Yes, it really is going to get THAT bad; Eviction moratorium ending

The federal eviction moratorium ends tomorrow and Congress has gone home for the next six weeks. The disaster that is about to strike the working class is going to shake American society to its core, and no one seems to care.
The numbers are mind-bogglingly large.

Roughly 12.7 million renters told the census in late June and early July that they had no or slight confidence in being able to make next month’s rent payment.

This pain won’t be felt equally across the US. States with weak renter protections, such as Florida, are bracing for an “avalanche” of evictions while the federal moratorium’s expiration won’t be noticed in states with stronger protections, such as Washington.
...Florida eviction cases move quickly and fighting them is hard. Just to get a court hearing, tenants have to pay the full back rent owed within five days of the eviction filing.

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There is a tendency to think "Well, those numbers can't be real. We can't be really looking at millions of people being evicted all at once." The reality is that the eviction notices have in some cases already been filed.

Even with the moratorium in place, property owners across the country have filed almost half a million eviction petitions.

So if there's 500,000 evictions in place during the moratorium, you can bet that number will jump maybe 10 times over, or more, with no moratorium.
Believe it or not, it's actually worse than that.

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A few months after COVID-19 hit, as the Digging Deeper team first told you, the city started using federal CARES Act money to temporarily move some of the most vulnerable into hotels, and provide food, transportation, and other services.

“Our numbers went way down, and I wish it didn't take a pandemic for that to happen, because I think it's totally a real thing that can happen,” Flagg told the Digging Deeper team

But the hotel program ended last month, and with the federal eviction moratorium also set to run out at the end of this ​month, Flagg said he fears the impact on the most vulnerable in our community.

Tucson wasn't the only city that housed the homeless because of COVID, and thus thousands of people will be pushed back onto the streets in the coming weeks, and these people aren't even counted in the eviction numbers.
Speaking of COVID, the gaps in the federal eviction moratorium cost the lives of 10,7000 people.

I know what you are thinking. There's no way that this country will allow 10 million people to suddenly become homeless. That would be insane, right? Something will happen to stop this disaster from striking.
To put this into perspective, the last nationwide survey of the homeless counted around 600,000. So imagine the horrible homeless problem in this country getting 5-to-10 times worse almost overnight. Hard to imagine, right?

Well, consider what major cities around the country have done in just the past few months.

LA City Council Approves Sweeping Ordinance to Restrict Homeless Encampments
Denver’s urban camping ban will get national spotlight
Bill would establish homeless camping areas, make it illegal for people to sleep on the street in Arizona
Austinites Ban Public Homeless Camps
'War on the poor': Las Vegas's homelessness crackdown takes effect
Santa Ana relies too heavily on bans and criminalization
Portland will begin removing 10 to 15 homeless camps weekly
Citing people for helping the homeless on Charlotte’s streets is just plain wrong

To be fair, the Nationwide War On The Poor And Homeless didn't just start this summer. It's been bad for at least a decade, if not much longer.
But at the same time, do you think that it's just a coincidence that so many communities are gearing up to go full-on fascist against the homeless just as the eviction moratorium is expiring?
I certainly don't.

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joe shikspack's picture

popping up all over the place.

i encourage people to use that terminology. perhaps it can do for biden what it did for his role model, hoover.

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@joe shikspack

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8 users have voted.

I have never done an eviction for some apartment. I have done the ones where some relative or pal renter stops paying for the cabin or mobile home, and rips the copper from the a/c to take the copper wire to the scrapper. Maybe their income of drug dealing or prostitution doesn't pay the bills.
I have 2 of those scheduled for trial right now.
I am appalled at the homeless problem on our horizon. ALL apartments EVERYWHERE do checks, and will deny anyone wanting to rent the right to do so because of credit score or a history of eviction.
We can't depend on government to help.
We must do something for these innocent families.

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18 users have voted.

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

@on the cusp

ALL apartments EVERYWHERE do checks, and will deny anyone wanting to rent the right to do so because of credit score or a history of eviction.

These people are going to be screwed.

Empty homes with homeless families.
Farmers plowing crops under while people go hungry.
Businesses hiring guards to keep hungry homeless people from eating food out of their dumpster
Amazon throwing away tonnes of perfectly good products

And that's just off the top of my head.

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@gjohnsit My Dad was a hobo by eight grade during the Great Depression.
Mom was from a well-to-do family.
I see where this is headed, and Dad taught me how to deal with it.
It will be horrible, and more deadly this time, with guns everywhere, and climate change.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

@on the cusp
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The Liberal Moonbat's picture

@gjohnsit

Empty homes with homeless families.
Farmers plowing crops under while people go hungry.

This is EXACTLY what people saw during the Great Depression - and what Keynesianism was able to solve.

Americans want the New Deal and Postwar Consensus reinstated; it's that simple. They don't want NewTruth, they don't want fringe ideologies, they don't want Balkanization, they want what WORKED. We were on the right track - but we were BETRAYED at the highest levels.

Here's hoping this is where the lies, security-theatre, distractivism, Newspeak, and FUD finally show what they're really made of - NOTHING.

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6 users have voted.

In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

Raggedy Ann's picture

of what is to come. I also think the 1% are clueless as to how this is going to shake out. If they thought soup lines in the 30's were awful, they don't know the definition of awful. It is not only awful, it is shameful that our society is about to allow this to happen. But, perhaps this is what it will take for our fellow Americans to finally wake up and decide whether this inaction is acceptable behaviour from our government or not.

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"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

@Raggedy Ann @Raggedy Ann will not be appalled, nor will they care.
It is the 99%ers who must pull together against them.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

@on the cusp
The 1% may not even notice.
They fly private jets and live in gated communities.
I've heard it called "Richistan".

Now us, we're going to notice.

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@gjohnsit @gjohnsit the little people pay for. Forever, so it seems.
hope you are thriving, chico gj and chica, RA!

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

The Liberal Moonbat's picture

@gjohnsit I don't see what the obstacle is; gated communities are meant to keep out "riff-raff", but we're talking about the disenfranchisement of the competent, the educated, and the talented now.

Ever played Dungeons & Dragons?

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5 users have voted.

In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

janis b's picture

@on the cusp

It only matters that the 1% are clueless if we don’t unite to overcome their mindlessness. There are many more of us, and we're from diverse backgrounds who do have the power to make a difference if we don't surrender to the inane.

Keep up the battle OtC, and all.

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Azazello's picture

@humphrey
Vacations take priority, sez Kyrsten Sinema.

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We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.

Azazello's picture

I hadn't seen that. Steve Kozachik is my councilperson. A new encampment has just appeared in my neighborhood, on the lot of a closed and abandoned 7-11. On the east side of the building, of course, shelter from the afternoon sun being a life and death matter in the desert.

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We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.

the straw that breaks the camels back? What will it take?

The only thing I see that could be good coming of this is it draws clear lines of how "our" government deals with 99% of it's people. With all it's resources all it can muster for every self created crisis is a limited number of band aids, and when they're gone, too bad. It's all they can afford. Both political wings of team capitalism agree.

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@Snode That's possible.

More likely, is a long slow death of people as we are wiped off the playing field.

Musical chairs.

Some by fire. Some by flood. Some by disease. Some by eviction. Hunger. Chaos in the streets.

No cavalry is coming.

The 1% have contingency plans for saving themselves from caring about any disruption.

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NYCVG

gulfgal98's picture

@NYCVG This comment brought tears to my eyes because I believe you have hit the nail squarely on the head. The United States government is a death machine overseas and now has become a death machine here at home.

I am beginning to think this is all on purpose as the oligarchs would like nothing more than world depopulation. The COVID pandemic has offered an opportunity for our government to show exactly where its priorities lie. And the United States government is failing its citizenry miserably. Hint: the well being of the people of the United States is no more a priority than the lives of millions of people that the US killing machine has destroyed overseas.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

@gulfgal98 strenuously promote The Great Re-set. And they are the same ones promoting vaccines. I agree what is going on in the world is a depopulation event.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

CB's picture

@NYCVG
Getting rid of the "useless eaters". /S

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wendy davis's picture

but wait, it's even worse: Democrats let US eviction moratorium expire, pushing millions of families to the brink, Trévon Austin, wsws.org
11 hours ago


WTF?

Congress has allocated nearly $47 billionon in federal Emergency Rental Assistance funds through the CARES Act, but only a minute fraction has been distributed to renters in need. According to state and federal data from June, only about $3 billion of the first $25 billion in relief has been distributed by states and localities. Some states like New York have distributed almost nothing, while several have only approved a few million dollars.

For example, only $158 million has reached renters in California, while residents applied for over $1 billion in rental aid. South Carolina is faring far worse: under $1 million has been disbursed, out of $39 million requested, accounting for less than one percent of funds being spent. By mid-July, the state’s emergency rental assistance program had only processed 226 applications for rental assistance. Meanwhile, 29 percent of renters in South Carolina reported being behind on rent, the highest percentage in the country.

Cui bono?

this superb song from los lobos has been playing in my head for days now.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVbUD7kO4Ho]

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@wendy davis I saw a headline in passing that only 5% of rent relief monies have been distributed. So I googled "only 5% of rent relief money distributed". The results were indeed appalling. State after state were not distributing the monies as you have documented. The federal monies have been approved but cities and states are failing to distribute. Or is the hold up the federal government and corporate interests that control it?

I too would like to know cui bono. Or have we as a nation have so dismantled government that it cannot do even basic functions? Are we as a nation that incompetent?

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@MrWebster are who benefits. Your question Cui bono? is the right one to ask whenever anything perplexing happens at the governmental level.

States Governors pocket, or in their language, "re-purpose" the money and/or hide it.

As I detailed a few days ago, the Gateway Tunnel between NY and NJ is a joint state transportation enhancement where the Fed awarded huge dollars to both states years ago.

Gov. Chris Christie used his Fed $$$$$$ to rebuild a commuter rail station in NJ nowhere near the Tunnel.

Gov. Cuomo? as far as we know the money is gone.

No Gateway Tunnel has been built and now that ersatz project will be getting more money in the new infrastructure bill.

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9 users have voted.

NYCVG

snoopydawg's picture

@MrWebster

Blackstone and other hedge funds that congress gave lots of money to so they can buy up foreclosed homes for pennies on the dollar and rent them out at obscene prices. If no one can afford to rent from them! They can live on the streets. It’s apparently this simple.

The titanic has hit the iceberg and the first class has been rescued after deliberately making sure that it would while the lower classes have been locked below decks. China has done all it can to make sure that its people are not living in poverty while ours is doing everything it can to put more people into it and then has the gaul to lecture China about human rights abuses.

I can’t tell you how many shitlibs have no problem with democrats doing nothing. Well except to scold anyone who dares criticize them. Pelosi made sure that republicans could block any help. "I tried, but republicans wouldn’t let us." Gee it’s a damn good thing that Trump is gone huh? Democrats knew their base would give them cover. But just one try and off they go without a care in the world. No words.

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10 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

@wendy davis @wendy davis I have been detailing how this is unfolding in NYC. Cuomo has held on to $3.2 Federal Dollars for Rental Assistance.

The clock is ticking and the money needs to be disbursed or "re-purposed" or sent back to the Fed.

Cuomo has been taking heat and now claims he has a new plan. Nobody believes him. This is his usual modus operandi. That's how come 9 of his associates are currently in prison after they took the fall for King Cuomo.

Needy renters are unlikely to see much of that 3.2 Billion dollars.

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10 users have voted.

NYCVG

wendy davis's picture

@NYCVG
aren't federal funds for medicaid for kids and SNAP also refused or repurposed?

sorry, i'm so pooped i can barely see.

yes, where are the tumbrils? cnbc hadn't mentioned that under 'what you can do', iirc.

good night, all. great conversation.

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wendy davis's picture

popular resistance newsletter with this:

National Eviction Ban Ends July 31 – What To Do If You’re At Risk By Annie Nova, CNBC.
July 28, 2021

luckily they've reprinted it, as i suspect cnbc is always behind a paywall.

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8 users have voted.

I have noticed in the Facebook Buy Sell Groups that there have been quite a few people selling the entire contents of their house. Saying that they can't take things with them. I think what they are saying is that they are moving in with someone and trying to get as much money as possible before eviction. And I'm in the Florida panhandle.

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15 users have voted.

will live their youth being hungry, frightened, and scorned. That will be the formation of their adulthood perspectives.
We are a failed state.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

@on the cusp

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NYCVG

snoopydawg's picture

Nuff said.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

snoopydawg's picture

This is pretty much all Twitter is talking about today. But Cory spent the night on the capital steps so it’s all good. I’m not impressed.

Bad

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.