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The Supreme Court voted 5 to 4 on Tuesday night to leave in place the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s ban on evictions, imposed to combat the coronavirus pandemic and prevent homelessness, the Washington Post reported. The ban has just been extended another month, until the end of July, and the Biden administration said it will end then. A group of landlords, real estate companies and real estate trade associations in Alabama and Georgia convinced U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich in the spring that the CDC lacked authority to impose the moratorium. But Friedrich stayed her order to allow appeals to continue. A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit kept it in place, saying it believed the government was likely to prevail. At the Supreme Court, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. joined fellow conservative Brett M. Kavanaugh and liberal Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan to keep the stay in place. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. Neil M. Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett said they would have lifted the stay, which would have struck down the moratorium. Neither side explained its reasoning in the short emergency order. But Justice Kavanaugh wrote separately to say that while he agreed the CDC had exceeded its authority, this was not the time to scuttle the ban on evictions. “Because the CDC plans to end the moratorium in only a few weeks, on July 31, and because those few weeks will allow for additional and more orderly distribution of the congressionally appropriated rental assistance funds,” the stay should remain in place, Justice Kavanaugh said.

Millions have found themselves facing possible eviction despite bold promises by governors to help renters after Congress passed the sweeping CARES Act in March 2020, the Associated Press reported. Nationwide, state leaders set aside at least $2.6 billion from the CARES Act’s Coronavirus Relief Fund to prop up struggling renters, but a year later more than $425 million of that — or 16% — hadn’t made it into the pockets of tenants or their landlords, according to an investigation by the Center for Public Integrity and The Associated Press. Like many state leaders, North Carolina’s Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper pledged to roll out an ambitious program last year offering tens of millions of dollars in federal aid that would help cover unpaid rent. But it took months to get up and running and stopped accepting applications just weeks after it finally opened in October due to overwhelming demand. The 20 nonprofits designated to distribute the money often lacked the capacity to get it out quickly. Then, faced with the Republican-controlled Legislature’s takeover of CARES Act spending in January, the state had less money to award applicants. It eventually spent $133 million of a promised $167 million — far short of what some housing advocates say is needed. “We knew the money would not be enough. There were too many people who needed rental assistance,” said Pamela Atwood, director of housing policy at the North Carolina Housing Coalition. “There was a lot of poor execution in rolling out that first program and it caused a lot of inefficiency.” Tens of billions of dollars more in rental assistance have been delivered to states from the federal government in 2021, but that has been slow to be disbursed, too.

The Treasury Department said yesterday that more than half of the money disbursed in the third round of stimulus payments has gone to households with income of under $50,000, The Hill reported. About 52 percent of the funds sent out through June 3 went to households reporting adjusted gross income of under $50,000 on their 2019 or 2020 tax returns. An additional 10 percent of the stimulus payment amounts went to households that did not file tax returns in either of those two years, a group that typically has very low incomes, according to IRS data. About 85 percent of the payment amounts went to households reporting income of under $100,000 or nonfiler households, the IRS data showed.

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy (D) signed a record $46.4 billion budget with a biggest-ever pension payment, marking the first time in more than a quarter-century that the state will make the required minimum contribution to its underfunded retirement system, Bloomberg News reported. The spending plan for the fiscal year that starts on July 1 is 24% higher the first one he signed in 2018. It uses an influx of tax revenue to cover free in-state public college tuition for low-income students, rebates for families with at least one child, $750 million in rental and utility assistance and other initiatives that will appeal to low- and middle-income voters in the November election for governor and all 120 legislative seats. New Jersey’s record-high $6.9 billion pension payment, $500 million more than recommended in actuarial reports, is a noteworthy step for a state whose credit rating is second-worst among U.S. state governments, behind Illinois, because of its massive debt to the retirement system. New Jersey hasn’t made a full payment since 1996.

Americans are cutting back on their credit card usage for the first time in three months but are making up for it with an increase in auto credit usage, according to the latest report from the Federal Reserve, FoxBusiness.com reported. n April, consumer credit increased at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.3%, or by $18.6 billion, the report showed. Revolving credit such as credit cards decreased at an annual rate of 2.4%, while nonrevolving credit like auto loans, personal loans or student loans increased at an annual rate of 7.6%. Mortgage loans are not included in the Fed’s report. The report showed that as of the first quarter of 2021, there is $1.24 trillion in outstanding auto credit, compared to $1.22 trillion in the fourth quarter and $1.18 trillion in the first quarter of 2020. The biggest factor contributing to the current auto market conditions is the limited supply of used cars. According to data from vAuto, there are approximately 2.34 million used cars available in America today. That's more than 530,000 less than a year ago, and about 430,000 less than during the same period in a more normal 2019.

The Biden administration is rushing to avoid millions of evictions during a brutally hot summer with a push to get billions of dollars in rental assistance out to tenants and landlords, The Hill reported. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) last week issued what will likely be the final extension of its eviction moratorium, essentially lighting the fuse on a potential eviction time bomb. “It really raises the stakes for all of us,” said Gene Sperling, the White House COVID-19 aid czar, on a Monday webinar hosted by the National Low Income Housing Coalition. Democratic lawmakers and housing advocates who fiercely supported the CDC’s earlier eviction bans have been silent on calling for a longer extension but have voiced concerns about several obstacles hindering the White House’s rental aid efforts. “This is the right thing to do to prevent increases in homelessness as Congress and the administration work together to ensure pandemic housing relief provided by Congress,” said Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee. “Extending the moratoria until local communities can distribute this relief will be the difference between millions of families losing or remaining in their homes.” The Treasury Department has already disbursed the entirety of roughly $46 billion in rental aid approved through several COVID-19 relief laws intended to keep renters current with landlords they have been unable to pay during the pandemic. Even so, it’s unclear how much of that aid has actually made it to either landlords or tenants with just over a month before the ban expires.

Millions of homeowners who are behind on their mortgage payments would get added protections from foreclosure through the end of 2021 under a set of rules completed yesterday by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the Wall Street Journal reported. Under the rules, mortgage lenders generally can’t foreclose on a home without first contacting homeowners to see if they qualify for a lower interest rate or some other loan change that makes it easier to repay. “We want servicers and homeowners to be actively engaged in loss-mitigation throughout the summer and the fall so that we can get as many people as possible to a good outcome,” Diane Thompson, a senior adviser to the agency’s acting director, said on a call with reporters. If a modification isn’t possible or a homeowner doesn’t respond—or the property is unoccupied—the foreclosure can proceed after the rules go into effect on Aug. 31. The purpose of the rules, agency officials said, is to ensure that mortgage companies thoroughly process the large number of borrowers expected to exit from temporary pandemic-relief programs that have allowed homeowners to postpone monthly payments until the fall. CFPB officials say they want to prevent any avoidable foreclosures. An existing foreclosure moratorium for borrowers with mortgages backed by the federal government currently expires July 31. A preliminary version of the rules could have effectively forbidden any foreclosures until 2022. Agency officials said that proposal might have given some mortgage services a disincentive to help borrowers this year.

Relief programs created during the COVID-19 pandemic provided many Americans with pauses on their largest debts, particularly mortgages and student loans. Other people came to agreements with auto loan and credit card lenders about payment. This relief helped many people survive, freeing up money to pay for necessities. But forbearance does not equal forgiveness, according to a commentary in The Hill written by Profs. Pamela Foohey of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Dalié Jiménez of the University of California, Irvine School of Law and Christopher K. Odinet of the University of Iowa College of Law. People will have to face the debt obligations that come with mortgages, auto loans, credit cards and student loans. Yet in the interim, people have faced persistent unemployment and depleted what little savings they may have had. Many will likely be unable to resume all of their regular debt payments. And people who did not need forbearance during the pandemic may find themselves in danger of defaulting on their debts, according to the commentary. The pandemic disproportionately harmed communities of color, particularly Black women. Given these households’ pre-existing wealth disparities, Black Americans and other minorities are likely to bear the brunt of the economic fallout of the pandemic, according to the commentary. Part of this fallout will be a need to ask their lenders for loan modifications. The professors are calling on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to use its authority to prevent what we term modification failures. This is when a borrower’s ability to repay is intentionally, negligently, or merely inattentively not taken into account during loan modification discussions. The CFPB has the authority to identify abusive acts or practices by a wide-range of financial institutions, including issuers and servicers of certain auto loans, credit cards and other installment or revolving loans. It can issue a compliance and enforcement bulletin directing loan servicers to make a reasonable determination that a borrower has the ability to make all required, scheduled payments in connection with any modification. Read more.

*The views expressed in this commentary are from the author/publication cited, are meant for informative purposes only, and are not an official position of ABI.