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More than 4 million people say they fear being evicted or foreclosed upon in the coming months, just as two studies released Wednesday found that the nation’s housing availability and affordability crisis is expected to worsen significantly following the pandemic, the Associated Press reported. The studies come as a federal eviction moratorium is set to expire at the end of the month. The moratorium has kept many tenants owing back rent housed. Making matters worse, the tens of billions of dollars in federal emergency rental assistance that was supposed to solve the problem has not reached most tenants. The housing crisis, the studies found, risks widening the gap between Black, Latino and white households, as well as putting homeownership out of the reach of lower-income Americans. The reports were released on the same day as Census Bureau’s biweekly Household Pulse Survey came out. It showed that nearly 4.2 million people nationwide report that it is likely or somewhat likely that they will be evicted or foreclosed upon in the next two months. Many of those tenants are waiting to see what becomes of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention eviction moratorium, which is set expire June 30. Housing advocates are pressuring President Joe Biden’s administration to extend it. They argue extending it would give states the time to distribute more than $45 billion in rental assistance and protect vulnerable communities from COVID-19. The rental assistance has been slow to reach tenants.

The U.S. government’s nationwide prohibition on evictions can stay in effect, a federal appeals court ruled, Bloomberg News reported. A three-judge panel in Washington, D.C., said that the eviction moratorium instituted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention can continue while the Biden administration appeals a lower-court ruling that overturned the ban last month. In that case, U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich ruled the CDC had exceeded its authority when it issued a broad moratorium on evictions across all rental properties. After the government appealed, Friedrich put a temporary stay on her order. In upholding the stay on Wednesday, the appeals court said the government had made a “strong showing that it is likely to succeed on the merits.” The moratorium, first enacted by President Donald Trump and extended by President Joe Biden, aims to prevent evictions amid a public health emergency that has seen millions of Americans lose their jobs and fall deep into debt. The Alabama Association of Realtors, which filed the suit challenging the moratorium, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

More than 11 million Americans are behind on their rent and many could be pushed from their homes when the national eviction ban expires in June, CNBC.com reported. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s eviction moratorium, which has been in effect since September, will lift on June 30. Although the policy has been far from perfect at keeping renters housed, it’s reduced the normal number of eviction filings over the same time period by at least a half, according to Peter Hepburn, an assistant professor of Sociology at Rutgers University-Newark and research fellow at The Eviction Lab. Experts say the number of evictions could skyrocket when the ban lifts. Around 15% of adult renters are not current on their housing payments, according to an analysis by The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The CDC’s eviction moratorium has faced numerous legal challenges and landlords have criticized the policy, saying they can’t afford to house people for free or shoulder the country’s massive rental arrears, which could be as high as $70 billion. Yet housing advocates say the ban is lifting at a terrible time for both property owners and tenants, with states still scrambling to distribute the $45 billion in rental assistance allocated by Congress to address the crisis. “We need to let this moratorium stay in place until we spend all this money,” said Mark Melton, a lawyer who has been representing tenants facing eviction pro bono in Dallas. “If you bail out the renter, that means you bailed out the landlord,” he said.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta today announced that the nine defendants involved in an advance-fee mortgage-relief scam in Southern California have pleaded guilty to multiple counts including theft from an elder, identity theft and grand theft, according to a press release. The scheme, which the defendants claimed would prevent the foreclosure of properties, impacted multiple victims, resulted in a loss of approximately $6 million, and affected over 200 properties; including properties with loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration, as well as loan servicers Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. The final defendant pleaded guilty today. On May 24, 2021, the lead defendant in the case was sentenced to seven years and four months in state prison after pleading guilty in Los Angeles County Superior Court to 16 felony counts. In addition to the lead defendant, four defendants have been sentenced, and four will be sentenced at a later date.

The Supreme Court may soon be asked to weigh in on the nationwide eviction freeze enacted by public health officials to keep cash-strapped renters in their homes amid the coronavirus pandemic, The Hill reported. The announcement came on Monday from a group of landlords that successfully challenged the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) eviction moratorium in federal court earlier this month. The judge who struck down that policy, however, stayed her ruling in the Washington, D.C., court while the Biden administration appeals. Now the challengers are seeking to have U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich’s stay lifted. If successful, it would have the effect of gutting the nationwide eviction freeze as landlords seek to remove tens of thousands of tenants who have been unable to pay rent due to financial hardship. In a four-page letter to Friedrich, who was appointed by former President Trump, the challengers said they intend to ask both the intermediate appeals court in Washington and the Supreme Court to overturn her stay, arguing the CDC’s improved public health outlook negates the stated reason for the eviction pause. “Although the CDC once feared that people who gather indoors after being evicted will spread COVID-19, the CDC has concluded that the threat of spreading the disease indoors is so low that vaccinated Americans do not even need to wear masks or socially distance ‘in any setting,’” wrote the the Alabama Association of Realtors and its co-challengers.