Joe Biden on Thursday, July 29 asked the US Congress to extend the moratoria that prevent rental evictions in the United States, and run until July 31, announced Thursday the White House, in full rise in contaminations because of the Delta variant.
"The president calls on Congress to extend the moratorium on evictions to protect vulnerable tenants and their families,"
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement.
Read also: The US economy exceeds its pre-crisis level
This moratorium was put in place in September 2020 by the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC), the main federal public health agency in the United States.
"Keeping people in their homes and out of crowded or gathering places - such as homeless shelters - by preventing evictions is a key step in helping to stop the spread of Covid-19,"
CDC detail on their website . It succeeded the one planned in March 2020 by the Trump administration and Congress, to prevent the millions of people who had lost their jobs because of the pandemic, from ending up on the streets. It was then extended several times.
But
"a decision of the Supreme Court ruled that
" a clear and specific authorization of Congress (...) would be necessary for the CDC to extend the moratorium beyond July 31 ", regrets Jen Psaki in the press release.
Joe Biden also asked the ministries of Housing and Urban Development, Agriculture, and Veterans Affairs, which manage the rental of some housing,
"to extend their respective moratoria until the end of September," he
said. she.
Read also: United States: the US economy rebounds sharply after the shock of spring
The Treasury Department for its part called on Wednesday to accelerate the payment to tenants of funds provided by the federal government, to help them pay their rent. Of the $ 46 billion made available to states and local communities to help tenants in difficulty financially, only $ 3 billion actually arrived in their bank accounts, a Treasury official confirmed to AFP. .
