Wednesday marks the first of a new month, a day when rent comes due for millions of Americans for the first time since the coronavirus outbreak shuttered much of the country and caused widespread job losses.
"In terms of the across the board, really big, social policy, human need issue, this is it," Andrew Scherer, a law professor at New York Law School, told NBC News of what he sees as an impending crisis."This is what's looming." In the massive $2 trillion relief package, Congress provided a 60-day delay in foreclosures for borrowers with federally backed mortgage loans while allowing six months of forbearance for those experiencing economic hardship because of the outbreak.
For a variety of reasons, experts said the moratoriums, while necessary in the short term, aren't enough to deal with the housing crisis. For starters, the vast majority of renters do not live in properties that are supported by federally-backed mortgages. And unless further legal action is taken, there is nothing stopping a landlord from evicting a tenant as soon as the moratorium passes, seeking to collect rent immediately.
Trump's presidential rivals, former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., have both backed calls for rent forgiveness over the near future. On Tuesday, Biden called for"a temporary ban on evictions nationwide."The movement to cancel rent is gaining the most ground in New York, where activists and lawmakers have called for it.