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WASHINGTON – Progressive lawmakers will introduce legislation this week that will give the Department of Health and Human Services the authority to create federal eviction moratoriums – pushing back against a recent decision by the Supreme Court that ruled the agency did not have the authority to do so.
The introduction of the legislation, sponsored by Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., comes weeks after the high court blocked the Biden administration’s eviction moratorium, ruling the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did not have authority to impose the freeze.
The CDC is one of the arms of HHS.
More:Supreme Court blocks Biden’s COVID-19 eviction moratorium in a blow to renters
The legislation – dubbed the Keeping Renters Safe Act of 2021 – aims to protect renters from eviction by amending section 361 of the Public Health Service Act to grant the HHS and CDC permanent authority to implement federal eviction moratoriums to address public health crises.
The Public Health Service Act authorizes the federal government to respond to medical and health emergencies, such as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Section 361 specifies the HHS secretary is authorized to “take measures to prevent the entry and spread of communicable diseases.” Those functions are delegated to the CDC.
Through theKeeping Renters Safe Act of 2021, the lawmakers argued that by evicting millions across the nation, the likelihood diseases like COVID-19 spreading in such an emergency increases significantly. Having the ability to create federal eviction moratoriums will decrease that threat during COVID-19 and in future health crises.
“This pandemic isn’t over, and we have to do everything we can to protect renters from the harm and trauma of needless eviction, which upends the lives of those struggling to get back on their feet,” Warren said. “Pushing hundreds of thousands of people out of their homes will only exacerbate this public health crisis, and cause economic harm to families, their communities, and our overall recovery.”
Bush told USA TODAY “this is the only way we make sure that we are keeping people safe, especially now that we are dealing with this pandemic that continues to surge, and is just out of control.”
Other eviction moratoriums haven’t survived
Congress first approved an eviction moratorium in the early months of the pandemic in 2020.
A few months later, then-President Donald Trump ordered the CDC to impose its own freeze, which it did that September. The CDC’s freeze was extended several times until this June when Biden extended it again for thirty days, prompting a political and legal battle over its impact.
More:Biden administration issues targeted moratorium on evictions for areas hit hardest by COVID-19
As the highly contagious delta variant took hold, Biden then asked Congress to take the matter into its own hands.
When lawmakers could not reach a consensus, the CDC and the Biden administration announced the new moratorium in August that would have run through the end of October.
However, several real estate groups in Georgia and Alabama immediately sued.
The Supreme Court then shot down Biden’s attempt to extend the moratorium for the hardest hit areas. Supreme Court Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh, during a previous ruling by the court, said it’s up to Congress to pass a bill giving the CDC authority.
Kavanaugh penned a warning in June that the CDC “exceeded its existing statutory authority by issuing a nationwide eviction moratorium.”
“Clear and specific congressional authorization (via new legislation) would be necessary for the CDC to extend the moratorium past July 31,” he said.
More:Biden administration issues targeted moratorium on evictions for areas hit hardest by COVID-19
Bush said they crafted this new legislation with prior legal difficulties in mind.
“We want to change the law to say that the HHS has the ability to make the decision” to craft eviction moratoriums, she said. “So, when the secretary says that ‘this is what needs to happen,’ he has the ability to be able to make that call.”
The legislation would apply to all residential eviction filings, hearings, judgments, and execution of judgments.
Impact of evictions
The ruling from the Supreme Court allowed property owners to begin the process of evicting millions of Americans who are behind on rent because of the coronavirus pandemic.
One in six renters is estimated to be behind on their rent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey.
Sabrina Davis, a 63-year-old living in Kansas City, Missouri, who was evicted in August 2021 during an ongoing legal battle with her landlord, told USA TODAY she felt like the government had left her and others behind.
Davis, who is also disabled, felt “thrown away” by her city, state and nation, and said she thought the government “could care less.”
“Why are we as citizens of this country, going through this?” she asked through tears.
More:FDA committee OKs COVID vaccine boosters for at risk people, 65+ data lacking for other groups.
Sabrina expressed gratitude to be able to stay with a friend to avoid living on the streets, but emphasized the experience of being evicted during the pandemic has “exposed me greatly” to COVID-19.
Eviction is “like a death sentence. It’s like I’ve been just thrown out there to the virus,” she said. If her friend had not taken her in, Sabrina would have had to go to a shelter, which are often crowded and overflowing, or live on the streets,she said.
When the previous moratorium expired, congressional Democrats pushed the Biden administration to extend the ban once again.
Bush, who has been evicted in the past herself, slept outside the Capitol building for several nights in a protest designed to draw attention to the expiring freeze.
The moratorium provided by the new legislation would remain in effect for at least 60 days “after the conclusion of the public health emergency,” according to the legislation.
Future in Congress
It is unclear whether the legislation will gather Republican support in either chamber of Congress.
Bush told USA TODAY she wishes to see the legislation attached and passed through a continuing resolution: a temporary, stop-gap funding measure which avoids a government shutdown while Congress debates how to fund the government.
If it is not included in an upcoming continuing resolution and is pursued separately, it’s chances are unknown.
In August, Republicans objected to an effort to unanimously pass an extension through the House.
In the Senate, 10 Republicans would need to join all 50 Democratic-voting senators to push the legislation past the legislative hurdle known as the filibuster.
Earlier in the summer, Republicans from both chambers argued against extending the eviction moratorium and the one implemented by the CDC due to questions over its legality. Republicans also pointed to money in COVID-19 assistance legislation that delegated billions of dollars to tenants and landlords to prevent evictions.
More:89% of federal rental assistance remains unspent as potential evictions crisis looms
But millions of Americans, renters and landlords alike, have not received the emergency rental assistance that is available to them through a federal program administered by their state.
“Congress appropriated $47 billion of rental assistance to address this exact problem. The admin’s time would be better spent dealing with its failure to get money owed to landlords rather than papering over its failures with illegal actions,” Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., said in a tweet this summer.
According to the Treasury Department, states and cities spent $5.2 billion out of $46.5 billion in rental relief authorized from two COVID-19 rescue packages beginning in December – $4.7 billion of which has gone directly to households and the rest toward administrative costs. About 11% of the total funds had been dispersed through July.
Until that money is distributed and the virus is eventually under control, the legislation would “help people to come from under the financial burden and also gives them the opportunity to figure out what their next move is,” Bush said.
Contributing: John Fritze, Joey Garrison
