Thousands of residents in California will find themselves homeless on August 1, as a nationwide ban on evictions is set to expire.
A nationwide ban on residential evictions in the United States will expire on Sunday amid a surge in coronavirus cases due to the Delta variant.
This massive wave of evictions that is expected comes just as the highly contagious strain of COVID-19 continues to take hold of the coronavirus cases throughout California.
Another thing that does not assist is how the vaccine rollout programmes across the entire state started lagging from the beginning of the month.
Now, on top of dealing with 'breakthrough cases,' the state of California finds itself having another issue of residents losing their homes and the timing to have this sorted out while it's weekend remains tricky.
Billions of dollars in federal funding - mainly from Biden's $1.9 trillion plan - were meant to help to assist rental finances for millions of residents across the country, but the money is yet to be tapped.
Democratic leaders in Congress were pushing for an extension, but it was unclear if they had the votes to prevent the ban from expiring.
This is because even among moderates in their own party, it was unclear whether the majority supported the extension or opposed it.
President Joe Biden, during Thursday’s media press briefing, urged Congress to extend this moratorium.
An earlier ruling in June said that the White House could not extend the measure through September as intended.
What's the way forward?
According to national data from Treasury, only about 450 000 households had received aid through the Emergency Rental Assistance programme.
The exact figure for California remains unknown, and although hundreds of people are speculated to have been assisted so far, thousands more remain in compromising situations.
Several states and local governments have yet to pay out any funds, and now there is an issue of application backlogs.
Biden administration eased paperwork and eligibility requirements for the application requirements, but state and local officials are still responsible for managing the aid.
This decision by the White House to shift responsibility to states seems to be somehow a leeway for them to still have some control to facilitate how the funds are distributed.
My thoughts on this
It is without a doubt that landlords with rental properties have been put in a tough spot, and this is going to make it financially hard for them to keep their properties with no revenue.
My friend's apartment management in downtown Los Angeles has already issued notices to various residents in their complex over a week ago, alerting them that their time is up.
Another thing to note is that some people didn't receive their stimulus checks because they didn't file their tax returns while some waited until late to do their aid applications.
Taking responsibility for our own financial situations seems to be a tricky thing for a lot of people to do, especially when one is occupied with the daunting job-hunting process.
At the moment, the president has no options because the courts told him he could not have another extension. If something like this has to be done, it has to be through Congress.
-- Additional sourcing from ABC News, U.S. News, AFP & CDC government.
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