On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court overwhelmingly ruled against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) most recent extension of the national eviction moratorium passed on August 3. This ruling will leave potentially millions of working class renters without any protections against eviction, particularly in southern states without statewide moratoriums, where the delta variant is still surging.
Despite the potentially catastrophic nature of the decision, the ruling nonetheless had the support of six of the nine Supreme Court justices, offering a stark reminder of just how conservative the court has become and how indifferent it is to the most basic needs of the working class. Only justices Sotomayor, Breyer, and Kagan dissented. The other six justices argued that the CDC had overstepped its bounds and that the provisions of the Public Health Services Act, upon which the extension was based, did not apply to “eviction moratoria, worship limits, nationwide lockdowns, school closures, or vaccine mandates.”
This decision also shows the failure of the Biden administration and both the Democratic and Republican parties to pass congressional legislation extending a national eviction moratorium. The fact that the Democratic Party holds the executive branch and both houses of Congress and yet cannot muster the votes to pass such a basic life saving measure shows where its priorities lie and who it serves.
While some states, such as New York and California, have imposed statewide moratoriums to offer some protections against eviction, renters in many southern states were protected only by the national moratorium. This means, millions of people could be forced to move in with family members, into homeless shelters, or even onto the streets. As the CDC has reported, such living conditions dramatically increase the risk of new infections, especially with the much more contagious delta variant. In fact, of the three states with the most renters behind on payments, Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina, not one has a statewide eviction ban. As Forbes reported: “Mississippi led the nation, with 29% of renters (157,000) apparently behind on payments, closely followed by South Carolina at 28% (265,000) and Georgia at 24% (563,000).”
That’s almost one million households that could face eviction if this moratorium is not extended again. Further, most of those who rent and the vast majority of those behind on their rent are often poor working class people of color, who are already faced with circumstances where the risk of infection is highest. For instance, Black renter households, as the Joint Center for Housing studies has shown, “are the most likely to be behind on rent and face eviction,” with Hispanic households facing very similar rates of “likely eviction in the next two months.”
Such a scenario would be terrible for those evicted, but it could also set off another wave of delta variant infections across the country with catastrophic consequences, especially since many of these states also have comparatively low vaccination rates and limited or no mask mandates for schools or public spaces.
And we know that eviction moratoriums work. According to the Legal Aid Society, eviction moratoriums in New York City alone saved the lives of more than 10,000 people during the first Covid wave. And in January, the National Bureau of Economic Research reported that if federal policies to limit evictions had been introduced sooner, we “could have reduced COVID-19 infections by 14.2% and deaths by 40.7%.” That’s more than 250,000 people.
Such numbers, unfathomable just 16 months ago, show where the priorities of the system lie. It’s clear that for the U.S. ruling class, 250,000 deaths is nothing compared to billions of dollars in revenue that landlords earn each year and the ongoing disciplining of working people who are forced to pay the mortgages of the very rich and to forever live under the threat of eviction.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court did what it was designed to do. It upheld the right for the bourgeoisie to be free of restrictions to exploit and accumulate wealth, while simultaneously denying the right to the basic necessities of life for millions of working class families. This is not only reprehensible; it is, by any standards, criminal. To resist such institutions and to end such exploitation must be the final goal of all the concentrated activity of the working class.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.