The Biden administration unveiled a raft of measures to prevent people who lost income during the pandemic from losing their homes on Thursday, including by extending nationwide eviction and foreclosure bans until July 31.
The White House and other federal agencies sprang into action amid growing concerns that state and local governments were not prepared to protect renters if the federal eviction ban expired next Wednesday. More than six million renter households are behind on rent, according to a recent survey by the Census Bureau.
State and local officials have been slow to put $46 billion in federal aid to use protecting struggling tenants. To address the bottleneck, the Treasury Department on Thursday released new guidance to help the officials distribute the funds. The Justice Department also called on state courts to adopt “anti-eviction diversion practices” designed to discourage landlords from kicking people out of their homes.
A senior Biden administration official told reporters Thursday that the goal was to use “these 30 days to do everything possible to mitigate harmful evictions and prevent a flood of evictions when the moratorium ends.”
www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/biden-extends-eviction-foreclosure-bans-by-one-month/ar-AALoLUR