Federal lawmakers have introduced a bill to allow landlords to give tenants in federal subsidized housing 3-day eviction notice, according to reports.
Landlords had been required to give 30 days’ notice to tenants in federally subsidized housing before evicting them for non-payment of rent, after COVID-19 protections had ended.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) had made the 30-day eviction rule permanent. It has served as a buffer to state laws in 20 states that allow landlords to evict tenants with three days’ notice or less, which include Missouri, New Jersey, California and Ohio.
According to the New York Times, about 3.7 million families live in public housing or in properties with federally backed mortgages and those who rely on housing vouchers.
Advocates for the elimination of the requirement say a 30-day notice places an unfair burden on landlords and property owners. They say states, not the federal government, should set eviction laws.
U.S. Senators Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) and Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) have introduced the legislation to “restore the right of states and localities to regulate eviction policies by striking a federal pandemic-era requirement that continues to roil the rental market years after the national health emergency ended,” according to a release.
The Respect State Housing Laws Act (S.470) would strike a section of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act of 2020 that continues to require landlords and property owners to issue a 30-day Notice to Vacate (NTV) before filing to evict a tenant for nonpayment of rent. Prior to the CARES Act federal mandate, NTV requirements were set on a state-to-state basis with an average eight-day notice.
“Landlords and property owners have been under significant stress since the federal government inserted itself into the realm of state and local housing regulations,” Hyde-Smith said in the release.
“We must acknowledge that precautions enacted during a long-ended national emergency were never meant to last forever, and that couldn’t be truer for the federal 30-day notice-to-vacate rule. It’s well past time to eliminate rule.”
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that more than 5 million American households use federal rental assistance.
These households are disproportionately made up of single parents and children, with no other housing options and little to no savings.
The National Housing Law Project, which provides legal assistance to affordable housing residents, says that the federal statute helped to significantly decrease evictions among this group, because it gave renters who were short on cash at the end of the month some time to figure out how to pay, and stay in their homes.
The New York Times reported that this is the second time the bill has been introduced; it was introduced last year but never advanced to a full vote on the House floor and never had a hearing in the Senate.
It’s backed by some of the most powerful landlord and developer groups in the country, including the National Apartment Association, the National Association of Home Builders and the National Multifamily Housing Council.