Evictions and foreclosures: Biden seeks to extend bans

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One of several executive actions Biden plans to take on Wednesday is a signal from the incoming administration that immediate action is needed to stabilize housing for the 25 million tenants and landlords who are at risk of losing their homes.

“President-elect Biden is taking historic steps on the first day to move forward on his agenda, including signing 15 executive actions and asking agencies to take action in two additional areas,” said Jen Psaki, the new White House press secretary.

The action aims to extend the federal moratorium on disease control and prevention centers on eviction for non-payment of rent by two more months. The CDC order first went into effect in September and the latest stimulus bill extended protection to Jan. 31.

President-elect Biden will also call on the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Housing and Urban Development to extend federal-guaranteed foreclosure moratoriums until March 31. It will ask these agencies to accept requests for tolerance for federal guarantees. mortgages also up to that point.

On Tuesday, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) extended the foreclosure and eviction moratoriums until the end of February. But the president-elect will call for this period to be extended. Biden will also ask companies to continue accepting tolerance applications for all loans secured by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
According to the Center for Priority Budgets and Policies, in December an estimated 14 million adults living in rental housing were left behind in their income. That is, 1 in 5 tenants. It is estimated that 11.8 million adults are left behind on their mortgage.

These deficiencies disproportionately affect families of colors. While 12% of white tenants said they had not been able to recover the rent, 24% of Latinos and 28% of black tenants said they had been left behind.

While Biden’s executive action will provide some immediate protections, administration officials say bans on evictions and foreclosures are not enough.

That’s why the president-elect is also asking Congress to pass a Covid aid bill that would provide $ 35 billion in rents, utilities and relief for the homeless. That would add to the $ 25 billion rent relief included in the second stimulus approved in December.
Rent relief is critical because the ban on evictions does not nullify rent. It will cost $ 76.1 billion in twelve months just to help extremely low-income households made up of tenants affected by this pandemic, according to an estimate by the National Low Income Housing Coalition. Meanwhile, smallholders are squeezing.

Tenants in trouble had been protected by a set of federal, state and local eviction moratoriums, many of which expired during the summer. The first major stimulus package offered tight protection against evictions for tenants whose owners had a mortgage with federal support and for those who lived in federally assisted housing.

The owners run out of money.
In September, the Centers for Disease Control established a moratorium on eviction that protected all eligible tenants from being evicted for non-payment of rent. The emergency order temporarily prohibits new and previously filed evictions to prevent new coronavirus transmission.
But it is up to the tenant to invoke protection. And despite the ban, evictions are still taking place.

A moratorium on forced eviction by the federal level will be a much-needed relief for those on the front lines of assistance to troubled tenants.

“If all we get is an extension of the CDC order, we will adopt it,” said Dana Karni, managing attorney for the Lone Star Legal Assistance Eviction Project in Texas.

But he added that many tenants are still being evicted. In Harris County, Texas, he said he is the minority of disputed tenants who have used CDC protection. The CDC order does not protect against a landlord who does not renew a lease when it expires.

“In other words, things look terribly bleak in Houston,” Karni said.

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