[ Donald Trumps executive order wouldnt do much to immediately
help the 20 million or so Americans who face losing their homes in the
next few months.] [[link removed]]

'IT MEANS NOTHING': TRUMP’S PLEDGE TO AID TENANTS WON’T HALT
EVICTIONS   [[link removed]]

 

Katy O'Donnell
August 11, 2020
Politico
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_ Donald Trump's executive order wouldn't do much to immediately help
the 20 million or so Americans who face losing their homes in the next
few months. _

‘Housing is a right’: Tenants hold protest calling for eviction
courts to remain closed through end of 2020, Photos by Miriam
Quinones/Bronx Times

 

When President Donald Trump signed an executive order Saturday to
shield tenants from the threat of eviction, he said it would “solve
that problem largely, hopefully completely.”

Yet not only would his action fail to halt evictions, it wouldn't do
much of anything to immediately help the 20 million or so Americans
who face the loss of their homes in the next few months amid the
coronavirus crisis.

Trump’s order
[[link removed]] does
not extend the lapsed four-month eviction moratorium, which
itself covered only about a quarter of the nation’s 44 million
rental units
[[link removed]].
Instead, it merely directs the Department of Health and Human Services
and the Centers for Disease Control to “consider whether any
measures temporarily halting residential evictions” are necessary to
halt the spread of Covid-19.

It also provides no direct money to aid tenants in distress, who will
eventually have to pay months of back rent. The departments of the
Treasury and Housing and Urban Development were instructed to identify
sources of funding. Neither could provide details Tuesday on how they
would do that.

“It’s nothing but a political ploy,” said House Financial
Services Chair Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), who dismissed the
“so-called executive order” as a stunt designed to deflect
criticism from the president. “It means nothing."

But housing advocates argue that the measure may actually be worse
than doing nothing at all, by easing the urgency to reach a deal with
Congress and giving renters a false sense of security.

The order will “mislead renters into believing that they are
protected when they are not,” National Low Income Housing Coalition
President and CEO Diane Yentel said in a statement.

“This executive order is reckless and harmful, offering false hope
and risking increased confusion and chaos at a time when renters need
assurance that they will not be kicked out of their homes during a
pandemic,” she added.

The four-month CARES Act moratorium ended July 25, and most states are
letting their own temporary protections lapse. At the same time, the
federal enhancement to unemployment benefits — a $600-a-week boost
that has helped struggling tenants pay at least some of their rent —
has also expired.

The expiration of those benefits means somewhere between 19 million
and 23 million people — about one in five renters in the U.S. —
will be at risk of eviction by the end of next month, according to an
analysis by the Aspen Institute. Negotiations to renew both measures
as part of the next relief package broke down late last week.

Trump, questioned at his Tuesday press conference about the prospect
of mass evictions, said, "We are not allowing that to happen.”

“We are stopping evictions," he added, referring to the executive
order.

Waters, speaking with housing advocates on Monday, called for the
urgent “passage of a statutory extension of the eviction moratorium
and the creation of an emergency rental assistance fund.”

The House has passed two bills that would provide $100 billion to help
tenants pay their rent, but the Senate has not moved on either piece
of legislation.

Saturday’s order hints at rental assistance without specifying an
amount or where Treasury and HUD should draw the money from.

HUD twice declined to provide details on what the agency plans to do
differently as a result of the order. Treasury said it had no comment.

“We are in close contact with the White House and other federal
agencies on the Executive Order and its implementation,” HUD
spokesperson Brad Bishop said Tuesday. “We will provide additional
information as these discussions continue.”

The White House, meanwhile, is insisting the new order will prevent
people from losing their homes.

“There will be no evictions,” economic adviser Larry Kudlow said
in an interview with CNN
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Sunday.

When the CNN anchor pressed him on whether the order actually stops
evictions as some struggling tenants may believe, Kudlow said it will
provide a “mechanism” to do that.

“We're setting up a process, a mechanism, OK? I can't predict the
future altogether,” he said.

_Katy O’Donnell is a financial services reporter for Politico._

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