Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said congressional Democrats “stand ready” to work together with the presidential administration to “find ways” to extend the eviction moratorium that expired over the weekend.
In June, The Supreme Court allowed the CDC and Prevention to maintain its eviction moratorium through July 31st. It was also ruled that Congress would have to approve any further extension.
On Tuesday Pelosi said “the crisis of families being evicted and put on the streets is a challenge to the conscience of the country. She further stated that the Democrats stay committed to “immediately helping renters and landlords, saying it a “priority that unites our caucus.”
Pelosi stated, “House Democrats have galvanized a national movement around the eviction emergency,” further saying that she is “pleased to salute Financial Services Committee Chair Maxine Waters for her leadership in proposing and fighting for the moratorium and the funding for tenants and landlords in our legislation from the start”
“I also salute Congresswoman Cori Bush for her powerful action to keep people in their homes” Pelosi added.
Bush, over the weekend, slept overnight on the steps of the U.S. Capitol to protest the House adjourning for August recess without passing an extension to extend the moratorium and as they urged states and localities to spend the 46.5 billion that Congress allocated.” She added: “Our sole focus must be keeping people housed and we must do so with the urgency this moment deserves.”
On Monday the White House put pressure on states that have been “too slow disbursing the billions of dollars in assistance to renters facing eviction, saying it lacked the legal authority to extend the federal moratorium on evictions that expired this past weekend.
Citing the Supreme Court’s decision in June, the White House said that President Biden would have “strongly supported” a decision to extend the moratorium.
According to press secretary Jen Psaki, the administration is asking individual states to put in place or extend evictions moratoria for at minimum two months further “challenging every landlord to hold off evictions for the next 30 days. In a White House press briefing Monday, Gene Sperling who oversees the President Biden’s American Rescue Plan, that Biden is “double, triple and quadruple” checking the administration’s authority to extend the eviction moratorium.
