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According to the Princeton University Eviction Lab, 318,091 households have faced eviction proceedings during the pandemic in the 27 cities the research project tracks, including Phoenix, Milwaukee and Dallas, Reuters reported. Many more remain vulnerable to eviction and possible homelessness: By May, an estimated 7 million renters across the country will owe $40 billion in back rent, utilities and fees, Moody’s Analytics estimates. Before the pandemic, about 900,000 households were evicted each year. Most renters live in apartments or houses owned by small-scale “mom-and-pop” landlords, who often rely heavily on their rental income. But based on a review of hundreds of court filings across the country, as well as interviews with tenants, their lawyers and housing advocates, it’s the big, deep-pocketed corporate landlords with property portfolios spanning multiple states that have been the most aggressive in filing eviction cases, even as they have thrived in the pandemic. Since the pandemic began, large corporate landlords have filed nearly 70,000 eviction cases in just 27 counties in seven states analyzed by the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, a Chicago-based nonprofit that studies the impact of private equity investments on the public. Many of the big landlords, especially those focused on single-family homes, have benefited as higher-income families have fled to the suburbs for perceived safety and more space during the pandemic. Invitation Homes had its best year ever in 2020, with profits climbing to a record $200 million as occupancy rates neared 100%. Its share price has nearly doubled since March 2020. Invitation Homes ranked fifth among companies seeking evictions in the seven states examined by the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, with 710 cases since the CDC moratorium took effect Sept. 4. Ahead of it were S2 Capital, a Dallas, Texas, investment firm, with 1,160 eviction suits; Ventron Management, with 1,134 cases against tenants in Georgia and Florida and which received $2.6 million under the federal Paycheck Protection Program; private equity firm Pretium Partners, which operates Progress Residential and Front Yard Residential, with 1,074 eviction suits; and Western Wealth Capital, with 1,018.

It’s not just urban dwellers who have faced difficulties paying the rent during the past year as the pandemic upended the economy. Renters in rural New England have faced many of the same affordability challenges, according to a report released yesterday by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston’s New England Public Policy Center, the Associated Press reported. While the pandemic may not be having as large a health impact on New England’s rural areas as it’s had on its cities, it’s having a similar economic impact due to businesses closures and restrictions on economic activity aimed at limiting the spread of the virus. The share of jobs lost in rural New England communities has been large, even though these areas have seen fewer cases of COVID-19 relative to their population size compared with the region’s urban areas, the report found. That’s in contrast with the experience in much of the rest of the country, where rural areas nationally had seen more COVID-19 cases relative to their population size but had lost a smaller share of jobs.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) introduced legislation on Wednesday to make college tuition free for many Americans, which would be paid for by a tax on Wall Street, The Hill reported. The bill would make community college tuition-free for everyone and four-year public colleges tuition-free and debt-free for students from families making up to $125,000 per year. The bill would also allow students from families who make up to $125,000 per year to attend private, non-profit minority-serving institutions tuition-free including Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Hispanic-Serving Institutions, Tribal Colleges and Universities, Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions. And it would double the maximum Pell Grant to $12,990, which could be used for living and non-tuition expenses, and would expand eligibility to "Dreamers," immigrants brought into the country illegally as children. The bill would be paid for by a tax on some Wall Street trades. Sanders said he would separately re-introduce a bill, known as the Tax on Wall Street Speculation Act, on Wednesday. It would put a 0.5 percent tax on stock trades, a 0.1 percent tax on bonds and a 0.005 tax on derivatives.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued a rule yesterday enabling renters to sue debt collectors who fail to disclose the rights of tenants established in a recent federal eviction moratorium, the National Mortgage News reported. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced the freeze on evictions due to the coronavirus pandemic last year. It prevents evictions in cases where tenants filed a written declaration of their inability to pay. A tenant who has not filed such a declaration can still be evicted. The moratorium ends June 30. The CFPB's interim rule requires debt collectors seeking to evict tenants to provide written notice of their rights under the CDC moratorium. The rule also prohibits debt collectors from misrepresenting tenants’ eligibility for protection from eviction. “No one should be evicted from their home without understanding their rights, and we will hold accountable those debt collectors who move forward with illegal evictions,” said acting CFPB director Dave Uejio in a press release. “We encourage debt collectors to work with tenants and landlords to find solutions that work for everyone.” The CFPB rule clarifies that debt collectors who fail to provide tenants written notice of their rights under the CDC moratorium are in violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. The rule, which will be effective May 3, applies to third-party debt collectors and attorneys acting on behalf of landlords.

Up to now, President Joe Biden has resisted calls from the left of his party to cancel up to $50,000 of student loans for most borrowers. But the pressure from leading progressives such as Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, and more recently from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, isn’t letting up, according to a Bloomberg News editorial. The president might be tempted to waver. He shouldn’t, according to the editorial. Debt forgiveness on that scale would be very expensive, even by current standards of fiscal liberality. More important, the cost can’t be justified. This kind of relief would mainly help people who don’t need it, and there are better ways of assisting those who do. By one estimate, the cost of Warren-style debt forgiveness would be roughly $1 trillion — on top of the $5 trillion Congress already provided for pandemic relief and the further $2 trillion and more that Biden wants to spend on “infrastructure” (which he’s defined to encompass almost any kind of public outlay). 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.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is scrutinizing mortgage servicers' compliance with pandemic relief programs amid concerns struggling homeowners are not getting the help they need to avoid foreclosures, or are being discriminated against, Reuters reported. The CFPB crackdown by its policy, supervision and enforcement divisions could result in stiff penalties for those mortgage servicers found to have hurt borrowers, the regulatory officials, lawyers and industry executives said. In recent weeks, the agency has sent data requests to mortgage servicers, usually a company or a bank that processes mortgage repayments. It is seeking data on how they are handling mortgage holiday or "forbearance" programs and whether the temporary debt relief is likely to get borrowers back on their feet, said three people with direct knowledge of the matter, some of whom asked to remain anonymous because aspects of the discussions are private. The agency has also opened probes into a handful of mortgage servicers over their handling of forbearance requests.

President Biden is coming under fire from housing advocates who say his administration is turning a blind eye as landlords seek to boot tens of thousands of cash-strapped renters from their homes despite a nationwide eviction freeze, The Hill reported. Tenant rights groups say the Department of Justice (DOJ) has yet to file a single criminal charge for violations of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) eviction moratorium, which carries penalties of up to $200,000 and a year in jail. “I think it would be helpful if they prosecuted landlords who are violating the law,” said Isaac Sturgill, an attorney at Legal Aid of North Carolina. “From my knowledge, DOJ hasn’t been enforcing the order. It does make it look more like a paper tiger.” Enacted in September as a public health measure, the CDC order aims to mitigate the spread of coronavirus by helping financially distressed tenants remain in their homes, instead of forcing them into homeless shelters or other crowded living spaces. Since then, however, the federal eviction protections have steadily eroded. A catchphrase has even emerged among some tenants’ advocates to sum up the current beleaguered state of the CDC moratorium: “It’s better than nothing.” “It’s getting weaker as time goes on,” Sturgill said. “People are figuring out more and more ways around it, and landlords are getting more and more emboldened to ignore it.” Housing advocates say three developments have primarily undercut the protections: Trump-era guidance that put a thumb on the scale for landlords, a slew of lawsuits against the moratorium and efforts by pro-landlord attorneys to exploit legal loopholes.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) took action yesterday against an online debt-settlement company for taking advantage of consumers, failing to disclose its relationship to certain creditors, and steering consumers into high-cost loans offered by affiliated lenders, according to a CFPB press release. The CFPB filed a complaint in federal district court alleging that SettleIt, Inc. engaged in abusive acts or practices under the Consumer Financial Protection Act of 2010 (CFPA) and violated the Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR). The Bureau and SettleIt filed a proposed order that, if entered by the court, would require SettleIt to return at least $646,000 in fees to consumers, pay a $750,000 civil penalty, and stop settling debts for creditors with which it shares an ownership interest.