Landlords and real estate companies have banded together to force the suspension of the Biden administration's new eviction moratorium. A new lawsuit is now requesting federal judges to intervene in the extension of the moratorium, which would prohibit landlords from legally evicting non-paying tenants.
The lawsuit represent the first official challenge to U.S. President Joe Biden's efforts to alleviate the public's anxiety because of the extended Covid-19 pandemic. After allowing the previous eviction moratorium to expire, the Biden administration was under immense pressure from the public and members of his party for its reinstatement.
The extension was originally announced on Tuesday and applied to states with high daily Covid-19 case counts. It also only applied to certain tenants who failed to pay rent because of the health crisis. The new moratorium is much more tailored compared to its predecessor but it still applies to about 90% of U.S. renters.
A lawsuit in Washington against the extension claims that the moratorium was an "unlawful ban." It also claims that the ban has been in effect since September last year and the extension is nothing more than a "delaying tactic" by the CDC and the Biden administration.
Brett A. Shumate, a lawyer representing a group of landlords, claimed in the emergency application that the moratorium extension is only given additional time to people who really do not have the money to pay their overdue rents. He added that Biden knowingly issued the extension without any legal authority.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Biden wouldn't have backed the extension if he wasn't sure about the legality of the move. Psaki claimed that the new measure wasn't as much as an extension but a targeted move to alleviate the pressure on those affected by the recent infection surge.
The Alabama and Georgia Associations of Realtors said Biden and the CDC had exceeded their powers in the approval of the eviction moratorium extension. The National Association of Realtors argued that more than half of landlords are small operators who cannot maintain their properties or pay for their own bills without their rental incomes.
If the legal challenge is successful, millions of Americans who are behind on their rents could be in danger of becoming homeless. With the Delta variant of the coronavirus now rapidly spreading across the nation, more people could end up losing their jobs and consequently their homes.
