United States | The rent is too damn high

Pandemic eviction bans have spawned a renters’-rights movement

The housing crunch has Democrats pushing for more tenant protections

2CY21KJ Tenants and housing rights activists protest for a halting of rent payments and mortgage debt, during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Los Angeles, California, U.S., October 1, 2020. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson
Image: Alamy
|Los Angeles

A BAN ON evictions sounds simple. In practice, it was anything but. As covid-19 spread across America in early 2020, the federal government, 43 states and countless municipalities issued some kind of eviction moratorium. The result was a patchwork of policies to help renters stay in their homes. Some places prevented landlords from filing petitions to evict. Elsewhere, courts stopped processing evictions, or officials avoided locking people out of their homes. Several governments offered grace periods for late rent.

This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline “The rent is too damn high”

From the February 18th 2023 edition

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Explore the edition

More from United States

 Pam Bondi is sworn in as she prepares to testify during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing to examine her expected nomination to be Attorney General, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington DC.

Pam Bondi seems like a relatively safe pair of hands

But is America’s next attorney-general an independent operator?

US President Joe Biden delivers his farewell address to the nation from the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, USA.

Checks and Balance newsletter: Joe Biden’s farewell shot at the oligarchy

The outgoing president warns of a new “tech-industrial complex”


Xiaohongshu And TikTok Logos

A protest against America’s TikTok ban is mired in contradiction

Another Chinese app is not the alternative some young Americans think it is


Joe Biden wound up serving Donald Trump

In some ways, his administration will look less like an interregnum than like MAGA-lite

How bad will the smoke be for Angelenos’ health?

Expect more sickness and disrupted schooling

Should you have to prove your age before watching porn?

America’s Supreme Court weighs a Texan law aimed at protecting kids