White House Says Biden Is Calling On Cabinet Departments, Agencies To Find Ways To Stop Evictions

The White House announced on Monday that President Joe Biden is taking steps to attempt to ensure that renters are not evicted after the eviction moratorium ended over the weekend. 

As White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement:

Thanks to the bipartisan COVID relief act Congress passed in December 2020 and the American Rescue Plan Congress and the Biden Administration enacted in March 2021, State and local governments long ago received Emergency Rental Assistance—a $46.5 billion plan to protect millions of Americans facing deep rental debt and potential eviction during the pandemic. Some cities and States have demonstrated their ability to release these funds efficiently to tenants and landlords in need. But even though funds began to be distributed in February by the Biden Administration, too many States and cities have been too slow to act.

As the Administration made clear last week, there is no excuse for any State or locality not to promptly deploy the resources that Congress appropriated to meet the critical need of so many Americans. This assistance provides the funding to pay landlords current and back rent so tenants can remain in their homes or apartments, not be evicted. No one in America should be evicted when Federal funds are available, in the hands of State and local government, to pay back rent due.

The statement continued, saying that “the President will continue to do everything in his power to help renters from eviction.”

“The Administration has provided States and local governments with the flexibility to get funds out efficiently without burdensome documentation; to use funds to help those who are homeless or in need of new housing, and to use American Rescue Plan State and local funds to expend any effort to help those whose housing is at risk due to the pandemic,” it added.

It also included the fact that Biden is taking “additional measures,” such as telling his legal teams “to assemble all Federal agencies to reexamine whether there are any other authorities to take additional actions to stop evictions.” He is also calling on localities and states to prolong or carry out evictions moratoria for the next few months. 

Among other items, he is also telling “his Cabinet Departments to use their powers to prevent evictions and tell landlords: If your government is backing your mortgage or providing you housing tax relief, you should not be choosing eviction over the Emergency Rental Assistance we have provided to make you whole and keep your tenants and their families safely housed.”

Last week, the House of Representatives did not get enough votes to prolong the ban on evictions before the members left town for their August recess. 

As reported by The Daily Wire, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) called on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to prolong the moratorium over the weekend. 

“The CDC has the power to extend the eviction moratorium. As they double down on masks, why wouldn’t they extend the moratorium in light of delta variant?” Pelosi tweeted Sunday.

“It is a moral imperative to keep people from being put out in the street which also contributes to the public health emergency. The virus is still a threat, the moratorium must be extended and the funds Congress allocated to assist renters and landlords must be spent,” she said.

The CDC has the power to extend the eviction moratorium. As they double down on masks, why wouldn’t they extend the moratorium in light of delta variant?

— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) August 1, 2021

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that another extension of the moratorium needed to be passed by legislation in Congress, not only the CDC.

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