Will Parker at The Wall Street Journal that tenants in the South could be the hardest hit now that the eviction ban is up… (Wall Street Journal)
- So why the South? Parker argues that southern states have laws that gives landlords more power than other states. For example, “In Mississippi, tenants can lose their eviction case in court and be removed from their home on the same day. In Arkansas, landlords can pursue criminal charges for tenants who don’t pay rent.”
- Eviction ban end is also coinciding with drastic rent hikes. “Rent increases in cities like Charlotte, N.C., Jacksonville, Fla., and Memphis, Tenn., have outpaced the rest of the country.”
NOTE: The U.S. Treasury reported that “only about $3 billion out of $46.6 billion in federal rental assistance meant to prevent tenant evictions and help struggling landlords had reached landlords and tenants by the end of June.”
More To the Story: The White House, under fire from progressives for the expiration of a moratorium on evictions, said it lacked the legal authority to order an extension while blaming state and local governments for the slow distribution of rental aid already approved by Congress.
- To fix this the Biden administration directed federal agencies to consider targeted extensions for tenants in federally subsidized housing, asked state judges to slow-walk eviction proceedings and called for a review of problems that have slowed the flow of aid… (New York Times)