Protection against evictions in the United States ends on Sunday

the evacuation protection It expired Sunday for millions of Americans who could be made homeless within days, prompting efforts to release billions in rental assistance paralyzed.

Tenants have been protected from eviction for about a year as part of the US government’s decision to freeze to keep people indoors during covid-19 pandemic.

But lawmakers did not extend that expired protection, while only $3 billion in aid reached Americans’ homes out of the $25 billion earmarked for states and localities in early February.

“We must be empathetic. We must help. And if that money is there, we must use it for what he was going to do,” Democratic Senator Joe Manchin said on State of the Union. CNN.

In some states, more than a quarter of renters are defaulting on their rent, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities research.

the Southern States They are among the most affected. Nationwide, about 16% of American households owe rent, twice the amount they owed before the pandemic.

The protections expired at midnight Saturday, two days after the White House said it could not legally renew the suspension.

Republicans opposed Democrats’ efforts to extend the freeze until mid-October, and the House suspended their summer recess Friday without renewing it.

And Democrat Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez blamed the administration of President Joe Biden for waiting until the last minute to demand action from Congress.

He added that it was unfair to kick people out when billions of dollars in aid were not used (Congress approved a total of $46 billion) and called for an immediate vote to extend the freeze.

“We cannot drive people out of their homes when our agreement is not implemented,” he said. CNN.

Unlike other pandemic-related aid distributed from Washington, in this case, states, counties, and cities were responsible for creating programs to distribute aid to renters.

The halt to evictions and other protections has prevented 2.2 million eviction requests from being completed since March 2020, said Peter Hepburn, a researcher at Princeton University’s Evacuation Lab.