The Arguments Pro and Con

On the opinion page of the Wall Street Journal there are arguments both pro and con on the eviction moratorium. The WSJ’s editors make legal:

As Democrats push to renew the nationwide ban on evictions that expired Saturday, they’re squabbling—er, screaming—over who’s failing the party’s progressive base. Speaker Nancy Pelosi puts the onus on President Biden, urging him to act unilaterally. The White House says it lacks legal authority, as the Supreme Court recently made clear.

Mr. Biden is correct: The public-health powers of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention do not extend to an interminable blanket prohibition of evictions across the entire nation. Any ban also may be an unconstitutional “taking” of property under the Fifth Amendment, though that’s an argument for another day. The point is that for 11 months President Trump and President Biden stretched their authority, but now Mr. Biden must heed the Supreme Court’s warning.

economic (and federalism)

Little is being said in this debate about economics, but the numbers make it hard to see any case for a blunt national policy. The unemployment rate is 2.5% in Nebraska. It’s 2.7% in Utah, 2.9% in both New Hampshire and South Dakota, and 3% in Idaho. How much more recovered from Covid can those labor markets get? Other places that suffered longer lockdowns are lagging. But if state and local leaders want, they can pass tailored eviction policies, and then they can be accountable for the results.

Too often ignored are the costs on the other side of the evictions ledger. Renters are facing hardships, but so are landlords. There are about 48 million rental housing units in the U.S., according to a 2018 federal survey. For 42% of them, day-to-day management of the property was performed by either the owner or an unpaid agent. Another 25% had a paid manager who was still “directly employed” by the owner.

There are millions of mom-and-pop landlords who own a house here, a duplex there, a small apartment building two streets down. Some of them are going on a year, or more, without rental income, yet they’re responsible for paying the taxes and the upkeep. A few nightmare stories are trickling out, say, of a woman living in a house with a basement apartment, occupied by abusive tenants who apparently saw the moratorium as impunity.

and, ultimately, a practical argument that the moratorium should be lifted now:

The U.S. is 11 months from when President Trump’s CDC first issued its eviction moratorium. Democrats would like to extend it, and for who knows how long. What would be the criteria for ever rescinding the policy? Good luck trying to get an answer.

The hard fact is that eventually the rent will come due, and tenants and landlords will have to work it out. If the moratorium is extended, back payments will continue to stack up, and the result will be an even bigger problem when the music finally stops.

while columnist William Galston makes an appeal to sympathy

Millions of Americans—mainly lower and middle-income workers—lost their jobs last year amid the pandemic and couldn’t pay the rent. Congress enacted a limited and temporary moratorium on evictions, which ended in July 2020.

as well as a public health argument for extending the moratorium:

The public-health consequences of allowing the moratorium to expire could be serious. One study from last fall found that states that had lifted their own moratoria last spring and summer experienced much higher coronavirus caseloads and deaths than states that kept them in place. Those evicted ended up living in more-crowded places—relatives’ apartments, motel rooms or shelters—where social distancing is harder. This is especially relevant to the Delta strain, which is substantially more transmissible than earlier variants.

However, there is little doubt in Mr. Galston’s mind where to place the blame:

The blame for this sad situation is widely shared. Months ago, Congress could have provided the executive branch with the clear legal authority the Supreme Court is now requiring. States and localities could have designed simpler, more efficient ways of carrying out the clear intent of Congress. And the Biden administration should have responded sooner to mounting evidence that state and local plans were not working.

While it is true that the states have been slow to hand out the funds that were appropriated for this, I’m not as convinced as he that an even more distributed situation would not have been better. The circumstances in Utah or South Dakota are not the same as those in New York or New Jersey and, frankly, the federal government does not have the boots on the ground to implement a program like this nationally.

In my view there should be considerably tighter means-testing on the moratorium and, honestly, there’s a point at which a policy shifts from mercy to constituent service. Any program should have a date or conditions certain when it will end. And while they’re being merciful why not extend a property tax jubilee while they’re placing a moratorium on evictions. As I’ve pointed out before the three biggest expenses for landlords are mortgage payments, property taxes, and maintenance. In some jurisdictions there is the surreal situation of renters who are paying rent and can’t be evicted nonetheless empowered to sue landlords if the landlords don’t maintain their premises.