WASHINGTON – Based on a public fitness law designed to prevent the spread of a disease, the Trump administration said Tuesday that it is implementing a four-month national moratorium on residential evictions.
The moratorium, announced through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was the administration’s most recent step toward the economic benefits of the coronavirus pandemic in the absence of an agreement with Congress on a more ambitious package that would become law.
To prevent evictions, fitness officers rely on the Public Health Service Act of 1944, which gives the administration broad quarantine powers.The moratorium, which will last until December 31, applies to others earning less than $99,000 according to the year and cannot pay their rent or home.
“President Trump is committed to helping hardworking Americans harbor and combat the spread of the coronavirus,” White House spokesman Brian Morgenstern said Tuesday.
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The resolution provoked a combined reaction from housing experts: they praised the fact that it would potentially leave tens of millions of Americans at home, but feared it would delay a deadline, which could lead to evictions next year, as they would continue to accumulate arrears during eviction.
Nor is it clear how the measure will affect homeowners, who will have to continue making their own payments.
“The least the federal government wants to do is to make sure we won’t lose our homes in the midst of a global pandemic,” said Diane Yentel, president and chief executive officer of the National Low-Income Housing Coalition.”But if a moratorium” on evictions is an essential step, it is a half-measure that extends a monetary cliff for tenants to fall when the moratorium expires and the rent expires.”
Doug Bibby, president of the National Multifamily Housing Council, said his organization is “disappointed” that management has declared a moratorium on unsused evictions for rental and unemployment assistance.The organization advocates for the apartment industry.
“A moratorium on evictions will ultimately harm others it intends to help by preventing housing providers, especially smallholders, from fulfilling their monetary obligations and proceed to provide shelter to their residents,” Bibthrough said.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told lawmakers on Capitol Hill the previous Tuesday that news of evictions would likely leave them “happy,” but acknowledged that it does not replace Congressional action.The White House and Congressional Democrats have blocked talks to pass some other stimulus, allowing many aid systems to expire.
“Our first selection is to have a bipartisan law that assigns express rental assistance to those most affected,” he said.
When asked about an estimate from the Aspen Institute that between 30 and 40 million Americans were in danger of deportation, Mnuchin said the estimate was “absurdly high,” arguing that executive orders on staggered unemployment benefits can help Americans pay rent.
“I don’t think it’s anything like that” to what was noticed by the 2007 credit and housing crisis, he said.