Today President Joe Biden announced that the national CDC eviction moratorium would be extended to the end of July. The moratorium was previously set to expire on June 30th. Millions of renters across the country, and several hundred of thousands in North Carolina, are several months behind on rent and at-risk of eviction, increasing their risk of exposure to COVID-19 & its increasingly infectious variants. The extension also provides state and local governments more time to continue to distribute rent and utility payments to those in need.
The White House also announced that it would implement a “whole-of-government” approach to prevent what is expected to be an historic wave of evictions this summer. Specifically the administration says it will conduct the following activities:
- Convene a summit to bring together local teams to develop eviction-prevention action plans.
- Issue new guidance from Treasury for the ERA program to accelerate and broaden state and local delivery of funds.
- Have the Department of Justice send guidance to state courts encouraging them to adopt anti-eviction diversion practices.
- Provide guidance from HUD to help prevent Fair Housing Act violations related to evictions.
- Activate a whole-of-government effort to raise awareness about emergency rental assistance, tapping agencies including Treasury, HUD, CFPB, DOJ, and USDA to inform tenants and landlords of available support.
Here in North Carolina the impact of the eviction protections has been inconsistent with many households falling between the cracks due to the varied interpretations of when, where, and how the CDC order should be applied. With these additional efforts of the federal government, hopefully, protections will be strengthened and more households spared from additional harm.
