Appeals court rejects bid by landlords to resume evictions

A federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday denied a request by a group of landlords to resume evictions, leaving the temporary nationwide eviction moratorium intact for now.

The ruling from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals is the latest twist in a multifront legal challenge to the eviction freeze that was enacted by federal public health officials as a way to keep financially distressed renters in their homes and out of crowded homeless shelters during the coronavirus pandemic.

The move follows a ruling last month by U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, who struck down the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) eviction moratorium after finding the agency had overstepped its authority. But Friedrich, a Trump appointee, agreed to block her ruling from taking immediate effect to allow time for the Biden administration to appeal.

Corporate landlords filed more than 56,000 eviction actions since the eviction pause took effect last September, with almost half of those filed this year, according to a study by the Private Equity Stakeholder Project of seven states.

Those notices, which don’t always lead to evictions, are being sent even as billions in rental assistance authorized by Congress continues to make its way from Washington to tenants in need of aid.

Source: thehill.com