华盛顿——乔·拜登总统的政府只有不到一周的时间来决定延长全国范围内的暂停驱逐令，住房倡导者说，这一措施有助于在大流行期间让全国大多数现金短缺的租户留在家中。
住房倡导者相信，将于3月31日到期的禁令将延长几个月，甚至可能会得到加强。不过，他们认为现有的暂停令并不是一种全面的保护，并表示成千上万的家庭因不支付租金以外的其他原因被驱逐。
“恢复和加强我们经济的关键是击败新冠肺炎。为了做到这一点，我们必须让人们安全居住，同时努力为更多的人接种疫苗。这就是美国救援计划所做的，”民主党参议员杰克·里德在一份声明中说。“但就目前而言，在更多的人接种疫苗、更多的支持性住房项目上线、更多的帮助得到部署之前，暂停的延长显然是有道理的。”
白宫表示，正在考虑延长禁令。住房和城市发展部没有回复就此问题发表评论的请求。
国家住房法项目诉讼主任埃里克·邓恩指出，有迹象表明，一项决定已经悄悄地做出。邓恩说，上周，住房和城市发展部的一名官员与住房倡导者进行了一次电话交谈，就租户可以使用的一种新的简化形式发表意见，以获得免受驱逐的保护。
“如果他们不打算继续这样做一段时间，他们为什么要这样做?”邓恩问。"问题是:扩展将会是什么样子?"
邓恩和其他人希望看到暂停延长和改善。上周，2000多个宣传组织签署了一封给拜登和新的HUD部长Marcia Fudge的信，敦促他们通过行政命令延长禁令，并“通过改善和执行命令来解决暂停的缺点”。
9月由美国疾病控制和预防中心实施，总统唐纳德·特朗普美国的指令被延长到一月底。拜登将其延长至3月31日。
暂停的理由是，在大流行期间，让家庭失去家园，搬进避难所，或与亲戚或朋友分享拥挤的条件，将进一步传播这种高度传染性冠状病毒。
为了有资格获得保护，租房者必须为夫妇共同申请赚取198，000美元或更少，或为单身申请赚取99，000美元;证明他们已经寻求政府帮助支付租金;宣布他们无法支付，因为新冠肺炎的艰辛;并肯定如果被驱逐，他们可能会无家可归。
拜登的1.9万亿美元新冠肺炎救助计划包括超过250亿美元的紧急租赁援助，此外还包括更多帮助拖欠水电费的房客，但没有延长驱逐令。
尽管这些钱流向了公民，但救济需求仍然十分迫切。
全国民权律师联盟协调员约翰·波洛克说，目前的调查显示，18.4%的房客拖欠房租。这个数字也显示了明显的种族差异;黑人房客拖欠房租的比例为32.9%。
波拉克称这一禁令是“唯一阻止驱逐潮”的东西，驱逐潮将在仍然不稳定的美国经济中螺旋上升。“那种浪潮不会只影响租房者本身;这将摧毁社区，就像2008年的抵押赎回权危机一样。
但倡导者说，仅仅延长暂停是不够的。
拜登倡导的最大变化之一是使禁令的保护自动和普遍。目前，租户必须采取积极措施来援引禁令的保护——这导致了对穿制服者的剥削。
全国低收入住房联盟主席黛安·延特尔(Diane Yentel)说:“通常是最弱势的群体不知道他们需要保护的信息。”她列举了最近的移民和老年人，认为他们最不可能知道自己的全部权利。“这真的是留给像我们这样的组织来说的，”她说。
另一个缺陷是:一些司法管辖区的房东一直在法院启动驱逐程序，特朗普政府在一项备受嘲笑的禁令修正案中为这一策略打开了大门。
邓恩说:“这使得房东可以随时准备驱逐房客。”。
许多家庭在受到法律诉讼的第一次威胁时选择离开他们的家，他们担心驱逐——即使是一个仍在法院的驱逐——将是他们记录上的一个污点，这将使寻找一个家变得具有挑战性。
不是每个人都支持继续暂停。几个州的房东提起诉讼，要求取消该命令，称这给他们造成了经济困难，侵犯了他们的财产权。
至少有六起突出的诉讼挑战疾控中心禁令的权威;到目前为止，三名法官支持禁令，三名法官反对，所有案件目前都在上诉中。孟菲斯的一名法官宣布疾病预防控制中心的命令在田纳西州整个西区不可执行。
邓恩说:“州法院的法官仍在审理个别驱逐案件，其中许多人一开始就不喜欢疾控中心的暂停令，只是渴望找到规避或无视它的方法。”
The eviction moratorium is expiring. What will Biden do?
WASHINGTON -- President Joe Biden's administration has less than a week to decide on extending the nationwide eviction moratorium, a measure that housing advocates say has helped keep most cash-strapped tenants across the country in their homes during the pandemic.
Housing advocates are confident the ban, due to expire March 31, will be extended for several months and possibly even strengthened. Still, they argue the existing moratorium hasn’t been a blanket protection and say thousands of families have been evicted for other reasons beyond nonpayment of rent.
“The key to restoring and strengthening our economy is defeating COVID-19. To do that, we must keep people safely housed as we work towards vaccinating more people. This is what the American Rescue Plan does," Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., said in a statement. “But for now, an extension of the moratorium is clearly warranted until more people are vaccinated, more supportive housing programs come on line, and more help is deployed.”
The White House has indicated it is weighing an extension of the ban. The Department of Housing and Urban Development did not respond to a request for comment on the issue.
Eric Dunn, director of litigation for the National Housing Law Project, noted signs that a decision has already quietly been made. Last week, Dunn said, a HUD official conducted a call with housing advocates to field opinions on a new, streamlined form that tenants can use in order to gain protection from eviction.
“Why would they be doing that if they didn’t plan to continue this for a while longer?” Dunn asked. “The question is: What is the extension going to look like?”
Dunn and others would like to see the moratorium extended and improved. Last week, more than 2,000 advocacy organizations signed on to a letter to Biden and new HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge urging them to extend the ban via executive order and also “address the moratorium’s shortcomings by improving and enforcing the order.”
Implemented in September by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, PresidentDonald Trump’s directive was extended until the end of January. Biden extended it until March 31.
The rationale for the moratorium was that having families lose their homes and move into shelters or share crowded conditions with relatives or friends during a pandemic would further spread the highly contagiouscoronavirus.
To be eligible for protection, renters must earn $198,000 or less for couples filing jointly, or $99,000 for single filers; demonstrate that they’ve sought government help to pay the rent; declare that they can’t pay because of COVID-19 hardships; and affirm they are likely to become homeless if evicted.
Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package included more than $25 billion in emergency rental assistance, plus more to help tenants who were behind on their utilities, but no extension of the eviction moratorium.
And while that money works its way out to citizens, the need for relief remains dire.
John Pollock, coordinator of the National Coalition for a Civil Right to Counsel, said current surveys show that 18.4% of all tenants owe back rent. That number also revealed significant racial disparity; the percentage of Black tenants behind on their rent was 32.9%.
Pollack called the ban "the only thing holding back the flood" of evictions that would spiral through the still shaky American economy. “That kind of wave won’t just affect the renters themselves; it will devastate communities, much as the 2008 mortgage foreclosure crisis did,” he said.
But simply extending the moratorium is not enough, advocates said.
One of the biggest changes being advocated is for Biden to make the ban's protection's automatic and universal. Currently, tenants have to take active steps to invoke the ban's protections — which leads to exploitation of the uniformed.
“It's often the most vulnerable that don't have the information they need to be protected,” said Diane Yentel, president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, citing recent immigrants and the elderly as those least likely to know their full rights. “It's really been left to organizations like ours to get the word out,” she said.
Another flaw: Landlords in some jurisdictions have been initiating eviction proceedings in court, a tactic the Trump administration opened the door to in a much derided amendment to the ban.
“It has allowed landlords to have these evictions just teed up and ready to go,” Dunn said.
Many families have chosen to leave their homes at the first threat of legal proceedings, fearing that the eviction — even one still in the courts — would be a stain on their record that would make finding a home challenging.
Not everyone supports keeping the moratorium in place. Landlords in several states have sued to scrap the order, arguing it was causing them financial hardship and infringing on their property rights.
There are at least six prominent lawsuits challenging the authority of the CDC ban; so far three judges have sided with the ban and three have ruled against, with all cases currently going through appeals. One judge in Memphis declared the CDC order unenforceable in the entire Western District of Tennessee.
“Individual eviction cases are still heard by state court judges far and wide — many of who never liked the CDC halt order to begin with and were just itching for ways to circumvent it or disregard it,” Dunn said.
