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An Atlanta-based federal appeals court yesterday dealt another blow to landlords seeking to end a nationwide eviction freeze put in place amid the pandemic, The Hill reported. The ruling by a divided three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals leaves intact the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) eviction moratorium, which is set to run through July. The move comes after the Supreme Court last month voted 5-4 to reject an emergency request from a separate group of landlords who also sought to have the eviction ban lifted, arguing it amounts to unlawful government overreach at a cost of some $13 billion each month to property owners. The eviction pause has faced numerous legal challenges, leading to a patchwork of legal interpretations nationwide on the moratorium's lawfulness. A federal judge in Washington, D.C., held in May that the moratorium was an invalid exercise of the CDC's authority. But the judge, U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, a Trump appointee, delayed enforcement of her ruling, citing the risk to public health if evictions were allowed to proceed. Four of the Supreme Court’s more conservative justices indicated last month that they would have allowed Friedrich's ruling to take immediate effect while the Biden administration appeals. The 11th Circuit case arose when a group of landlords seeking to evict tenants for nonpayment of rent and a rental trade association sued in September. A district court judge rejected their request for a preliminary injunction, prompting their appeal to the 11th Circuit.

The federal eviction moratorium is set to expire at the end of this month, which doesn't leave much time to help an estimated 7 million tenants who are still behind on their rent, NPR.org reported. Efforts have been stepped up to distribute some $46 billion in emergency rental assistance, and to head off eviction cases before they end up in court. Shelley Miller, of the Alexandria Eviction Prevention Partnership in Northern Virginia, says it's a challenge. Her group, which includes several local nonprofits, has been working with city agencies and landlords since last year to help tenants at risk of eviction. "It's been a rough go," she says. "Nobody was prepared for this on any level, any front." Biden senior advisor Gene Sperling warned that the country is in a race with time, with emergency rental aid only trickling out. "We are asking our states and local governments to do everything they can to fill that void in a hurry," he said. "Some are ramping up admirably. Some are lagging. But we all have to do better." The Treasury Department reported last week that only $1.5 billion of an initial $25 billion in emergency aid had been spent by the end of May. More money has started to flow since, but state and local governments have taken months to get their programs up and running. Housing advocates say the next few weeks are crucial. One big challenge is getting the word out more widely that help is available. A recent Urban Institute survey found that a majority of tenants and 40 percent of small landlords don't even know about the emergency rental assistance program, which is available through next September.

The White House, along with state and local governments, is under growing pressure to significantly ramp up the amount of emergency rental relief reaching tenants and landlords, as some economists and housing advocates say that the Biden administration’s attention to the eviction crisis is coming too late, the Washington Post reported. Weeks before an eviction moratorium put in place by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expires on July 31, much of the federal aid meant to help tenants and landlords has not reached them. Many are not even aware that the assistance is available, or they continue to struggle with onerous and complicated application rules. Some programs run by state and local governments took months to get up and running. All told, Congress has appropriated roughly $46 billion for emergency rental aid. Of the $25 billion appropriated in December, only $1.5 billion had been spent on rent, utilities and arrears between January and the end of May, according to figures released Friday by the Treasury Department. Treasury does not yet have data on how much of the other $21 billion has been spent, according to an agency official.

Monarch Alternative Capital LP is making deals for office and hospitality assets, betting that changes in where Americans live will accelerate while remote work will ebb, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Investing in distressed corporate debt in the U.S. and Europe is Monarch’s main business, but real estate for office use has taken up more of the firm’s attention — and capital — in recent months. After raising a $3 billion fund in December to invest in all types of pandemic-fueled distress, Monarch has bought six office buildings this year, compared with none in 2020. The firm has also been backing plays for hospitality, retail and senior-housing assets. “In certain asset types there is still fundamental disruption as a result of the pandemic,” said Monarch portfolio manager Adam Sklar. Last month, the firm closed on the 34-story Citigroup Center in downtown Miami, an office building in Plano, Texas, and 10 hotels bought through the bankruptcy of Eagle Hospitality Real Estate Investment Trust. Earlier this year Monarch acquired, also through bankruptcy, the Crowne Plaza Orlando Universal Boulevard in Orlando, Fla. So far, people haven’t been returning to their offices the way they’ve been resuming their lives at restaurants, hotels and stores. As of early June, an average of 31% of office workers had returned to the workspaces they occupied before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Kastle Systems, a security company that monitors access-card swipes in more than 2,500 U.S. office buildings.