Renters Need Ongoing Protection While Housing Assistance is Distributed

Despite ongoing, short-term attempts from federal and state officials to fend off a huge spike in evictions, hundreds of thousands of Marylanders are still living with the threat of an impending eviction. The CDC announced earlier this month that it would extend the federal moratorium on evictions through Oct. 3 after the previous moratorium expired at the beginning of August. However, even this latest extension will not be enough to protect struggling Marylanders, or the millions of other Americans that are still facing financial challenges and will suddenly have a massive rental bill due in just a few weeks.

Even before the pandemic, housing instability was a major problem in our state. As hardworking Marylanders know firsthand, wages just haven’t kept up with skyrocketing rent and housing prices. Now almost one-third of householdsin our state spend more than 30% of their income just to cover housing costs. This makes it hard to cover the costs of other necessities like food, school supplies, and medication. Additionally, the pandemic has resulted in high rates of unemployment and substantial loss of income for many Marylanders, which has left families unable to pay for their housing costs.

Advocates and elected officials stated that the recent extension of eviction moratoriums will give states additional time to release funds allocated under the Emergency Rental Relief Program. To date, only $3 billion of the $46 billion in funds has made it to renters and landlords. Maryland received $402 million in federal funds, with $258 million going to the Department of Housing and Community Development and another $143 million going directly to eight counties. It is taking time to get this money out to the people who need it, and it is essential that the funds are targeted towards Marylanders at greatest risk for eviction.

Here in Maryland:

• 16% of renters are behind on rent payments
• 25% of renters who experience a loss or reduction in income are behind in their rental payments
• 21% of Black renters are behind in their rent compared to just 11% of White renters
• 23% of renters with children say their household is behind on rent compared to 11% of renters with no children

Being able to quarantine at home is critical to public health measures to contain the spread of the coronavirus. Maintaining housing stability and preventing increased homelessness is an important component of that — especially as the numbers of COVID cases are increasing again due to the Delta variant, which is more contagious than the initial virus outbreak.

A fair and equitable recovery requires decisive action to keep Marylanders in their homes. That means, getting the money to the families that need it the most as soon as possible before evictions protections end.