The Eviction Crisis Is a Rental Assistance Crisis
A law designed not to work has put millions at risk of losing their homes.
The day before the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) eviction moratorium expired and millions of renters were faced with the sobering possibility of being tossed out of their homes, President Joe Biden issued a statement that would be darkly comic if it weren’t so tragic. “I call on all state and local governments to take all possible steps to immediately disburse” rental assistance funds, Biden declared, referring to the $46.5 billion made available in two coronavirus relief packages. “There can be no excuse for any state or locality not accelerating funds to landlords and tenants that have been hurt during this pandemic.”
In the previous five months in which that rental assistance has been available—we have statistics going back to February, when state and local governments began receiving funding, through the end of June—about $3.25 billion has been delivered to tenants and landlords. Biden was calling for 13 times that to be delivered in one day. It was like a souped-up version of the movie Brewster’s Millions, where Richard Pryor has to spend $30 million in 30 days to get a larger inheritance. And it begs the question: if state and local governments had the capacity to get rental relief out with that kind of speed, why wouldn’t they have done it from the beginning?
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