Centers For Disease Control And Prevention: Housing advocates are warning of awful images and hardships for many Americans who have suffered the most from Covid-19.

 By Katy O'Donnell

07/31/2021 07:00 AM EDT

politico.com

“My biggest concern is the dynamic of potentially tens of thousands of sheriff’s deputies and other law enforcement officials executing evictions around the country at the same time in the hottest month of the year,” said David Dworkin, president and CEO of the National Housing Conference, an affordable housing advocacy group.

About 7.4 million adult tenants reported they were behind on rent in the latest U.S. Census Bureau survey, which was taken during the last week of June and the first week of July. About 3.6 million tenant households said they were “somewhat likely” or “very likely” to face eviction over the next two months.

Others say the population of at-risk renters is much larger. The left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that 11.4 million tenants — 16 percent of adults living in rental housing — are not caught up on rent.

The lapse of the eviction ban, which was first imposed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in September as a Covid-19 safety measure, comes after landlords warned that it cost them billions of dollars each month. Industry groups including the National Association of Realtors lobbied against extending the moratorium this week and made the case to lawmakers that it “unfairly shifts economic hardships to the backs of housing providers who have jeopardized their own financial futures to provide essential housing to renters across the country.”

The industry groups said the ban has been especially difficult for the mom-and-pop landlords who provide 40 percent of the country’s rental units. They “continue to pay mortgages, taxes, insurance and maintain the safety of their properties for tenants with less or, in many cases, no rental income,” the groups said in a late-night letter to lawmakers on Thursday.

-