Democrats pushing for extended eviction ban

[Ferguson97]

I hope Biden extends it

[Ferguson97]

But what of the noble shoplifter, the carjacker, and the burglar? When shall we legalize their crimes too? #TheftIsAHumanRight

Not theft.

[Ferguson97]

But what of the noble shoplifter, the carjacker, and the burglar? When shall we legalize their crimes too? #TheftIsAHumanRight

Not theft.

How so?

This is a once in a lifetime pandemic, and many people have still not found adequate work. If this were normal times, there would be no need for the moratorium. It is a necessary policy to prevent a mass crisis of evictions.

[Ferguson97]

Surely there won't be any negative economic effects from up to 11 million people facing evictions over the next few months, right? Right?

What a great day. America is a free country again.

I understand you're a landlord or whatever, but you could try having a little more empathy here. You can think this is the correct policy without framing it as "great".

[Ferguson97]

I understand you're a landlord or whatever, but you could try having a little more empathy here. You can think this is the correct policy without framing it as "great".

Ending this moratorium is in the best interests of renters too.

How, specifically?

[Ferguson97]

How, specifically?

Let me ask you something: Let's say you own a grocery store. Some kind of crisis (a pandemic perhaps) happens, and the federal government unilaterally decrees that it is now legal for people to walk into your store and take whatever food they need to survive. Not only that, but they tell you that if you try to prevent these people from taking your products, you will be jailed.

If this were to happen:

1) Would you consider this fair?
2) Would you keep restocking the shelves of your store, or would you let your stock run out?

1) I don't think asking if it is 'fair' is the right question, I think the right question is 'is this necessary to avoid an even worse disaster?'

So in such a scenario where food shortages are so bad that people are resorting to stealing food off the shelves of their local grocery stores... yes, I believe that the government should establish some sort of temporary policy to 'allow' this to happen for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I don't think it would exactly be practical to look to prosecuting tens of millions of people for theft. And I don't think that would exactly be a desirable outcome either. Do we really want tens of millions of Americans to become criminals overnight, all because they were to survive? It's not like they're looting a BestBuy during a run-of-the-mill riot. This is a national catastrophe. This could be the fault of the government. Maybe the problem was inevitable and it's out of their hands.

There are basically three ways the government can approach this 'people are resorting to stealing to eat en masse' scenario:

* Prosecute the thieves (I've already explained why I don't think this is moral or practical).

* Forbid the store owners from stopping the thieves.

* Forbid the store owners from stopping the thieves, and prosecute them if they do.

So ultimately the question would come down to whether or not to pursue legal action against the store owners. So why might doing so be desirable?

Well, allowing both the theft to continue and allowing the store owners to try and stop them is a contradiction. While the theft itself would not be criminally prosecuted, if we aren't prosecuting them then we have to establish whether or not store owners would have the right to use force to protect their merchandise. If they are allowed to use lethal force to protect it, are the would-be-thieves allowed to defend themselves against the store owners? It would not make sense for the state to allow store owners to use lethal force here... because the thieves are not actually committing a crime, according to the federal government. So we're presented with a nightmare moral and legal scenario, and this could very well turn into a horrific blood bath. Allowing store owners to use force (lethal or otherwise) to stop this theft would not result in a desirable outcome for anybody.

Again, we're talking about a scenario where the choice seems to be steal or starve. And yes, you're going to have some people who take advantage and steal food that they could very well afford - but you'd be hard-pressed to find any law or program that some jerk does not try and take advantage of. That's no reason to end a program, unless there is a significant number of people taking advantage of such a program. And I have not seen any evidence to suggest that most renters who are not currently paying rent because of the moratorium could pay rent but are just choosing not to.

So back to the original scenario, I'm gonna do a quick summary of the comparisons for clarity: we cannot allow up to 11 million people to be evicted overnight, because the consequences would be completely disastrous. You cannot both allow the landlord to try and force the tenant out and say that the tenant is allowed to stay. That's a contradiction. So naturally you have to prevent the landlord from evicting their tenants. How do you prevent this? You establish penalties. Now whether this should be a fine or jail time, I think is a completely separate debate. But I think that establishing some sort of penalty period, is necessary.

At the absolute minimum, they should be staggered. But obviously the moratorium has to end at some point. I don't know exactly when that would be, but I am neither an expert on public health or public housing. Maybe the ideal timeline is October, as Biden intends. Maybe it's January 2022. I don't know. But I trust the judgement of the CDC and the Biden administration that that time is not now.

2) I'm not sure I understand what restocking the shelves is equivalent to in this comparison... I assume you mean finding new tenants?

Assuming that's what you meant... I do think that some sort of forgiveness program for landlords is going to eventually be necessary. We shouldn't make tenants pay the backrent, but leaving the landlords completely out in the cold isn't really a viable or fair solution. Ideally I would like to see some sort of program to allow the landlords to have their debts paid off/backrent paid by the government, what have you. So an ideal scenario/solution would result in not having 11 million evictions over a short period of time, making sure millions of landlords don't go bankrupt, and making sure that nobody is worse off.

---

I hope I articulated this well. It's a complicated scenario, so I apologize of some of my explanations are jumbled or repetitive.

[Ferguson97]

1. FEMA and various other government agencies are quite good at coordinating shelter, water, and medical care for disaster victims on small scales. During Covid, we've seen various states take control of public venues (high school gymnasiums, for example) and convert them into medical care centers. The same could be done for homeless people (indeed, we should be doing this regardless of the virus!). Some kind of temporary public housing facilities should have been created as soon as the pandemic started. Wouldn't it have been nice to see the government taking responsibility for its own citizens rather than expecting the private sector to shoulder the burden for free?

This would have to be a massive federal project to house a potential 11 million people, and during a pandemic this sounds like a very easy way to create thousands of COVID hot-zones. I think you're approaching it the right way though... do you think something like having the federal government buy out the landlords could work? That way they're not losing any money, the responsibility becomes the governments, and nobody faces eviction during a pandemic.

2. Screwing with large property management companies is almost excusable, but robbing elderly people of the income they get from renting to tenants is insane. Firstly, small-scale landlords should've been given the option to evict their tenants if necessary (granted, they would've still had to go through the byzantine labyrinth of the courts, which would provide a disincentive right off the bat). Secondly, if the landlords chose to let their tenants stay (say, at half the normal rate), they should've received better tax credits than what they got. This way, you can include landlords in the decision-making process without robbing them of their livelihoods and giving them no say in the matter.

Yes, not all landlords are property manage companies. And yes there are many elderly people who rely on the income they generate from renting out their property... but if we're going to go this route, there are millions of elderly tenants who would be out on the street in this scenario. And I'd wager that we would see more elderly evictees than evictors.

This would be effective because it would present landlords with a genuine choice. What do you prefer-- a reduced (yet untaxed) income, or no income at all? Some people don't have the luxury of choosing the latter, and so I think most small landlords would settle for keeping their tenants at lower rents regardless. But placing a blanket ban on evicting squatters (the "shoplifters" in my analogy) only serves to further break the trust between landlord and tenant. Some leftists will tell you it is good for the balance of power in this relationship to tip completely towards the tenant. What they fail to realize is that nobody wants to sign a contract with someone who is under no obligation to honor it. You cannot nullify people's obligations like this and expect the market to just deal with it. This kind of irresponsible public policy poses a serious threat to the supply side of market equations. Sellers need an incentive to transact. It's that simple.

I understand the economics of the situation. I'm not a leftist, and it's why I don't believe that the moratorium should go on forever (and I don't think any serious person does). Again, I think that this is a truly unprecedented scenario and that it's a necessary action for stability. I would compare it to eminent domain, but I assume that you oppose that on principle.

As for your suggestion that we should "trust the CDC and Biden" to decide when to let the moratorium expire, LOL. Biden was perfectly happy to let it expire on the 1st like he said he would, and he only directed the CDC to come up with some shoddy justification to do otherwise after the rose Twitter emoji crew held his feet to the fire. It is completely transparent that this moratorium is being extended due to the political pressure being placed on Biden by the socialists in his own party, not out of a genuine concern for public health. This is an extremely disturbing precedent to say the least.

I have to say I don't really agree with the premise that Biden changed a national policy because of rose emoji Twitter. I doubt Biden has even heard of rose emoji Twitter.

[Ferguson97]

Look, if I had my way, a system for dealing with homeless people would already be in place. It would involve:

1) A blanket ban on "public camping." If someone is arrested on this charge, they would be taken to a facility where a doctor would observe them and determine their mental state.
2) Rehab centers for homeless people who are drug addicts. We already have needle exchanges, and it would be good to provide rehab services at those same facilities so that people could get help if they needed it.
3) Government housing for genuinely homeless people. This kind of facility would be extremely Spartan, and it wouldn't be comprised of permanent structures (unlike a project). This would simply be a place to put homeless people where they could have a roof over their heads and some level of stability in terms of food and water. They would not be expected to pay rent (again, unlike a project, which is for poor people and not homeless people).

I would've wanted this in place before the pandemic. We had similar programs to these in California before Governor Dumbass scrapped them so he could cut taxes by 0.2%. I'm confident that a system like this would be preferred by homeless people, and even if these kinds of facilities did turn into Covid epicenters, it could not possibly be worse for their health than living on the street would be.

2 and 3 are decent proposals, but 1 is reeeeaally bad IMO. Criminalizing homelessness is a terrible idea. It's good that you're recognizing this as a mental health issue, but arresting them is just not a good idea in any way, shape, or form.

Then when does this end, Ferguson? Because I'm sure you know that the AOC/Bush/Omar/Pressley crowd would love to see the evictions moratorium made permanent. Even with the Delta variant, vaccinated people have no reason to worry about contracting the virus anymore. Businesses are reopening and there is a huge demand for workers right now. Why do we still need this moratorium? Again-- it is transparently obvious that it was extended due to the mounting political pressure from the left wing of the Democratic Party, not out of a serious concern for public health.

It's not just that left-wing activists don't understand the economic incentives they're creating-- they think that even attempting to understand this is a waste of time, and they accuse anyone who discusses the matter of "lacking empathy." But I do not oppose left-wing housing policies because I am callous, or even for ideological reasons. I oppose them because they will harm the very people leftists want to help. They will strangle supply. They will drive up prices. They will force renters to have more cash on hand and higher credit scores when they rent homes. They will slow down development. They will encourage developers to build luxury condominiums rather than affordable housing, so as to avoid rent control laws. The list is almost endless. And the sooner left-wingers realize that we, too, are trying to help the homeless, the sooner something might actually get done about this problem.

Well, that's exactly why I don't consider myself to be a member of the Squad's wing of the party.

And yes, there are people who would want the moratorium to be extended indefinitely - and they also seem to want housing in the US to be completely nationalized, which I also do not agree with.

As I said, I don't know what the ideal timeline is. This is just something that I'm willing to defer to the experts in Biden's administration on - and I think we can both agree that he is not the type to stack his administration with leftists.