Advocates say Trump’s order is an “empty shell” that won’t stop evictions and just misleads renters.
Despite President Donald Trump repeatedly claiming that his executive order is stopping evictions, millions of Americans are still at risk of losing their homes.
Renters in the United States were hit with a double whammy earlier this summer as a federal eviction moratorium and enhanced jobless benefits from the federal government expired. Suddenly, many Americans who had already lost their jobs were without protections against homelessness and had less money to pay for necessities.
House Democrats passed a bill in May that would’ve extended the eviction moratorium, but Republicans haven’t been able to get a majority of their party to support a bill in the Senate. Instead of continuing negotiations, President Trump signed an executive order last week that would “largely, hopefully, completely,” solve the housing crisis, Trump said at the signing.
But housing advocates say the new executive order is “toothless” because it only directs federal agencies to “consider” whether eviction bans are needed instead of reinstating a federal eviction moratorium.
The National Low Income Housing Coalition described the order as “an empty shell of a promise that does nothing to prevent evictions and homelessness and acts only to mislead renters into believing that they are protected when they are not.”
The hollow gesture means that 43% of renters, which is between 10 and 40 million people, now could face eviction, according to multiple studies.
The housing crisis isn’t made any easier by negotiations over the next round of coronavirus relief packages that have been stalled out for weeks.
In addition to extending the eviction moratorium, the Democratic bill allocated $100 billion for rental assistance efforts. Their plan was supported by presumptive Democratic nominee for president, Joe Biden. But Senate Republicans and the Trump administration disagreed with elements of the legislation and refused to pass it. Instead, they let the federal moratorium on evictions and increased jobless benefits expire. This left many Americans to survive off of state unemployment benefits, which are notoriously meager, to keep food on the table and make their rent payments.
“It’s really the Senate that’s not appreciating the significance, or maybe they just don’t care about what’s going to happen,” said Eric Dunn, who serves as director of litigation at the National Housing Law Project in an interview with Courier. “It’s unthinkable that they’re just not aware, it just unfortunately seems that there may be some other priorities.”
President Trump’s executive order might be worse than doing nothing at all. Despite the fact that it won’t actually prevent people from being evicted it could just confuse renters who are already struggling with a daunting eviction process.
“[The order] does nothing to prevent evictions and homelessness and acts only to mislead renters into believing that they are protected when they are not,” wrote the National Low Income Housing Coalition 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.”
Elle Meyers Elle Meyers is a Congressional Reporter for COURIER where she covers national politics and lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Previously Elle was a beat reporter in Montgomery County, Maryland and she is a native of Portland.
