NLIHC and the National Housing Law Project (NHLP) sent letters on February 23 to HUD, the Treasury Department, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) urging the agencies to take immediate action to ensure renters living in federally supported properties know their rights under the federal eviction moratorium issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). NLIHC and NHLP sent a similar letter last September calling on the agencies to notify tenants of the eviction moratorium.
While the federal eviction moratorium extends vital protections to renters at risk of eviction during the pandemic, many qualified renters are unaware of the steps they must take to be protected. Under the CDC moratorium, renters are only protected if they know about the moratorium and take steps to be protected. As a result, corporate and other landlords continue to evict renters before renters know about the moratorium’s protections and can make use of its protections.
NLIHC, NHLP, and over 2,000 organizations and elected officials are urging the Biden administration to address the moratorium’s significant shortcomings that prevent renters from making full use of the order’s protections. Among other improvements, we are calling on the administration to issue an automatic and universal moratorium that covers all tenants without requiring them to “apply” for the protection.
Until these reforms are implemented, HUD, USDA, and Treasury must, at a minimum, require federally supported rental property owners and housing authorities to provide tenants written notice of their rights and steps they must take to be protected. Specifically, NLIHC and NHLP urge that federal agencies:
- Require housing providers to send a flyer with a description of the CDC order and its protections to tenants and include a copy of the CDC declaration
- Require flyers be in the language most appropriate for a household or at least provide an insert in languages representing those used by the households served by the provider household indicating that versions of the description of the CDC order and a copy of the CDC declaration in other languages will be provided upon request
- Require providers to make reasonable accommodations to inform residents who have sight or hearing disabilities
- Require housing providers to also provide the flyer to a tenant at the same time the housing provider serves a notice of nonpayment of rent.
Read the letter to HUD at: https://bit.ly/2ZPNRmt
Read the letter to Treasury at: https://bit.ly/3dDiROL
Read the letter to USDA at: https://bit.ly/2ZKad9i