Trump announced Saturday that he would move forward with several executive actions to provide relief to Americans after talks broke down between his aides and Democratic leaders, including renewing the moratorium on evictions during the pandemic.
The president said his directive on the moratorium would include financial support from the Department of Housing and Urban Development for troubled tenants and homeowners. “We do not want people to be fired, and the bill I am signing will solve that problem for the most part, hopefully completely,” he told supporters at an address in Bedminster, NJ
But even if the federal ban, which expired last month, is extended, it will not help residents of states that have not introduced their own protection. While some cities in red states have implemented measures to protect tenants, many other tenants are at risk.
“Laying a patchwork of state and local eviction moratoriums on top of the restricted federal moratorium provided some level of protection for most tenants, but those protections are rapidly disappearing,” said Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition .
“Currently, tenants in 30 states – including many with emerging cases of coronavirus – have no federal or statewide protection against eviction,” she added. “Reinstating the limited moratorium on federal eviction after state and local moratoriums expire would still leave the majority of tenants at risk of losing their homes during the pandemic.”
Nearly 1.7 million rental homes in Texas – or about 4.7 million people – are unable to pay their full rent and are at risk of layoffs, according to an analysis of data from the Census Bureau by consulting firm Stout, Risius Ross LLC. More than 58 percent of households in Mississippi and about 48 percent of those in West Virginia are in the same situation, as are 56 percent of Louisiana tenants and 52 percent in South Carolina. And more than 1.1 million rental homes in Florida are at risk of eviction, according to the study, although the state has offered some protections.
To be sure, the National Multifamily Housing Council, an advocacy group for the apartment sector, reported that 93 percent of households had made a full or partial rent payment by July 27, suggesting that many do not need protection. However, that survey alone accounted for 11.4 million professionally managed rental units, which are more likely to be in large cities with high-rise buildings – and to have tenants with higher incomes.
“When you look at national polls … you ignore the fact that red state rentals are often out of the net, but red state responses will not be,” Dworkin said.
Some small businesses also pose an existential threat: A shortage of rent payments in those states could force mother-and-pop landlords out of the business.
The National Apartment Association, a sector group, has warned of the ‘dire consequences’ of extending an eviction ban on the ability of rental home providers to maintain and supply homes. Proponents of the industry support giving renters rent payments to force landlords to pick up the slack.
A recent survey by the University of California, the Terner Center of Berkeley and the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals found that more than 80 percent of those who own or manage properties with less than 20 units have seen their rental income fall in March.
One of the four landlords responding to the survey, which was conducted between June 29 and July 9, said they had borrowed money to make ends meet and just 61 percent expressed confidence in their ability to cover business costs the coming to cover three months.
Advocates of tenants like Dworkin and her Democratic allies are contributing billions of dollars in rent aid because they say bans without additional assistance will only repel the imperishable, all but causing people to lose their homes in the future.
“It defies the logic that Republicans would not fight as hard as Democrats for rental aid,” Dworkin said. “This is a terrible bargaining chip, because honestly both sides need rental help, but one side may not realize how much they need it.”
