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White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the eviction
moratoriums issued by the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) had saved lives by preventing the spread of the
COVID-19 virus throughout the pandemic.
The court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, granted a
request by the challengers to lift the CDC moratorium that was
to have run until Oct. 3.
"The Biden Administration is disappointed that the Supreme Court
has blocked the most recent CDC eviction moratorium while
confirmed cases of the Delta variant are significant across the
country," she said, warning the decision would harm families and
put communities at greater risk of exposure to COVID-19.
Given the ruling, President Joe Biden was "once again calling on
all entities that can prevent evictions - from cities and states
to local courts, landlords, Cabinet agencies - to urgently act
to prevent evictions," Psaki said.
The White House on Wednesday announced new steps to help renters
and landlords hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, including moves
by the Treasury Department to reduce documentation requirements
to get emergency rental assistance flowing to hundreds of
thousands of applicants stuck in administrative processing
bottlenecks.
Treasury also warned state and local governments that have
failed to provide relief payments to at-risk renters and
landlords that they could lose funding to jurisdictions that
were doing better a better job disbursing those funds.
The White House said the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the
Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department
of Veterans Affairs would also increase support for at-risk
tenant and landlords to stave off evictions.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Jacqueline Wong and
Michael Perry)
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