Extend eviction ban?

House Democrats urge Biden to extend eviction ban

The lawmakers said in a letter that without further action "millions of renters will once again face the threat of eviction" next week.

By KATY O'DONNELL

A group of 44 House Democrats on Tuesday pressed President Joe Biden to extend the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s nationwide ban on evictions before it expires at the end of the month.

The lawmakers — led by Reps. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.) and Cori Bush (D-Mo.) — said in a letter to Biden and CDC Director Rochelle Walensky that without further action "millions of renters will once again face the threat of eviction" next week.

"Evictions take lives and push households deeper into poverty, impacting everything from health outcomes to educational attainment,” they said.

Democrats are urging Biden to extend the eviction ban with some 6 million renter households behind on rent, according to a recent survey by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The CDC first issued the ban in September, citing a public health law that gives the agency certain powers to prevent communicable diseases from crossing state lines. Though Congress and the White House later extended the policy three times, landlords have challenged the eviction moratorium in courts around the country. The National Association of Realtors applied for Supreme Court relief earlier this month, and the case is pending.

Congress has allocated more than $46 billion in emergency rental assistance for state and local officials to distribute to struggling tenants, but much of that money still hasn’t reached the hands of landlords, who are still on the hook for property taxes, mortgage payments and operating costs.

On Tuesday, the lawmakers writing to Biden did not give a timeline for how long the eviction moratorium should be extended. But they said it posed an urgent racial justice issue and pointed to data indicating minority households were at greater risk of losing their homes. They also called for the current ban, which prohibits eviction for the nonpayment of rent, to be “significantly strengthen[ed].”

“The Biden Administration must aid those facing eviction by extending and significantly strengthening the current CDC moratorium to ensure the protections are automatic, self-executing, and that tenants are not expected to navigate a myriad of overly burdensome eligibility requirements in order to safely remain in their homes,” they said.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.