Biden, before leaving for the weekend to Camp David, calls on states to help stop evictions
President Biden called on state and local governments to accelerate rental assistance to prevent a potential wave of evictions beginning Saturday.
“As the eviction moratorium deadline approaches tomorrow, I call on all state and local governments to take all possible steps to disburse these funds immediately,” Biden said in a statement Friday afternoon, just before heading to Camp David for the weekend. “There can be no excuse for any state or locality not to accelerate funding for homeowners and renters who have been injured during this pandemic.”
The federal ban on some evictions will expire on Saturday. The president said state and local governments began receiving billions of dollars in emergency rental assistance from Washington in February.
“All state and local governments should pull these funds out to ensure that we prevent as many evictions that we can,” Biden said. “My administration will not rest, nor will state and local governments, until Emergency Rental Assistance dollars reach Americans in need.”
He also offered advice that “state and local governments should also be aware that there is no legal barrier to the moratorium at the state and local level.”
The president’s statement came shortly before he was scheduled to leave the White House on Marine One for a weekend at Camp David, the isolated presidential retreat in the mountains of western Maryland.
A House panel met Friday morning to try to pass an extension to the eviction moratorium, but Democrats said privately they did not have the votes to pass it. Lawmakers were leaving for their annual August one-month recess.
The Supreme Court said in June that it would overturn another extension unless Congress approves it.
• Mica Soellner contributed to this report.
