The federal eviction moratorium put into place by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officially ended on August 1, 2021. This rule meant that landlords could not legally evict tenants who were behind on rent. The stated intention of the moratorium was to provide assistance to people who suffered job loss due to the pandemic. Obviously, a rule like this is wide open to fraud and abuse. This dynamic increased dramatically as the moratorium continued to drag on.
The Federal Government knows that allowing tenants to stay in a home rent-free will cause financial distress for landlords. After all, there is no moratorium on mortgage payments, gas, water, etc (for the most part). All of these bills must still be paid while the tenant refuses to pay rent. Assistance for both tenants and landlords originated from the Federal Government. Each state then broke this money up into multiple, sometimes hundreds, of programs. Tenants almost always take priority when it comes to this type of assistance. Landlords are an afterthought.
A prime example of tenants taking precedence over landlords is in DeKalb County, Georgia. Federal money was funneled into a program that offered landlords 60% of past-due rent monies. If the landlord accepted, then they could not legally pursue any of the other money. And of course, they could not evict due to the moratorium. All that landlords were allowed to do in that situation is request the 40% difference from the tenant. If the tenant refused to pay any rent money then there is nothing the landlord could do. A judge in DeKalb has recently changed the landlord reimbursement to 100%, but they also continued the eviction moratorium for two more months.
Most of the country gives the landlord no real recourse when it comes to being reimbursed for their expenditures while their tenant does not pay rent. A small landlord who owns a two-family rowhouse in Brooklyn appeared on Fox News to deliver a harrowing tenant tale. The man said his tenant has not paid rent in two years and the back rent is around $65,000. The excuse of joblessness or financial hardships is a difficult case for this tenant to make. The person wound up subletting the house to someone else and keeping that money without giving any to the actual landlord. Meanwhile, landlords are still responsible for maintenance, and all bills as normal. Landlords are effectively turned into slaves that must pay for the privilege to be a slave.
There is no actual excuse for a lack of rent payment due to all of the programs from the Government that hand out benefits and cold hard cash. Section 8 is a long-standing Government program where the majority of a tenant’s rent is paid by the Government. Some people refused to even pay the 10% to 20% of the rent that they were paying before the pandemic. Then there are all of the stimulus checks, state unemployment benefits, federal unemployment bonus benefits, earned income tax credits, and more.
Trillions of dollars have been pumped into the bank accounts of low-income people and obviously, many of these people simply refuse to do the correct thing with the money. There is an explosion of drug overdoses, trips to other countries, brand-new tattooing, and more. But taking care of responsibilities seems to be a low priority. This may explain why impoverished people are impoverished in the first place. It is not a lack of opportunity but a lack of a responsible mindset.
SOURCES:
Federal eviction protections have ended, leaving renters scrambling – Vox
Rent eviction moratorium ended: What to know
House Weighing Bill to Extend Eviction Moratorium Hours Before Expiration | Democracy Now!
‘The eviction moratorium is killing small landlords,’ says one
AOC blames Democrats for eviction moratorium expiring: ‘We cannot in good faith blame the Republican Party’ | Fox News
Evictions & Lockouts in Public, Section 8, and HUD Housing | The Maryland People’s Law Library
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