Judge Dabney L. Friedrich of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has no legal authority to halt evictions during a pandemic.
“The court recognized that the COVID-19 pandemic is a serious public health crisis that has presented unprecedented challenges for public health officials and the nation as a whole,” Fredrich wrote in a 20-page ruling on Wednesday. “The question for the Court is a narrow one: Does the Public Health Service Act grant the CDC the legal authority to impose a nationwide eviction moratorium? It does not.”
MORE: Mayor Davis Seeks Support For Landlords During Eviction Moratorium
The Department of Justice has already filed a notice to appeal the ruling according to a written statement by Brian Boynton, acting assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s Civil Division.
“Scientific evidence shows that evictions exacerbate the spread of COVID-19, which has already killed more than half a million Americans, and the harm to the public that would result from unchecked evictions cannot be undone,” Boynton said.
The federal mandate contained in the CARES Act only put a moratorium on properties whose financing was federally-backed. Landlords whose properties were financed with non-federal funds were not subject to the moratorium. The CARES Act moratorium provision didn’t relieve tenants from paying rent, it merely delayed the landlords ability to file for eviction.
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Bob Pinnegar, president & CEO of the National Apartment Association, published a written statement on the ruling which stated, “Eviction moratoriums are dangerous, detrimental policy that harm housing affordability, housing providers and our residents. The government must end enforcement of the CDC order and begin communications now to stakeholders, including judges, to prepare them for its ending.”
Evictions in both Columbia and Richmond Counties continued to be filed throughout the pandemic in 2020. Data from the Columbia County Magistrate Court indicated that 642 evictions were filed in 2020 as opposed to 1,222 in 2019. Only 190 have been filed in Columbia County in 2021 so far.
Richmond County Magistrate Court would not provide the data without an Open Records Request being formally filed.
Joe Edge is the Publisher for The Augusta Press. Reach him at joe.edge@theaugustapress.com.
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