Hari Sreenivasan:
The federal ban on evictions is set to expire tonight. A last-minute effort by House Democrats to extend the moratorium failed late yesterday. Missouri Democratic representative Cori Bush, who previously struggled with homelessness, spent the night on the capitol steps in a push for the senate to extend the ban.
The moratorium was put in place to prevent the spread of COVID-19 with nearly $47 billion allocated for landlords and renters. So far, about $3 billion of that has been spent.
The U.S. Supreme court ruled that the moratorium could not be extended without new legislation from Congress.
A Census Bureau pulse survey found that as of July 5th, roughly 3.6 million people are at risk of eviction in the next two months. For more on the impact of lifting the moratorium, I spoke with Emily Benfer, visiting professor of law and public health at wake forest university
Miss Benfer, we have seen some form of this before. I covered Hurricane Katrina, there were moratoriums on evictions after that, but this is unprecedented, the length of time and the amount of people that are affected.