It was clear that the end of the pandemic eviction moratorium was going to produce our now normal toxic mix of mindless hysteria, as if it comes as a surprise that it would, eventually, end and tenants would have to pay up what they didn’t pay, whether because they couldn’t afford to pay or could get away with not paying, since the moratorium began.
Did renters think that once the moratorium was over, they would be forgiven the rental payments they didn't make during the pandemic?
— Scott Greenfield (@ScottGreenfield) August 1, 2021
With Congress away on vacation, except for thrice-evicted Rep. Cori Bush who has taken to sleeping on the steps of capital to get her name in the paper, the moratorium reached its sunset as the Supreme Court anticipated when it gave the case a pass until the end of July, despite the clear admonition that the CDC had no authority to issue such a mandate.
Congress, apparently, believed that the president would ignore the Supreme Court and do that Biden voodoo to keep the moratorium going. Biden expected Congress to read Justice Kavanaugh’s concurrence and actually do its job. Both were disappointed.
Since Congress had left the building, and the backlash was heading straight at Biden, he issued a directive to federal agencies to try to find some way to circumvent the law and bureaucratically reinstate the eviction moratorium, despite it clearly being ultra vires, simultaneously trying to shift the burden to states to put their own moratoriums in place and distribute already dedicated pandemic funds to pay the rent, even though they might be more inclined to use the funds for other purposes since they couldn’t be evicted if there was a moratorium in place.
It’s not like anyone shouldn’t have seen this clash coming from a hundred miles away, and yet here we are as the outrage debate rages. But stop-gap remedies aside, there is a fundamental question posed by this man-made fiasco: Who suffers?
Tenants got to live in their apartments without fear of eviction for not paying rent. Some paid, honest fools that they are, but many didn’t. Some couldn’t. Many could. They just didn’t. They were still working, still earning a living, plus getting pandemic checks, and simply chose to put their money to more fun uses, as is the American way.
Landlords could do nothing to compel a tenant to pay. They still had to maintain the buildings, heat them, repair them, pay the taxes and mortgage on them, whether their tenants were paying the rent or not. While big landlords are generally despised, even though they too are allowed to run their businesses, many small landlords for whom their rental properties are their source of income to put food on the table, were hit just as well.
Somebody has to take the rent hit, both in the interim and in the long run. Eviction is a threat, but it rarely serves to get money paid from the year and a half that’s in the rearview mirror.
But then, there are many who see the easy answer to fall in the hands of their benevolent government to provide the funds to smooth over this shortfall, which means that this becomes another burden on the taxpayer. While the landlords have a stronger position to expect governmental intervention, the eviction moratorium being a federal impairment of their ability to take action against non-paying tenants, it still puts the onus on the taxpayer.
As for renters, government easing their payment obligations from its magic money tree seems like an entitlement. After all, isn’t housing a right and no one in this wealthy nation should find themselves homeless, houseless or cardboard dependent, even if they continued to earn a paycheck while living in their penthouse.
Who takes the hit here? Someone has to, because that’s how it works. Is it the tenant, the landlord or the rest of us? More importantly, why?
*Tuesday talk rules apply.
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