U.S. House of Representatives will suspend residential evictions and postpone Reuters

David Shepson

Washington (Reuters)-The US House of Representatives will take steps on Friday to extend the COVID-19 eviction order until December 31. The ban will expire on Saturday as millions of American families may be forced to move out of rental housing .

US President Joe Biden asked Congress on Thursday to extend the moratorium amid the sharp rise in the coronavirus infection rate.

The House Rules Committee will hold a meeting on the “Protection of Tenants from Eviction Act of 2021” at 8 a.m. Eastern Time, and a vote is expected to be held later.

Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi told colleagues that “extending the deportation ban is a moral imperative.”

She pointed out in a letter on Thursday that of the $46.5 billion in rent reductions approved by Congress, “only $3 billion has been allocated to renters… Congress must act again. We have the right to extend the eviction moratorium. To provide relief, because we encourage state and local governments to allocate our allocated funds.”

It is not clear whether the US Senate will take this measure.

According to a study by the Aspen Institute and the COVID-19 Deportation Defense Project, more than 15 million people currently live in households that are in arrears.

These 6.5 million families owe the landlord more than $20 billion in total.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said last month that it would not extend the deportation ban beyond July 31.

Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 5 to 4 to pass the CDC’s residential eviction ban to curb the spread of COVID-19 and prevent homelessness during the pandemic.

“In my opinion, the CDC needs clear and specific congressional authorization (through new legislation) to extend the moratorium beyond July 31,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote, who voted for the moratorium One of the five judges who banned.

White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki “Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has made it clear that this option will no longer be offered.”

Some states choose to extend the deportation moratorium beyond July 31, for example, New York, whose deportation moratorium was extended to August 31.

This week, the National Apartment Association, which has 82,600 members and collectively manages more than 9.7 million apartments, sued the US government for billions of dollars in unpaid rent.