Letter to Benjamin Carson, Director of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Steven Mnuchin, Secretary of the Treasury, and Sonny Perdue, Secretary of the Department of Agriculture - Congressman Neguse Calls for Federal Eviction Moratorium

Letter

Dear Secretary Carson, Secretary Mnuchin, and Secretary Perdue:
Tomorrow, another month's rent will be due for millions of Americans struggling to make ends
meet. The coronavirus pandemic has killed more than 180,000 people in the United States and
left millions out of work. As the virus continues to ravage our country, we urge you and your
departments to take immediate, meaningful action to mitigate the already-growing wave of
evictions and to prevent a gut-wrenching rise in homelessness. We trust that you share our
common goal of keeping as many Americans as possible in their homes as our nation deals with
both the health and economic consequences of this unprecedented pandemic.
The impending eviction crisis and its devastating outcomes are entirely preventable, and
Congress has already acted to help families in crisis. In May, the House of Representatives
passed the Heroes Act, comprehensive legislation that would provide almost $200 billion in
additional funding for housing and homelessness programs. The Heroes Act seeks to support and
protect families by creating a $100 billion Emergency Rental Assistance Fund, extending and
expanding eviction moratoriums to all renters, and assisting people experiencing homelessness
by providing $11.5 billion for Homeless Assistance Grants and $1 billion in new Section 8
vouchers. A longer-term legislative solution will be critical to help Americans in crisis, but the
Administration also has executive authority to take immediate action.
The executive order the President issued on August 8, 2020 has done nothing thus far to prevent
evictions and homelessness. Instead, the executive order may harm renters by misleading them
into believing that they are protected when they are not. We strongly urge you to use existing
authorities at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Department
of the Treasury, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to implement sweeping
eviction moratoriums and deploy other federal funding or policy remedies to stem the tide of this
oncoming "tsunami" of evictions. To this end, we direct your attention to the enclosed letters sent to each of you from the
National Housing Law Project and National Low-Income Housing Coalition citing explicit
authorities at each of your respective departments to enact broad eviction moratoriums.
These federal eviction moratoriums are necessary steps to prevent catastrophic, long-term fallout
for many families and our entire economy.
The pandemic has exacerbated the existing affordable housing crisis, putting more renters at risk
of eviction and homelessness. Even before the pandemic, about 8 million of the lowest-income
renters paid more than half of their limited incomes on rent.2 With so few resources, they were
just one financial shock away from housing instability, eviction, and, in worst cases,
homelessness.
Without significant and sustained federal intervention, 30 million to 40 million renters could be
evicted by the end of the year.
3 These are families with children, people with disabilities, and
seniors. Economist Mark Zandi estimates that renters already owe $25 billion in back rent and
could owe as much as $70 billion by the end of the year, a debt they cannot possibly pay off4
through no fault of their own. Prior to the expiration in late July of the federal eviction
moratorium and enhanced unemployment benefits enacted under the CARES Act, approximately
21 percent of all adult renters were already behind on their rent.5 Tenants in "Class C" properties
that tend to have the lowest rental rates in a market paid just 54 percent of total rents that were
due in June.6
Evictions risk lives, drive families deeper into poverty, further burden overstretched health care
systems, and make it much more difficult for the country to contain the coronavirus. Studies
from cities across the country have demonstrated that people of color, particularly Black and
Latinx people, comprise approximately 80 percent of people facing eviction.
7 These disparities
will be exacerbated and further entrenched if the federal government does not take action to
provide additional housing protections and resources.
The price of inaction is far greater than the cost of providing essential rental assistance to
households at risk of eviction and homelessness.8 Keeping Americans affordably and stably
housed during this pandemic is both a moral imperative and a public health necessity. Please,
Mr. Secretaries, do not delay another day.

Source