Local Eviction Moratoriums Aren’t Enough to Avert Housing Crisis, Say Activists

The full version of this article appears in Truthout

To hear the landlords tell it, the U.S.’s eviction crisis is over. A June 11 letter to President Biden, signed by 12 large real estate and landlord associations, cheerfully asserts that the economy is recovering, unemployment has fallen, rental assistance programs have worked and vaccination rates are high enough that the pandemic danger is all but passed: “As the Administration continues its support for housing, we urge you to sunset the nationwide federal moratorium on evictions on June 30th and focus on targeted housing support for those renters who continue to recover from the pandemic,” the letter says.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Although the GDP and the stock market are both doing well, many Americans are still struggling. March 2021 saw the highest poverty rate recorded during the pandemic: 11.1 percent. Unemployment in June 2021 was more than 2 percent higher than it was in February 2020. And, with vaccine rates dropping and the Delta variant spreading fast, the COVID-19 pandemic is far from behind us.

The number of tenants at risk of eviction remains at unprecedented levels. As of May 24, 10.4 million renters — 14 percent of all tenants — were behind on their rent. Nor is the problem improving on a national level; more people failed to pay rent on time in June than in May. Over 4 million people are at immediate risk of eviction in the next two months.

“I think [people] would for the most part be evicted into homelessness,” says Rose Lenahan of the Los Angeles Tenants Union (LATU). “It’s very unclear what they would do.”

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