Jobs, Jobs, Jobs (And The Rent’s Due)
"Jobs, jobs, jobs!" Or whatever.
It's NFP week in the US, but virus headlines will likely dominate the news cycle for obvious reasons -- cases are rising, officials are alarmed and half of Americans aren't fully vaccinated.
While everyone wants to be optimistic when it comes to the outlook for hospitalizations and deaths associated with the new wave, the inescapable reality is that if everyone were vaccinated, the rate of severe illness caused by the Delta variant in the US would be dramatical
Regarding the eviction moratorium: If renters can’t afford to pay rent in an employee’s market, with enhanced unemployment, when would be a better time for them to get caught up? Besides, do we want the moratorium expiring in winter? I feel for those caught up in financial trouble, but rent can’t be cancelled forever. AOC will never find a convenient time for this, but it had to expire.
It had to expire cold turkey? I mean something needed to change but we could easily decide to restructure how evictions work before letting it. The scale of harm that will accompany this inaction is borderline unfathomable. At least 11 million are about to face eviction with some estimates ranging to 30+ million. The current homeless population is roughly 550k and something like 500k houses are available on the market. I’m not sure calling this catastrophic is an overstatement. You cannot generally speaking qualify to rent after an eviction ever again.
This moratorium ending is a problem without any real interest in solutioning. It was put in place to prevent families from being kicked to the curb in the middle of a global pandemic. The global poker continues, renters and home owners are still unable to keep up with payments. Where is the analysis on why that is? We threw out a giant temporary band aid over a gushing wound and then removed it without bothering to check if it was healed. In short, eliminating the moratorium now is no different than never having implemented it at all. With the sole difference being it’s later in time.
Ample Federal money has gone to the states for rent relief, but those funds have not been timely distributed by the states.
The outcome of this bad situation is going to vary by state. In some, state-level eviction moratoriums will be extended and disbursement of rent relief funds accelerated, and the worst will be avoided. In others, well, things will turn out much worse.
Next, watch the latter states, the ones that failed to avoid the worst, try to deal with their new surge of homelessness. I expect part of the answer will be to send homeless families to other states, and for the homeless problem in some places to get far worse.
I am not sure what the Federal government can do. The Supreme Court won’t permit an extension of the CDC eviction moratorium. I don’t know of any alternative Federal authority to impose eviction moratoriums on the states. Passing new laws to create such Federal authority is impossible in the current political reality.
First, the courts have to agree to hearing an eviction case. Then, there is the fact that the eviction process is quite onerous and favors the tenant.
There is the law and then there is how it is/is not enforced. This will take time to sort out- not going to happen overnight.