as part of the
Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act in March. That
congressionally authorized policy only covered the 28 percent of multifamily
residential units with a federally backed mortgage. It expired at the end of
July.
To be protected by the CDC’s moratorium, which lasts until Dec. 31, renters must sign a form and deliver it to their landlord, declaring the following:
- They made their
best effort to obtain government assistance for rent.
- That they
expect to earn no more than $99,000 in annual income for 2020 (or $198,000 for
couples filing jointly); or that they were not required to report income in
2019 to the Internal Revenue Service; or that they received a CARES Act stimulus
check.
- They cannot
make a full rent payment because of a loss of income, lay-off, loss of work
hours or extraordinary medical expenses.
- That they are
making a best effort to make timely partial payments as close to the full
payment as possible.
- If evicted they
would become homeless, need to live in a shelter or need to move into a shared
residence where they would be living in close quarters.
- They understand
they may be required by their landlord to provide full or all payments when the
moratorium ends at the end of 2020.
The absence of
this wave/tsunami/avalanche of evictions draws into question the need for such
a sweeping federal moratorium, says Salim Furth of George Mason University's
Mercatus Center.
"Data so
far show no indication of a heightened rate of evictions. By acting
prematurely, the administration is putting a heavy financial burden on housing
providers and setting an unwise precedent," Furth says. "Lighter-touch
approaches, such as limiting the number of evictions, could prevent an
(unlikely) homelessness emergency without impinging so drastically on private
contracts."
This article was compiled from several news sources.
