the *DON* JONES INDEX…
		GAINS POSTED in GREEN LOSSES POSTED in RED
	8/13/21… 14,288.94 8/6/21… 14,296.17 6/27/13… 15,000.00
*(THE DOW* JONES INDEX: 8/13/21…35,499.85; 8/6/21…35,064.25; 6/27/13… 15,000.00)**

LESSON for August 13, 2021 – CLIFFHANGER!

PREVIOUSLY on the DON JONES INDEX…

As of Tuesday, three million renters were being tied to the tracks like debutantes in a silent movie… side to side they would have lined the railway lines coast-to-coast… with a humongous train with a spike-studded cowcatcher bearing down. The villains… death, homelessness and a bipartisan Congress… twirled their moustaches while the good guys in white hats gathered up their white horses in a circle and…

Argued with each other.

And while they bickered and succored their private, crazy motives, the locomotive drew closer and closer to the screaming victims tied to the tracks…

Suddenly, two of the riders broke from the squabbling circle and… spurring their white horses and waving their white hats, uttering deafening “Hi Yo’s… sprinted towards the tracks like Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. They were President Joe and CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, and they raised their bullwhips, snapped them out against the ropes binding the renters and yanked. Away came the ropes and away scrambled the tenants – the crazy train roared past, bellowing carbon smoke and sounding its whistle, but no victims were claimed, and it disappeared off into the distance.

Beside the tracks, the villains vilified the two riders, declaiming threats and then raising…

Their cellphones!

One and all they called their lawyers and, immediately, hordes of the jurisprudential estate emerged from the rocks and crannies of the mountains surrounding the plain. At the head of this black-garbed, briefcase toting brigade were POThead judges Dabney Friedrich and Brett Kavanaugh (who paused just a moment to take a healthy swig from his canteen full of Schlitz) but the terrain was rough, the going perilous and the justices, lawyers and assorted Friends of the Propertied Classes had to carefully descend… a process that might take days, or even weeks, during which the renters could scatter, regroup and maybe either find jobs to pay their debts or garner Federal aid that would protect them from homelessness in the heat of summer and depths of disease.

Day by day the lawyers’ horses cautiously descended the mountain, Rochelle and President Joe whipped out their devices and attended to other matters (the plague, the infrastructure, foreign policy, the economy etcetera) while awaiting the battle and the Congresspersons, State and local legislators amidst the timid whitehats also consulted their devices to see what the polls were telling them.

Which brought us to…

TUESDAY, AUGUST 3^rd… DEVICTION DAY

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), reported CNBC, extended the federal eviction moratorium through October 3, 2021 after the ban lapsed over the weekend.

“We are issuing a new order temporarily halting evictions in counties with heightened levels of community transmission,” they declared, contingent upon tenants filling out a form (See Attachment One) and, in effect, placing it in the landlord’s hand, rather like a notice of process.

It was a stein of suds over the head of Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who in June voted in favor of keeping the ban in place at the time, casting doubt on the legality of any further extensions to the moratorium. Kavanaugh had written in his concurring opinion that after July 31, eviction moratoriums would need Congressional approval.

From whence and where did the CDC derive their presumed authority to hold back the tides of eviction? (New Republic) The agency, via Walensky, cited a provision in the Public Health Service Act of 1944, which sets forth many of the federal government’s public health powers. It authorizes the secretary of health and human services, via the CDC, to “make and enforce such regulations as in his judgment are necessary to prevent the introduction, transmission, or spread of communicable diseases from foreign countries into the States or possessions, or from one State or possession into any other State or possession.” The CDC cited that provision alone to justify its unprecedented actions.

To justify Tuesday’s pivot, the CDC argued that halting all evictions across the country is a necessary regulation to prevent the spread of Covid-19. “A surge in evictions could lead to the immediate and significant movement of large numbers of persons from lower density to higher density housing at a time in the United States when the highly transmissible Delta Variant is driving Covid-19 cases at an unprecedented rate,” the agency said in its moratorium order that afternoon. It noted that evicted families tend to move in with relatives, increasing household sizes and thus making such moves one of the likeliest vectors for transmission.

The new order, which expires on October 3, covers counties experiencing "substantial" or "high" levels of COVID-19 spread. One source familiar with the moratorium said that currently includes about 80% of U.S. counties, or 90% of the U.S. population.

"The emergence of the delta variant has led to a rapid acceleration of community transmission in the United States, putting more Americans at increased risk, especially if they are unvaccinated," CDC Director Rochelle Walensky told CBS News. "This moratorium is the right thing to do to keep people in their homes and out of congregate settings where COVID-19 spreads."

The order, which cites the rise of the delta variant, says: "Without this Order, evictions in these [higher transmission] areas would likely exacerbate the increase in cases."

"Where we are right now with such high disease rates, we felt a new, tailored order [was needed] to make sure that ... working Americans who were at risk of eviction could be stably housed during this really tenuous, challenging period of time," the CDC's director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, told NPR's All Things Considered.

The announcement came after pressure from House Democrats including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., and Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo. The White House previously said Biden did not have the authority extend the ban, given a June Supreme Court ruling that said only Congress can enact a such a ban. Congressional Democrats did not appear to have enough votes to do so, and the House is currently in recess.

Now, the CDC will instead issue a ban in counties “experiencing substantial and high levels of community transmission levels” of in Covid-19, which will cover an estimated 90% of renters, according to Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

The Biden administration’s extension of the Federal moratorium, according to the conservative Breitbart blog, appeared to offer a reprieve for many as a health, as well as economic issue. “The move followed protests from Democratic lawmakers over the swift end to the moratorium as the delta variant of the coronavirus surges.”

“Oily” (snarked Breitbart) Gene Sperling, who oversees the White House's rollout of COVID-19 relief, had told reporters on Monday that Biden had "quadruple-checked" whether he had the legal grounds to extend the moratorium unilaterally but said ultimately his hands were tied by a Supreme Court ruling that blocked the CDC from extending its past moratorium beyond the end of July. A last-minute effort by Congress to extend the ban failed.

Sperling pushed back against criticism from Democrats on Capitol Hill, who argued the White House should have acted sooner in extending the earlier moratorium. He said the Supreme Court made it clear that "congressional authorization" was needed on the matter.

With the expiration of unemployment subsidies, noted Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Il), the eviction ban had “protected people from homelessness, pretty much the direst economic situation imaginable.

“I think we’re trying to find a transition from a pandemic economy to a more fully employed economy,” Durbin told the HuffPost on Thursday. “And there are several things we can deal with, but when it comes to eviction, when you’re out on the street with all your belongings, that’s a desperate situation that we just want to try to avoid.”

An extended moratorium would give states the time they need to get the money out, Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) told CNBC.

It would be “a tremendous relief for millions of people who were on the cusp of losing their homes and, with them, their ability to stay safe during the pandemic,” Yentel said.

So… how to do it? How to sidestep the Beer Man and four other Supremes who’d given the go-ahead to the Montgomery Burnses of America to loose their hounds?

The moratorium had come at a time when homelessness is already reaching epidemic proportions, especially in some large cities where attractions are attractive and numerous and jobs are to be had (although without special, expensive training, most of these will not pay enough to finance domiciling in a wino hotelroom that lacks heat in the winter, cooling in the summer but has plenty of biting insects all year round).

We have already noted that the spectacle of human beings sleeping, sitting, defecating and sometimes committing crimes on the streets of New York has drawn a hostile response from neo-liberal lame duck Mayor and failed Presidential Candidate Bill deBlasio,

But it took a view from abroad to a kill on the Left Coast… the Daily Mail UK, as the original moratorium was expiring, bracketed the problem on the West via reportage on the signing into law by Los Angeles Mayor (and putative Ambassador to India) Eric Garcetti to remove persons without homes from the streets and parks of his city.

Snap and fingerpop! Done? Sort of…

The law, which goes into effect 30 days after its signing on July 29, specifies certain times and locations where it will be 'unlawful for a person to sit, lie, or sleep, or to store, use, maintain, or place personal property in the public right-of-way', making it illegal to sit, lie, sleep, or set up encampments within 1,000 feet of or on a 'street, sidewalk, or other public right-of-way' or within 500 feet from 'sensitive use' properties, which include schools, parks, libraries, overpasses, underpasses, freeway ramps, tunnels, bridges, pedestrian bridges, subways, washes, spreading grounds and active railways.

“Individuals who refuse to comply or obstruct a city employee from enforcing the law will either face a misdemeanor charge, imprisonment for up to six months in the LA County jail and/or a fine of up to $1,000, as laid out in Section 11 of the Los Angeles Municipal Code.” (See Attachment Eight)

“I never understood how fining people who have no money or threatening them with arrest will help their situation,” Kenneth Mejia, candidate for Los Angeles City Controller told the L.A. Weekly on Thursday. “How will they pay for these fines? Where will they go if they’re not sure where they can sleep or rest?”

Garcetti had signed the law Thursday, July 29^th, following a 13-2 vote in favor by the Los Angeles City Council. Council president Nury Martinez said that “…normalizing this way of living and allowing people to die is not something that I will ever accept.”

Those from-India Indians will just luuuvvvvv Garcetti!

The following night, about 50 protesters rallied outside Garcetti's house with some leaving protest placards on the sidewalk and others vandalizing the exterior with toilet paper and graffiti.

Police in riot gear responded to the protest and cleared the area, but no arrests were made, according to Fox News.

Throughout July, police had already been demolishing “dozens of homeless encampments dotting Venice Beach” citing “violent crime and rampant drug use”, culminating in the discovery of a dead homeless man in his tent on the boardwalk, according to Fox News. The Empire had its kill! (Another homeless man was arrested in connection with the murder.)

Authorities did not have figures readily available today but, as of the end of May, Venice experienced a 132% increase in assaults in which a homeless person was a suspect this year and a 126% increase in which the victim was homeless.

Robberies in which a homeless person was the victim increased by 1,100% and robbery incidents where a homeless person was a suspect saw a 160% increase. Overall, felony arrests in Venice increased by 81%, according to figures the LAPD provided to Fox News.

While law-abiding tenants who pay their charges on time and in full complained about crime in the streets, conservatives now argue that landlords, especially small “mom and pop” rentiers, may have to go out of business and lose their properties resulting in more boarded-up enterprises, more crime and… of particular concern to the green liberal slice of America… the dominion of the big box stores and/or Amazon and its ilk.

Some 22.7 million rental units, contends the Washington Examiner, are owned by individuals. About half of all landlords are in this "mom-and-pop" category, meaning they own only one or two rental properties – the Examiner finds it “easy to see how (a moratorium) could lead to financial ruin for many property owners.”

One-third of these landlords come from low-to moderate-income households.

Note (DJI): the WashXam is tabulating “landlords” and/or “property owners”. Had they counted actual housing units, be they homes, apartments, rented rooms or trailer parks, the numbers would shake out quite differently.

That other D.C. paper, the Washington… uh… Bezeezus, owned by… uh, you know… also noted the “extreme dysfunction” of the system but… wholly ignoring the supply side of the equation… to codify permanently what they have already done, short-term (fund a “nationwide rent-relief program”, a pet project of Vice President Harris; i.e., tax the middle class to pay the rich to shelter the poor… which remedy has, to date, failed miserably).

“Longer term, we recommend that the federal government create a task force on the human right to housing that will include the voices of people most affected by this crisis,” the Bezoids proposed. A task force! Hot damn! Exactly what the gumment proposed to coax the vaxx refuseniks into shooting up without pointing an accusing finger that might hurt their feelings… what cynics called a short drop down the dark rabbit hole of subsidized academic humbuggery.

With, no doubt, princely all-expenses-paid junkets to global nooks and crannies in which enlightenment might, or might not, be discovered. And, of course, free housing in hotelrooms and boxes of donuts.

The WashPostProsals drew a rainbow of acerbic Peanut Gallery hoots and hollas from across the political spectrum – divided as to the virtuosity of the homeless and soon-to-be-homeless, united in contempt for the process, such as it was.

“(Biden) has turned the US into a nation of welfare bums overnight,” was one take on the problem… and implied solution… “The real problem which is supported by facts & statistics,” another countered, is that “(n)early half of American workers don’t earn enough to afford a one-bedroom rental.”

“Rents are up because real estate is up,” pointed out an otherwise callous realist (who called the majority of homeless people “drug addicts, the mentally ill, broken families”) but also acknowledged that “without controlling real estate prices you aren't going to be able to control rent.”

And, concluded a presumed liberal, “expect more misery and uprising.”

In fact, barring some major occurrence, next week’s DJI will focus on America’s Peanut Galleries… who’s reading which partisan print, broadcast and social media, and how they’re responding. (Hint: not always predictably…)

While the pro-landlording media have assailed the public with numerous heart-wrenching testimony by the mom and pops to counteract the equally pitiful stories of dispossessed and despairing evictees, land-sharks like the National Association of Realtors have struck back, filing a motion in federal court to stop the ban, claiming the order is out of the agency’s bounds.

These real estate groups say the CDC caved to “political pressure” when instituting this latest ban, alluding to the public push from House Democrats for the administration to extend the previous moratorium, according to the liberal Huffington Post.

“We have argued all along that the best solution for all parties is rental assistance for tenants in need paid directly to housing providers,” Shannon McGahn, chief advocacy officer for NAR, said in a statement. “Nearly half of all rental housing (again, based on a numerical counting of landlords as opposed to properties) in America is a mom-and-pop operation, and these providers cannot continue to live in a state of financial hardship.”

The legally ambiguous moratorium is even more ambiguous as regards foreclosures by public agencies and private lenders, typically the big banks. The financial journal Bankrate noted that Federal agencies that sponsor mortgages, including HUD, the VA, USDA and FHFA are helping homeowners learn about alternatives to foreclosure in the hopes of preventing a wave of forced homeowner removals. Said education, however, carries no monetary value and, while Bankrate contends that foreclosures are relatively unlikely in the current real estate market, because rapidly rising property prices mean many homeowners have some equity even if they’re behind on their mortgage payments, they would have to sell their homes to cover their debts, rather than go through foreclosure.

The dissynchronicity has drawn condemnations, left and right. Tucker Carlson (Fox) alleged that property owners will still be required to pay the banks that hold their mortgages. There is no moratorium on mortgages. “Why? The banks are huge Democratic donors and they are getting the treatment that they paid for.

“Sandy Cortez (AOC) and the squad are not calling for the banks to do their part, so they’re not.”

Calling the moratorium a “house of cards” (primarily jokers), the right-of-Fox Washington Examiner predicted that, unable to make mortgage payments to the big banks, “many landlords will likely lose their properties, thus exacerbating an existing national housing shortage.” (See Attachment Six)

Most of said housing, however, is not going to be “lost”, it is going to be gobbled up by the landsharks and sold off, primarily to the corporate whales and/or certain local entities among the barnacles and pilot fish attached to Wall Street.

Biden, Walensky and company… like Ol’ 45 before them… have more or less winked and nodded at the bankers, drawing condemnation from both left and right.

A weaker, and less publicized provision of the moratoria extensions by HUD, the VA and USDA extended the deadline for new mortgage forbearance applications to Sept. 30, three days before the end of the eviction moratorium, Forbearance allows homeowners… of both the for-profit and live-in variety… to temporarily pause their mortgage payments, but does not forgive any of the debt.

Individuals used to own two-thirds of apartment properties with five to 24 units. But from 2001 to 2015, that share fell to two-fifths, and researchers from Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies found that as large, Wall Street-backed investors purchased the buildings, they raised rents more quickly.

“Given that units in these structures are generally older and have relatively low rents, institutional investors may consider them prime candidates for purchase and upgrading. These changes in ownership have thus helped to keep rents on the climb,” researchers wrote. (See yesterday’s Washington Post, Attachment Three). Wall Street investors owned virtually none of America’s single-family homes a decade ago but now own about 2 percent of them, according to the Federal Reserve.

Redfin senior economist Sheharyar Bokhari said small landlords who are struggling to keep up should at least be able to find buyers for their properties. In the second quarter alone, investors — rather than traditional home buyers — dropped a record $48.5 billion to acquire 67,943 homes, the highest quarterly figure on record, according to a recent Redfin report. Investors bought 1 in 6 homes sold in the second quarter, up from a typical 1 in 10.

Historic amounts of rental assistance allocated by Congress had been expected to avert a crisis. But the distribution has been painfully slow: Only about $3 billion of the first tranche of $25 billion had been distributed through June by states and localities. A second amount of $21.5 billion will go to the states.

More than 15 million people live in households that owe as much as $20 billion to their landlords, according to the Aspen Institute. As of July 5, roughly 3.6 million people in the U.S. said they faced eviction in the next two months, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey.

On WEDNESDAY, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (See Attachment Two) codified notification, eligibility and interim protective steps that renters must take in order to be safe from eviction until October 3^rd.

Calling the current surge a "largely preventable tragedy," President Biden emphasized that unlike past surges of the virus, "we have the tools to prevent this rise in cases from shutting down our businesses, our schools, our society."

“This is a tremendous relief for millions of people who were on the cusp of losing their homes and, with them, their ability to stay safe during the pandemic,” said Diane Yentel, the CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, in a statement to the business magazine Forbes. “President Biden’s bold action and leadership in this moment of crisis will save lives and immeasurable suffering.”

The latest moratorium order could face legal challenges, CBS reported… it actually, most assuredly, will… after the Supreme Court determined the Biden administration couldn't extend the previous moratorium eviction through executive action. “As the latest eviction moratorium was about to end last week, the White House told Congress to act, while Congress called on the White House to act. The White House said it lacked the authority to extend the moratorium.”

Around the country, courts, legal advocates and law enforcement agencies had been gearing up for evictions to return to pre-pandemic levels, a time when 3.7 million people were displaced from their homes every year, or seven every minute, according to the Eviction Lab at Princeton University.

Some cities with the most cases, according to the Eviction Lab, are Phoenix with more than 42,000 eviction filings, Houston with more than 37,000, Las Vegas with nearly 27,000 and Tampa more than 15,000. Indiana and Missouri also have more than 80,000 filings.

While the moratorium was enforced in much of the country, there were states like Idaho where judges ignored it, said Ali Rabe, executive director of Jesse Tree, a non-profit that works to prevent evictions in the Boise metropolitan area. “Eviction courts ran as usual,” she said.

In remarks to NPR, Biden acknowledged the legal quandary:

"Any call for [a] moratorium based on the Supreme Court's recent decision is likely to face obstacles," he said. "I've indicated to the CDC, I'd like them to look at other alternatives [other] than the one that is in existence, which the court has declared they're not going to allow to continue."

On the right, the Washington Examiner posited that, taken from an “originalist judicial perspective,” these moratoria are unconstitutional. Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, commonly referred to as the Commerce Clause, allows for Congress "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes." By contrast, most rental agreements are exclusively intrastate commerce, not the kind of interstate commerce encompassed by Article 1, Section 8.

But suppose we set aside the question of constitutionality. By what authority can the CDC invalidate private contracts? How can it supersede property owners as to the use and enjoyment of their property?

The short answer, according to the WashXaminer (and the five SCOTUS stalwarts) is that “the CDC doesn’t have any such authority, and for that matter, neither does Biden.” One of the fundamental functions of government is to protect private property rights. These policies don’t just fail in that regard, they actively undermine those rights, they growled. “The eviction moratorium is nothing short of government-sanctioned theft.”

Then again, one Virginia slaveholder… a certain Mister Jefferson… first codified the above in America’s Declaration of Independence, but then scratched out the inclusion of “property” in and among those three inalienable rights (of citizens – which definition has been changing with the times), replacing it with “the pursuit of happiness”. By numerical order, moreover, this right is superseded by liberty (which quality is also under much debate, although of a different nature) and both are superseded by the right to “life”. This may also be disputable, especially as regards abortion, contraception and the death penalty for criminal offenses, but, indeed, the premises of life is that upon which all other rights and responsibilities needs be based. And whether that right is challenged by a virus, or by the life-threatening conditions as accompany homelessness, President Joe, the CDC and their team of legal eagles… the landlord lobby waxes particularly vehement upon the influence and outlooks of one Professor Lawrence Tribe of Harvard (whose “tribal” students, including Barack Obama and conservatives like Sen. Ted Cruz and Chief Justice John Roberts) have not spared him the wrath of the National Review, who have accused him of abetting the dictatorial Joe-Man in his crusade “to sweep constitutional traditions into the fire.”

A book writer and historian, the Tribal One is also a Twitter-er who, just now, citing the Alabama case. tweeted:

“Glad the court denied the misguided motion to strike down the eviction moratorium and rejected the absurd view that SCOTUS has already held it invalid. But the court remains wrong on the merits: the moratorium is a lawful exercise of authority.”

Also on the left, the New Republic’s Matt Ford… less charitably… called the moratorium extension “a sitting duck” whereby “dithering Democrats have left vulnerable renters in the worst possible place: at the mercy of the Supreme Court.”

“It’s not a good sign for the president when he admits that he’s about to lose in the courts. It’s even worse when what he’s doing is all that stands between Americans and a national eviction crisis. But his analysis of the Centers for Disease Control’s latest eviction moratorium is almost certainly correct: “The bulk of the constitutional scholars say it’s not likely to pass constitutional muster,” President Joe Biden said at a press conference on Tuesday.”

Then again, who… other than the Court or the Congress, would be final arbiter of the moratorium? And what measures could be taken to prevent a mass eruption of Bidenvilles in city parks, under underpasses and… horrors!... adjacent to public schoolyards?

Once upon a time, Congress set aside roughly $45 billion to make sure that a pandemic that wreaked havoc on the livelihoods of millions wouldn’t force families out of their homes through no fault of their own. This was no Band-Aid or short-term measure, Vox editorialist Jerusalem Demsas argued. “Experts, renters’ advocates, even landlords agreed: This was the solution. Money itemized explicitly for the purpose of helping people make rent. More than half of it was allocated under the Trump administration and the rest under President Joe Biden.”

Conservative rent-seeking advocates have had none of this. The uber-right Breitbart’s Jeff Poor (no comment, DJI) cited a Fox News rant by Carlson who declared that “private property no longer exists in the United States”, that President Joe was a criminal, shaking Americans down “at gunpoint”, and that Walensky had “decided to nationalize America’s rental properties.” (See Attachment Five)

The one thing both Foxies and Bidencrats agreed upon was that the moratorium… probably unsustainable… would tie and tangle up the courts until past its past-due expiration date – thus replicating the futility of the death penalty as was applicable to felons who died in prison.

So what were some longer-term solutions other than taxing the middle classes to subsidize the poor paying kited rents to the rich?

Nationwide rent controls? President Nixon imposed these during an inflation/recession crisis but, of late, well financed advocates of “what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine” have promulgated initiatives that, time after time, used the most specious arguments (in big-box quantities) to shoot down the pitiful pleas of renters being gentrified out of their homes, their communities and… as witness the pre-pandemic exodus of retirees… their country while pressuring politicians like Garcetti to use police violence to keep the bottom-end victims moving, preferably on to someone else’s backyard or, despite the cost, to prisons.

Public housing? It’s been tried elsewhere, notably Glasgow… which touted the availability of lower rents to attract skilled labor, which workers, in turn, attract industry to depressed communities. But America, as we proudly assert, is not Scotland, nor is there much interest (despite much rhetoric) in promoting more labor-intensive industries at living wages because, as the mechanical jar twisting people advertise: “Shouldn’t there be a robot for that?”

Demsas, in Vox, suggested a Federal rent registry.

“A rental registry requires landlords to register their property with a governmental body and submit key pieces of information like the address of the property and contact information for the landlord. But it wouldn’t be difficult to also require landlords to provide more detailed information like how many tenants they are leasing out to, how many units in each property, and how much they’re charging for rent.

These registries could also be used to ensure direct communication with landlords about tenant rights and fair housing law as well as a line between low-income tenants and government services they may not be aware are there to help them. In other words, if we’d had a registry already, the state and local agencies administering rent relief could have used the information in it to contact all the renters within their borders and inform them of the available funds.

As Shane Phillips, head of the Randall Lewis Housing Initiative at UCLA argued in Shelterforce, tenants should be allowed to “create their own account linked to their home ... and have access to the information provided by their landlords. ... Allowing tenant registration would provide a check on claims made by the landlord about rent, lease terms, etc., and it would give tenants a direct line to the local housing agency, and the housing agency a direct line to tenants.”

Further, having all of this information in a registry would make it easy for the government to quickly verify that someone is a renter in need of aid instead of requiring tenants to provide documentation during an emergency.

On the other hand, as proposed the socialist rag Jacobin: “We Need a World Without Landlords”. (see attachment Seven)

“This will not be the last time that targeted aid to renters will be necessary,” Demsas wrote. “The median renter is not well-situated to ride out the next recession.” According to Brookings, “The median income of renters was $42,479 in 2019, which is roughly half that of homeowners. Over 40% of renter households earn less than $35,000 per year.” And census data from 2017 shows that “homeowners’ median wealth was nearly 89 times larger than the median wealth of renters and not entirely because of home equity.”

“If the Supreme Court allows Biden’s new moratorium to stand, an estimated 6.5 million renters (whose households make up the 15 million people in danger of losing their housing) will face the same problem on October 3. (Jacobin) Some will have gotten back on their feet financially by then, and perhaps a few will have managed to pay back their landlords. But many, many others will simply owe two more months in back rent.

Back rent debt, the real Socialists propose, shouldn’t just be postponed but forgiven entirely. “Housing owned by landlords who couldn’t take those losses could be bought up on the cheap by the federal government. Any financial contribution tenants are expected to make to their buildings’ upkeep after that should be indexed to income level. An unemployed person shouldn’t be charged anything to stay in their apartment.”

Their model is Vienna in the 1920s and ‘30s when Social Democrats ran the city. Unfortunately, this was succeeded by National Socialism – nonetheless, a robust “social housing” presence remains - albeit with long waiting lists and, as ever, cronyism and corruption. The Socialists dismiss the labors that small landlords put into maintaining their properties (or the wages the multis pay for same), advocating the de-commodification of housing entirely whereas the problem, and the solution is the de-commodification of land.

“We need a vision of a qualitatively better world,” the Jacobins say, but that vision needs be less Marx and Lenin, Stalin and Brezhnev than Henry George, proponent of the theory that governments should be financed by a single tax on land. (Even that would not be sufficient to wrench us out of the burden of debt inflicted upon America by liberal handouts, conservative tax cuts for the super-wealthy and now, of course, the plague, climate change and technological innovations that are de-valuing human labor.)

One way or another, get ready for a massively declining standard of living. And the turmoil inherent in this reality.

“What really moves the needle in terms of housing is supply,” David Howard, executive director of the National Rental Home Council, a trade group that represents landlords who own single-family homes, told Market Watch, yesterday. “Regardless of the political back-and-forth around eviction moratoria, the past year has revealed the extent to which the United States is truly ‘underhoused.’”

He ventured that at least some single family homes that small landlords decide to sell off might be purchased by Americans who might actually live in them, but absent banking, credit and equality reforms that redline the bottom quarter (or third, or half) out of the market, exacerbating racial, class and generational poverty, don’t expect much in the way of solutions. President Joe and Congress could consense on an old-fashioned fix… setting the unemployed, on the order of Frankie Roosevelt’s WPA (works, not welfare, progress administration) to build and renovate homes that people could live in, but that would apparently require a surfeit of IQ from among a bureaucracy with too much Q-Anon.

Or maybe the real long-term solution will be to wait until the Omega Variant of the plague or heat death from global warming or escalating gun violence kills off so many Americans that plenty of cheap housing will be available for everybody.

A Las Vegas landlord jump-started the latter solution by murdering two female tenants and critically injuring a man in a dispute over unpaid rent, allegedly telling authorities he’d “handle it his way” instead of trying to evict them. (New York Post, Attachment Eleven)

This morning, Judge Friedrich allowed the Biden administration’s new eviction moratorium to remain in place, saying she didn’t have authority to block it despite her misgivings about the ban’s legality.

Telling the Wall Street Journal that she was bound by a previous ruling from the appeals court above her that said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention likely possessed the authority to impose an eviction ban in the name of public health, Friedrich added that, if there is to be a judicial order blocking the latest eviction ban, “it will have to come from a higher court”, the judge, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, said.

Meaning SCOTUS, again. Back to work time for Beer Man and his four little brewskis in black robes… if they get around to it before October…

Back on the range, the renters freed by Joe and Rochelle from the tracks fled to escape the oncoming lawyers... and tumbled, like Thelma and Louise… over the edge of a cliff, where they remain, hanging on by their fingernails in anticipation of either October (the best case, unless President Joe can pull off a further extension) or a hurry-up SCOTUS ruling moritorying the moratorium (and sending thousands, if not millions, of homeless evictees to the mortuariums).

A three-judge panel with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia is expected to rule next week on whether a moratorium against evictions imposed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will stand.

AUGUST 6 – AUGUST 12

Friday, August 6, 2021

Infected: 35,695,469

Dead: 616,493

Dow: 34,935.47

Wildfires destroy Greenville, CA… Dixie (N. California, go figure!) fire now 3^rd largest in California history. Smokenado afflicts nearby Colfax Lake Oroville at record low, causing hydropower chaos, outages all over the state. Forests from Siberia to Africa (especially Greece) still ablaze.

Despite July adding nearly a million new jobs, seven of the twenty two million lost jobs remain lost. In other business news, the fourth wave “Delta Variant” (ΔV) causes Amazon, Google, Microsoft and other big employers to push back back-to-the-office start into 2022. Apple app that detects child porn on devices coveted by government random surveillance goons – they say they won’t cooperate in searches for malcontents, dissidents and other unpacified Americans as CNN fires three vaxxing refuseniks.

As more kids go back to schools (or into crowded hospitals), some tame TV doctors say… well… even if vaxxes are only 75%, not 85% effective against the ΔV, that’s still “phenomenal”.

Climatologists say global warming will shift the Gulf Stream north but, once glaciers start melting in Greenland, the colder water will cause global winters. Meanwhile, the warm tides off Delaware and Maryland are generating a… not a flock, not a murder but something… of sharks.

Saturday, August 7, 2021

Infected: 35,739,551

Dead: 616,718

President Joe claims to be cancelling his summer beach vacation in Rehoboth, Delaware to work on his physical and personal infrastructure bills… but is it really ‘cause he’s afraid of sharks?

Red state vaxx refuseniks get it and overwhelm hospitals, authorities hold shot parties in Miami nightclubs and at plague funerals. Vaxxing rates are up 25% but new cases up 40%... 11 month old infant turned away from helpless hospital. CDC calls the new Lambda virus a “variant of interest” but not “concern”.

Sunday, August 8, 2021

Infected: 35,763,785 Dead: 616,829

Eight confirmed dead, many more missing in Dixie inferno (now up to 2^nd in California history); authorities investigating PG&E culpability. Greek blazes nearing Athens under 115° heat.

The fiery cauldron at Tokyo is extinguished at sparsely attended closing ceremonies… most athletes have hurried home, but there are plenty of flags. Next, the games move on to Beijing (2022) and Paris (2024). Last minute gold enables America to overtake China with 39 medals to 38… see more below.

Biden touts 1.1 trillion physical (roads, bridges, transit), 3.5T “personal” (childcare, healthcare and climactic climatic) infrastructure bills and now adds a 2.5T “stimulus” augmentation with handouts of $600 and $1,200 to all Americans in “targeted communities” which, Republicans say, amount to 90% of the country. Their plan – kill these “debt bombs” with delays and amendments.

Monday, August 9, 2021

Infected: 35,798,015 Dead: 617,321 Dow: 34,938.16

Its National Book Day – and the book of the day is “The New Climate War” by climatologist Michael Mann, who calls the situation “dire”, but isn’t quite as despairing as David Wallace-Wells’ tome: “The Uninhabitable Planet”. “The signal has emerged from the noise,” Mann warns, while proposing the banning of all carbon fuel, now! and touting the next UN sponsored summit in Glasgow. The U.N. by the way, issues its “Code Red for Humanity” report, which also calls the situation “dire”.

Apropos – the W.H.O. (a UN offshoot) says that wealthy Americans and other white, Western devils should evidence their virtue and morality by refusing to accept booster shots until the vaxx rate for the poor nations rises above current 2% plateau. Few takers.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) wobbles and wanders while sexually harassed Executive Assistants One through Eleven (think Mister Turpin’s kids, Thing One, Two etc… based on the even more wicked Dr. Seuss!) rise and cry: “…And then he touched me!” Calls for resignation and/or impeachment grow.… his designated hitwoman quits, even liberal stalwarts like Biden, Pelosi and most every Democrat in the Empire State shout: “Go!”

Tuesday, August 10, 2021

Infected: 36,051,126 Dead: 618,114 Dow: 35,116.40

Evil and retribution grip MAGAland… Gov. deSantis (from you know) rages against Norwegian Cruise ships that require masks and vaxxes, threatens to withhold salaries from pro-mask teachers and is called “unconscionable” by ex-Surgeon General Jerome Adams. But pro-plague, pro-POThead Mississippi runs out of hospital beds and two Sheriffs die in one week.

Time’s up for “Times Up” Cuomo-backed charity as cybercriminals posing as dis and dat ravage government handouts to the poor and needy (making less than $99,000/yr.).

Pentagon says Afghanistan is moving in one direction… wrong!... as they conquer six provincial capitals U.S. troops are leaving Afghanistan, but Canada allows Americans to enter and try to outrun the heat while we, in turn, ban travel to 16 plague-ey countries like Spain and Ireland. TV Doctor Ashish Jah says vaxxing confers more immunity than getting and surviving the plague. FEMA has now spent nearly $100M on plague-related funerals.

Wednesday, August 11, 2021

Infected: 36,150,142 Dead: 618,479 Dow: 35,484.97

Big day for big news: Cuomo throws in the towel and Senate passes 3.5 “personal” infrastructure honeypot 50-49.

Taliban now control nine provincial capitals and are expected to seize Kabul within ninety days while British Intelligence warns that they’ll invite Islamic terrorists back and incite many 9-11s.

Plague exhausting (and sometimes killing) healthcare workers… hospitalizations in Florida are up 400%, Alabama 1,000% and experts warn of nationwide 400% increase by Labor Day. Mask and vaxx refusenik Governors in the likes of Texas, Florida, Mississippi etc. beg the blue staters for help. FDA approves booster shots for at-risk Americans; to hell with the sick Guatemalans.

Dr. Agus says that ΔV breakthroughs are less serious because they attack the upper respiratory tract, not the more important (for, like, breathing) lower. TV psychiatrist Dr. Sue Varma coaxes Americans not to shame the refuseniks, naming three C-dangers to be promoted or overcome as it were: Complacency, Confidence, Convenience. (Some critics add a fourth: Conspiracy!)

Thursday, August 12, 2021

Infected: 35,499.85 Dead: 615,319 Dow: 35,064.25

Small day for small news: Jamie (Spears) throws in the towel and resigns his conservatorship. Britney is free! Britney is free!

Taliban make former US base (and its abandoned instruments of death) their twelfth provincial capture, President Joe pivots and sends 3,000 troops back into the meat grinder to help evacuate (they use that word like… well… the plague) Americans from apparently doomed Kabul, earning derision from bystanding Republicans as his “Saigon Moment”.

Haste and hurrying on that real plague front, FDA greenlights bosters, CDC greenlights vaxxes for pregnant women. Busy Biden takes the task of pressuring prescription prices down as ΔV overwhelms more hospitals, generates more fake shots from wicked German nurse and fake ID cards from confused refuseniks (the point of refusing being to show maskless masculinity and loyalty to Trump by standing up to the plague), solves the airlines’ reservation crisis by making passengers afraid to fly again and generates Internet rumours that vaxxes turn recipients into zombies (the Will Smith: “I Am Legend” theory).

Discerning… may we even say discriminating… readers may note that the tally of plague deaths (which comes to us, then to you, directly from the palates of the Johns Hopkins bodycounters) tends to be rather… irregular? It is! Apparently, the ghouls like their weekends as much as the rest of us, so dispatches from Texas and Oregon and West Virginia may pile up on a desk, to be recovered and tallied on Mondays. So, while you can believe that the Trump-fomented refusal to shoot up has generated actual week-to-week new infection counts that have shot up to an average hundred thousand daily, the exact daily new case, death and hospitalization rates remain irregular – which irregularities seem to be fair game for refuseniks who take a Saturday to Sunday reckoning and tell their school boards and airline flight attendants and retail clerks that it really is not so bad, not at all!

As for Don Jones’ status as of today, Friday the 13^th, rises in inflation have overpowered rises in wages and the Dow… but not by much. As in the weather, Dog Day Stagnation reigns.

THE DON JONES INDEX CHART of CATEGORIES w/VALUE ADDED to EQUAL BASELINE of 15,000 (REFLECTING… approximately… DOW JONES INDEX of June 27, 2013) See a further explanation of categories here… ECONOMIC INDICES (60%)

DON JONES’ PERSONAL ECONOMIC INDEX
(45% of TOTAL INDEX POINTS)

CATEGORY	VALUE	BASE	RESULTS			SCORE	SCORE	OUR SOURCES and COMENTS
INCOME	24%	6/17/13	LAST	CHANGE	NEXT	8/6/21	8/13/21	SOURCE
Wages (hourly, per capita)	9%	1350 points	8/6/21	+0.58%	8/20/21	1,453.83	1,462.32	https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/wages 25.83
Median Income (yearly)	4%	600	8/6/21	+0.02%	8/20/21	672.01	672.16	http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 35,591
*Unempl. (BLS – in millions	4%	600	8/6/21	-9.76%	8/20/21	371.34	371.34	http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000/ 5.4%
*Official (DC – in millions)	2%	300	8/6/21	+0.003%	8/20/21	412.12	412.11	http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 9,476.7
*Unofficl. (DC – in millions)	2%	300	8/6/21	+0.06%	8/20/21	354.21	353.99	http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 16,391
Workforce Participtn. Number Percent	2%	300	8/6/21	+0.018% +0.001%	8/20/21	317.81	317.813	In 151,806 Out 100,235 Total: 251,041 http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 60.47
WP % (ycharts)*	1%	150	8/6/21	+0.16%	8/20/21	152.48	152.48	https://ycharts.com/indicators/labor_force_participation_rate 61.70 nc
OUTGO	(15%)
Total Inflation	7%	1050	8/6/21	+0.5%	8/20/21	985.14	980.21	http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm +0.5
Food	2%	300	8/6/21	+0.7%	8/20/21	278.09	276.14	http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm +0.7
Gasoline	2%	300	8/6/21	+2.4%	8/20/21	268.80	262.35	http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm +2.4
Medical Costs	2%	300	8/6/21	+0.3%	8/20/21	287.06	286.20	http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm +0.3
Shelter	2%	300	8/6/21	+0.4%	8/20/21	289.93	288.77	http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm +0.4
WEALTH	(6%)
*Dow* Jones Index	2%	300	8/6/21	+1.24%	8/20/21	378.10	382.80	https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/index/DJIA 35,064.25
Home (Sales) (Valuation)	1% 1%	150 150	5/21/21	+1.03% +3.71%	8/20/21	170.29 182.84	170.29 182.84	https://www.nar.realtor/research-and-statistics Sales (M): 5.86 Valuations (K): 363.3 nc
Debt (Personal)	2%	300	8/6/21	+0.065%	8/20/21	272.56	272.38	http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 64,608 664 706

	AMERICAN ECONOMIC INDEX (15% of TOTAL INDEX POINTS)
NATIONAL	(10%)
Revenue (trilns.)	2%	300	8/6/21	+0.14%	8/20/21	311.28	311.71	debtclock.org/ 3,645
Expenditures (tr.)	2%	300	8/6/21	+0.09%	8/20/21	219.09	218.90	debtclock.org/ 6,836
National Debt tr.)	3%	450	8/6/21	+0.08%	8/20/21	321.58	321.32	http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 28,633
Aggregate Debt (tr.)	3%	450	8/6/21	+0.09%	8/20/21	369.72	369.39	http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 85,598

GLOBAL	(5%)
Foreign Debt (tr.)	2%	300	8/6/21	+0.04%	8/20/21	292.18	292.06	http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 7,104
Exports (in billions)	1%	150	8/6/21	+0.825%	8/20/21	184.48	184.48	https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/index.html 207.7
Imports (bl.)	1%	150	8/6/21	- 2.15%	8/20/21	116.57	116.57	https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/index.html 283.4
Trade Deficit (bl.)	1%	150	8/6/21	- 5.95%	8/20/21	91.37	91.37	https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/index.html 75.7
SOCIAL INDICES (40%)
ACTS of MAN	(12%)
World Affairs	3%	450	8/6/21	-0.3%	8/20/21	390.25	389.08	UN issues Code Red for Humanity report. Siberia and Africa join Greece and Turkey in burning. Athens menaced with 115° temps.
Terrorism	2%	300	8/6/21	-0.8%	8/20/21	233.60	231.73	*Taliban now controls most of Afghanistan, joins up with Al Qaeda (but not ISIS, not yet). Pentagon says the country “is not headed in the right direction.”*
Politics	3%	450	8/6/21	nc	8/20/21	439.49	439.49	First female NY Gov. Kathy Hochul takes office in 14 days once Cuomo finishes his resignation tour. TreaSec warns Congress to raise debt ceiling to pay for now-1.2T physical (conservative calculators calculate a quarter trillion addition to debt) and 3.5T person infrastructure bills as are not expensive enough; Dems want 2T more in “stimulus” handouts.
Economics	3%	450	8/6/21	+0.6%	8/20/21	405.49	407.92	943K jobs added crash unemployment rates (but plague effects still linger for economic long haulers). Inflation spikes (but not as spiky as in June)… culprits are gas, used cars, ridesharers Uber and Lyft and chickens (Sanderson Farms sells out for 4.5B). Oil prices fall but gas prices rise… collusion? Chip shortage sends Nissan on hiatus. Retail and restaurant workers get avg. 7% raises up to $15 to pay for stuff.
Crime	1%	150	8/6/21	-0.4%	8/20/21	243.82	242.84	Dominion voting machines sues Rudy G. and My Pillow for accusing them of fixing election. Mexico sues American gunmakers and dealers for arming cartels. Then-17-year old Epstein accuser sues Prince Andrew for raping her in 2001. Time’s up for “Times’ Up” Cuomo-backed crooked charity. “Becky from Medicare” robocalls spamming the elderly into buying fake DNA testing. Cruel cybercriminals scam the elderly on child tax credits, cruel dad kills son with speargun over Q-Anon argument.

ACTS of GOD	(6%)
Environment/Weather	3%	450	8/6/21	-0.3%	8/20/21	406.10	404.88	UN climate report: “Code Red for Humanity” sparks nightmares, little positive action. Heat dome squats over almost all America except flooded Midwest. Hurricane Fred shredded by Caribbean mountains; down – graded to tropical storm, then a “depression”.
Natural/Unnatural Disaster	3%	450	8/6/21	-0.3%	8/20/21	404.47	403.56	Wildfires amidst dry timber and grass destroy Grass Valley, CA, send toxic coast all the way east to heatstricken NY and DC. Dixie fire kills at least eight, but heatstroke toll may be in hundreds including student athletes (one of whose coaches are charged with Murder). Floods flood Omaha elevator, passengers rescued.
LIFESTYLE/JUSTICE INDEX (15%)
Science, Tech, Education	4%	600	8/6/21	-0.1%	8/20/21	677.31	676.63	Back to school week amidst chaotic mask/vaxx regulations, brawling PTAs and school board meetings with Nazi salutes. Refusenik five year old expelled from private school. Saildrones developed to predict and assess hurricanes. More and more corporations accepting bitcoins, cybercurrencies and scambots.
Equality (econ/social)	4%	600	8/6/21	-0.2 %	8/20/21	561.59	560.47	Humiliated (but not humble) POThead governors in Florida, Texas and Mississippi beg the hated Federal govt. for Covid help but Tennessee refuseniks lynch healthcare workers in hospital riot.
Health Plague	4%	600	8/6/21	-0.2% nc	8/20/21	499.72 - 102.20	498.72 - 102.20	Recalls: Whirlpool and Honeywell dehumidifiers (fire danger), chicken (now expensive) with salmonella. 96K Arctic salmon die of chlorine leak (not salmonella). Sick children overwhelm pediatric hospitals, others in quarantine spend so much time with devices that they develop eye problems. Good ol’ Gov. DeSantis blames plague on migrants. CDC’s Walensky assures us breakthrough cases are communicable, but seldom fatal…
Freedom and Justice	3%	450	8/6/21	-0.2%	8/20/21	460.49	459.57	CNN fires three vaxxing refuseniks. R. Kelly sex trial begins. Gov. Cuomo semi-sex indictment still in planning stage. Dominion (voting machines) sues NewsMax, My Pillow and other Trump hardbodies for fraudulent election fraud accusations.


MISCELLANEOUS and TRANSIENT INDEX (7%)
Cultural incidents	3%	450	8/6/21	+0.5%	8/20/21	524.19	526.81	Team USA outgolds Chinese 39-38. Dolly Parton will collaborate with James Patterson on a book. “Suicide Squad” hangs itself at the box office. Stevie Nicks cancels 2021-2 tour out of plague fear. Jeopardy CEO Michael Richards (not the disgraced “Seinfeld guy) announces Alex Trebek replacement host: himself! RIP Dennis Thomas (Kool and the Gang), Florida State coach Bobby Bowden, comedians Trevor Moore and Markie Post, Columbia records’ Walter Yetnikoff,
Miscellaneous incidents	4%	450	8/6/21	+0.1%	8/20/21	483.56	484.04	So long, Mario (Cuomo), so long, Jamie (Spears). Pizza Hut to sell vegan pizzas, but IHOP trumps them with liquor to go with your Super Stack. Super Sturgis Spreader spurs stupid biker plague. Bad Packers’ DB joins Colorado fanboy in uttering (horrors!) racial slurs, good Packers’ defensive back Charles Woodson inducted into NFL Hall of Fame.

The Don Jones Index for the week of August 6th through August 12th, 2021 was DOWN 7.23 points.

The Don Jones Index is sponsored by the Coalition for a New Consensus: retired Congressman and Independent Presidential candidate Jack “Catfish” Parnell, Chairman; Brian Doohan, Administrator. The CNC denies, emphatically, allegations that the organization, as well as any of its officers (including former Congressman Parnell, environmentalist/America-Firster Austin Tillerman and cosmetics CEO Rayna Finch) and references to Parnell’s works, “Entropy and Renaissance” and “The Coming Kill-Off” are fictitious or, at best, mere pawns in the web-serial “Black Helicopters” – and promise swift, effective legal action against parties promulgating this and/or other such slanders.

Comments, complaints, donations (especially SUPERPAC donations) always welcome at feedme@generisis.com or: speak@donjonesindex.com

ATTACHMENT ONE – From the CDC

TEMPORARY PROTECTION FROM EVICTION FORM

Updated Aug. 3, 2021

CDC is issuing a new order temporarily halting evictions in counties with heightened levels of community transmission in order to respond to recent, unexpected developments in the trajectory of the COVID-19 pandemic, including the rise of the Delta variant. It is intended to target specific areas of the country where cases are rapidly increasing, which likely would be exacerbated by mass evictions. See a copy of the Order at: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/communication/Signed-CDC-Eviction-Order.pdf

Eviction Protection Declaration

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued an order that may protect you from being evicted or removed from where you are living. This means that you may be able to stay at the place where you live through October 3, 2021, if you qualify.

How to use this form

1. See if you qualify for eviction protection under the CDC order. If you’d like help from an expert, contact the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) at (800) 569-4287 or go to https://www.hudexchange.info/programs/housing-counseling/rental-eviction/ to get contact information for a local housing counselor.

2. Sign the declaration that you qualify, on the next page.

3. Give the signed declaration page to the individual or company you rent from (for example, building management, landlord, etc.). Keep a picture or copy for your records and call your expert back if there’s a problem.

If your landlord violates the CDC order, they could be subject to criminal penalties, including fines or a term of imprisonment.

1. Do I qualify?

If you can check at least one box in each column, you qualify.

Column A

I received a stimulus check (Economic Impact Payment) in 2020 or 2021

I was not required to report any income to the IRS in 2020

I am receiving any of the following benefits:

• Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)

• Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)

• Supplemental Security Income (SSI)

• Supplemental Security Disability Income (SSDI)

In 2020 or 2021, I earned (or expect to earn) less than $99,000 as an individual or less than $198,000 as a joint filer

None of the above — You do not qualify.

AND Column B

I cannot pay my full rent or make a full housing payment because:

My household income has gone down substantially

I have been laid off from work

My work hours or wages have been cut

I have extraordinary out-of-pocket medical expenses1

None of the above — You do not qualify.

You checked at least one item in each column? Your income level qualifies. [Check the first box on the next page]

1 Defined as 7.5% or more of my adjusted gross income for the year

2. My Declaration that I qualify

By checking the boxes below, I declare that each statement is true.

My income level qualifies for the reasons explained above.

I live in a U.S. county experiencing substantial or high rates of community transmission levels of SARS-CoV-2.

I have done my best to make timely partial payments that are as close as possible to the full payment and to get government assistance in making my rent or housing payments.3

If I were evicted, I have no other available housing options, so I would:

• Probably become homeless, or

• Have to move to a homeless shelter, or

• Have to move in with others who live in close quarters.

I understand that after I sign:

• Unless I come to an agreement with my landlord, I am still responsible for rent, back rent, and any fees, penalties or interest under my lease.

• I must still follow the conditions of my lease.

• Unless I come to an agreement with my landlord, if I fail to make my required payments, I could be evicted when this temporary halt of evictions ends.

• I can still be evicted for reasons other than not paying rent or not making a housing payment.

I sign this declaration under penalty of perjury. That means I promise that the statements above are the truth and that I understand that I can be criminally punished for lying.

You sign here:

Date:

3. Give this signed page to the individual or company you rent from.

ATTN LANDLORDS: Thank you for your compliance. If you violate the CDC’s Eviction Order, you and/or your business may be subject to criminal penalties, including fines and a term of imprisonment.

2 See COVID-19 Integrated County View: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#county-view/

3 Calling a local expert is the best way to figure out all the help that is available to you. Find a listing for a local HUD-approved housing counselor by calling (800) 569-4287.

4 If you have already signed an eviction moratorium declaration, you do not need to submit another one

ATTACHMENT TWO – From the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)

WHAT THE NEW CDC EVICTION MORATORIUM MEANS FOR YOU

AUG 05, 2021

The CDC issued a new eviction moratorium on August 3, 2021 to temporarily halt evictions in counties where COVID-19 is spreading rapidly. If you are struggling to pay rent, the new pause in evictions may help you stay in your home, but you may need to take action.

If you already gave your landlord a CDC Declaration

If you’ve already handed in the form, you are protected until October 3, 2021. Your landlord cannot remove you from your home just because of unpaid rent.

Has your housing, employment, or income situation changed? If so, give your landlord an updated CDC Declaration to stay protected.

If you have not yet filled out the CDC Declaration

If you are having trouble paying your rent, you can still get this protection. You must take action to avoid eviction for unpaid rent.

See if you’re eligible and get started.

Find out how quickly COVID-19 is spreading in your community. Visit CDC.gov and select your state and county from the drop-down menu.

People who were evicted under a court order between August 1 and August 3, 2021 cannot return to their homes or undo their evictions because of the new CDC Order.

What you can do next

After you’ve given your landlord the CDC Declaration, here are some steps you can take, depending on your situation.

What to do if you’re facing eviction

Get help paying your rent and utility bills

If you’re looking for help with rent and utilities, you’re not alone. State and local organizations are distributing federal rental assistance in their communities.

§ Find a program in your area

§ Need help applying for rental assistance? Find a housing counselor.

ATTACHMENT THREE – From the Washington Post

WITH TENANTS WHO WON’T PAY OR LEAVE, SMALL LANDLORDS FACE STRUGGLES OF THEIR OWN

Corporate landlords are booking big profits, but the extended eviction ban means there’s no relief in sight for mom-and-pop landlords

By Jonathan O'Connell, Yesterday at 8:37 a.m. EDT

Jennifer Collins of Lahaina, Hawaii, lost her job as a restaurant server during the pandemic but hoped to stay afloat on rent she collects from three small condos she owns.

Things didn’t go as planned. Collins, 61, said one of her tenants has largely abandoned Collins’s condo for another home and purchased a new automobile but refuses to either pay rent or leave Collins’s property, even changing the locks so Collins could not access it.

Collins has attempted to evict the tenant but said she has so far been unsuccessful. She is back waiting tables now but said she is trying to sell two of the condos.

“My stomach just starts just churning talking about it. I’m nervous, I’m like a deer in the headlights,” she said. “I am in over my head and I just want to be done with it.”

Advocates for renters celebrated last week when the Biden administration effectively extended a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ban on most evictions. But for some small landlords — struggling to pay mortgages and taxes — it was the last straw.

The CDC’s ban legally protects only renters who have suffered financially because of the pandemic, who are at risk of homelessness and who meet other criteria. But landlords say some tenants are abusing the eviction ban to live rent-free. Others cannot be evicted for any reason because of state and local rules enacted in response to the pandemic.

In general, it’s a great time to be a real estate owner, as residential property values have risen dramatically in many parts of the country.

But as with many of the emergency policies passed in response to the pandemic, the evictions ban has had disparate effects on large and small companies. Many corporate apartment chains catering to white-collar workers are raising rents and booking enormous profits; an index of publicly traded apartment chain stocks is up 43 percent through Friday. Meanwhile, some mom-and-pop landlords are giving up and deciding to sell, though at what scale is difficult to determine.

As of June, over 6 million people were behind on rent. Landlords across the United States are still owed about $27.5 billion. (Monica Rodman, Sarah Hashemi/The Washington Post)

Wall Street investors owned virtually none of America’s single-family homes a decade ago but now own about 2 percent of them, according to the Federal Reserve.

“It’s unlikely that a lot of them are underwater, because the values have been rising. So one opportunity for them is to sell the house and take the gain,” he said.

Small landlords not looking to sell say they hope things will improve, but don’t see it happening anytime soon.

For the past year and a half, Julianna Hernández has seen her income decimated. Of eight apartments in three Chicago buildings she owns, tenants in half of them are not paying, she said. One has not paid in more than a year and has made such violent threats to her that she said she has repeatedly called the police.

Despite her efforts, she said she has not been able to evict the tenant. So she is struggling to make mortgage payments and pay off credit cards she used to pay for repairs.

Hernández says one of her tenants hasn't paid rent in more than a year. (Youngrae Kim for The Washington Post)

“I worked so hard to be where I am,” Hernández said. “I saved and tried to make a better life. And now there is just nothing I can do.”

“Some people do have hardship in their lives, but some people just take advantage of the system,” she added.

Ed Benz manages 47 rental homes in Pittsburgh, some he owns and some he manages for other owners. He said he grew up in a family on public assistance and knows he is better off than many of his tenants, who have lost jobs as home health aides or restaurant staff. But he also doesn’t think the way some policymakers vilified landlords during the eviction debate has been fair.

“It’s what I would call ‘the man’ syndrome. ‘Oh yeah we’re going to stick it to the man.’ Well I grew up in a poor family and I understand that viewpoint. I’ve agreed with it a lot of times,” he said. But he said by preventing landlords from enforcing leases, eviction bans have prevented them from collecting their income while their costs continue.

Benz said he has exhausted his reserves and fallen behind on property tax payments while trying to keep up on other bills, but at times during the pandemic he’s had five units at a time where tenants were behind or paying no rent.

“When you have a prolonged thing like this, those reserves go quickly. And I‘ve been dancing between the raindrops trying to keep things together,” he said.

Carol Kelly, a former office manager who owns six rental homes in Kansas City, said property owners recognize they offer an essential service but said they are the only ones being asked to provide it free.

“What’s the difference between me and a grocery store or a restaurant?” she said. “You would never go into a restaurant and say, ‘Please feed me for the next 12 months and I’ll give an IOU.’ But that is what people are saying to me.”

The disparity between corporate apartment chains cashing in while an estimated 11 million Americans remain behind on their rent payments helped fuel the groundswell of support for another extension of the CDC ban, this time applied to areas with a significant spread of the virus.

Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.), chair of the House select subcommittee on the coronavirus crisis, held a hearing on July 27 taking four corporate landlords to task for their actions evicting residents not covered by the ban and in some cases refusing to accept rental assistance funds designed to keep struggling renters from losing their homes.

“The failure of some large landlord companies to comply with eviction moratoria or to cooperate with rental assistance programs is creating significant hardship for tenants affected by the coronavirus crisis and could contribute to a needless housing crisis as our nation recovers from the pandemic and its economic fallout,” Clyburn said.

A top advocate on behalf of renters, Diane Yentel, president and chief executive of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, told the committee that despite the bans, renters were doing all they could to pay.

“Low-income renters have done all they could do during the pandemic to pay it. They have taken out loans. They have used credit cards. They have put off buying store-bought food or paying for Internet that their children need for virtual school. They have made trade-offs to pay rent when they can, and when they can’t they’ve fallen behind,” she said.

But Bob Pinnegar, chief executive of industry group the National Apartment Association, which represents landlords of all sizes, said the Biden administration has been acting as though there is no consequence to repeatedly extending the moratorium. The day after the CDC announced the new ban, real estate groups in Alabama and Georgia brought a new suit against it, the latest of many.

The CDC's eviction ban has been extended in response to concerns about the spread of the coronavirus. (Andrew Harnik/AP)

“There is a fear in the industry that this could go on and on and on until the Supreme Court intervenes,” Pinnegar said.

In announcing the extension Aug. 3, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky issued a statement saying the moratorium “is the right thing to do to keep people in their homes and out of congregate settings where COVID-19 spreads.” She cited the emergence of the rapidly spreading delta variant of the coronavirus. The new ban covers an estimated 90 percent of the country.

Some landlords and tenants have been able to secure emergency rental assistance through a $46.5 billion aid program designed to prevent evictions. But the program has been frustratingly slow to get off the ground in many parts of the country, and it sometimes requires landlords and tenants to agree on a new set of lease terms — an unlikely prospect if they aren’t on speaking terms.

“You couldn’t create a worse system if you tried,” Pinnegar said.

Treasury officials say the program has already helped hundreds of thousands of renters and that funds are going out more quickly since the program launched.

The longer the ban continues, however, the more small, independent landlords — many of them senior citizens — are likely to exhaust their savings and move on. Kelly, who is active in a Kansas City real estate group, said friends and acquaintances in the industry have decided to sell and that foreign investors are snapping up homes.

Benz said he’s seeing a similar trend in Pittsburgh as well.

“I’ve talked to a number of landlords that are just getting out of the business in this hot market, or else are turning their properties into Airbnbs,” he said.

ATTACHMENT FOUR – From the Washington Post

Opinion: THE FEDERAL MORATORIUM LIMBO LAID BARE THE EVICTION SYSTEM’S EXTREME DYSFUNCTION

By Emily A. Benfer. August 13th

Last week’s do-or-die crisis over the federal eviction moratorium reminded us that the housing insecurity faced by millions of Americans is far from over. Though President Biden’s vital decision to issue the moratorium may or may not survive court scrutiny, the fact remains: Our eviction system is broken and requires urgent and fundamental redesign.

In the two days between the expiration of one federal moratorium and the announcement of another, the United States caught a horrifying glimpse of what happens when the eviction system is resurrected. Sheriffs tripled law enforcement teams and express-vaccinated staff to execute a long-awaited onslaught of eviction orders. Judges raced through their calendars and ordered distressed families out of their homes — all before the roughly $46 billion in emergency rental assistance appropriated by Congress reached landlords.

Despite the emergence of the covid-19 delta variant, the response was remarkably different from March 2020, when the pandemic prompted policymakers to prioritize safe shelter and judges to halt evictions.

Courts in a democracy are charged with providing equal access to justice and making decisions based on law and fact. But this is not what happens in today’s eviction courts, which are beset by structural dysfunction.

Tenants don’t always have a right to their day in court. In dozens of states, tenants can’t get a hearing or an appeal unless they pay a rent bond. For example, in Florida, if the tenant is just a day late or a penny short in paying their bond to the court, they automatically lose their home. For tenants already paying most of their income toward rent, the right to be heard is simply unavailable.

If an eviction case does go to a hearing, that “trial” typically lasts two minutes or less. Landlords win the vast majority of eviction cases. In contrast, tenants are rarely given an opportunity to present defenses. In one study, even when tenants had defenses, they were evicted 100 percent of the time.

While in a few states the eviction process can be drawn out for weeks or more — a challenge for some landlords operating at the margins — in most jurisdictions, the deck is stacked against tenants.

Many tenants hear about their cases only three days in advance, if at all, and lose automatically if they fail to appear. An investigative report published by DCist recently found that thousands of tenants in the District of Columbia had been evicted without notice after process servers lied about fulfilling their duties. In Philadelphia, tenants are regularly locked out without notice.

Case outcomes change drastically when tenants have access to a lawyer. In every study of cities with a right to counsel in eviction, the overwhelming majority of tenants represented by a lawyer — including 86 percent in New York City and 93 percent in Cleveland — remained in their homes. Yet, nationwide, tenants cannot obtain counsel in 97 percent of cases, while landlords are represented 80 to 90 percent of the time.

The consequences of these judgments are grave for tenants. In Arkansas, missing rent is a criminal offense that can result in jail time. Even in civil cases, the eviction record itself creates a mark of undesirability — a “Scarlet E” that haunts families for years (even if they win their cases). In some states, such as New York — where the warrant law requires naming all household members to be removed as defendants — that mark can attach even to children.

For pregnant women, eviction can lead to preterm pregnancies and low birth weights. And after eviction, the resulting homelessness, moving from couch to couch, sleeping in public, living in cars and existing in a constant state of peril is traumatic for adults and children, leads to poor health and undermines access to jobs, education, even voting.

That’s on top of the increased risk of covid-19 infection and death associated with eviction. All these harms are borne disproportionately by people of color, women and children.

There are several ways to stop the immediate crisis. Congress can ratify the federal moratorium, and states can require landlords to apply for rent relief before filing to evict. States can also reform eviction laws to prevent and penalize notice violations, and ensure everyone has the ability to be heard.

In addition, states can seal tenants’ records and guarantee a right to counsel for tenants at risk. To support the substantive goal of housing stability, the federal government can fund a permanent nationwide rent-relief program, and states can require landlords to give a reason (known as “just cause” eviction) when seeking to expel a tenant.

Longer term, we recommend that the federal government create a task force on the human right to housing that will include the voices of people most affected by this crisis.

Instead of restarting a broken system, the United States can strengthen our communities by prioritizing housing stability. Access to safe, decent and equitable housing for all is essential to surviving the pandemic — and thriving as a nation.

ATTACHMENT FIVE – From Breitbart

CARLSON ON EVICTION MORATORIUM EXTENSION: ‘HARD TO OVERSTATE’ MOMENTOUS CHANGE — ‘THOUGHT YOU OWNED YOUR HOME, NOT ANYMORE’

By JEFF POOR, 5 Aug 2021 8:32

Wednesday, Fox News Channel host Tucker Carlson warned the Biden administration’s extension of a so-called eviction moratorium had profound consequences for America’s property rights and system of government.

He likened the blatant disregard for a Supreme Court ruling against the moratorium to that of a third-world totalitarian government.

Transcript as follows:

CARLSON: On New Year’s Day of this year, Rochelle Walensky was just a college professor in Massachusetts. You’ve almost certainly never heard of her. You definitely didn’t vote for her at any point because Walensky had never run for office.

As of January 1, her political power was precisely the same as yours, and everyone else’s in this supposedly self-governing Republic.

Rochelle Walensky had one vote out of a nation of 320 million people, and then just a few weeks later, everything changed for her and for the rest of us. Joe Biden appointed Walensky to run the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

At the time, it did not seem like a huge deal. The CDC is not a legislative body, it’s a public health bureau. It was originally designed to fight malaria, and it did a good job.

The CDC now gathers information about diseases and then releases guidance about those diseases to the public. That’s what it does. The CDC does not make laws in this country, it’s not allowed to.

Under the U.S. Constitution, making laws is the exclusive role of the Congress. You vote for your senators and your congressmen, and they decide what the rules are. That’s known as Representative Democracy. It’s been our system for nearly 250 years, but apparently, it’s now over. Rochelle Walensky now makes our laws.

Walensky announced today that she has decided to nationalize America’s rental properties, millions and millions of them from Maine to California. Tenants are no longer required to pay their rent. Property owners cannot evict them under any circumstances. Making someone pay to live on your property is now a federal crime. Try it and you can wind up in prison with hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines.

At the same time, you should know, property owners will still be required to pay the banks that hold their mortgages. There is no moratorium on mortgages. Why? The banks are huge Democratic donors and they are getting the treatment that they paid for.

Sandy Cortez and the squad are not calling for the banks to do their part, so they’re not. It is property owners who will suffer. Many of the members of the rapidly disappearing American Middle Class.

It’s hard to overstate what a momentous change this is. It means among other things that private property no longer exists in the United States.

You thought you owned your home, not anymore. Rochelle Walensky does. She’ll decide who can live there, under what circumstances, and for how long.

Is this a good idea? Of course not. It’s totalitarian.

But there’s an even more pressing question at the center of this — a principle. A principle that defines what kind of country this is and what kind of country it will be going forward, and the question is this: Where did Rochelle Walensky get the power to do this? To suspend private property rights in America?

And the answer is: She simply asserted the power. Walensky claimed she had the authority and no one stopped her from exercising it.

This morning, she signed an official-looking order declaring that her opinion is now the law and so it is the law, but wait, you say. That doesn’t seem very American. Shouldn’t somebody vote on this?

If we are going to continue to pretend this is a democracy — and you hear that on television constantly — then shouldn’t our elected lawmakers make the laws? No, and they’re not going to. Nancy Pelosi has refused to call a vote on the matter and she runs the Congress, she decides.

Meanwhile, most Republicans haven’t said a word about it and that means that an unelected college professor you had never heard of six months ago is now in charge of your country.

If you’re wondering how all of this can possibly be legal, rest assured that it’s not legal. It is not even arguably legal. We know that for a fact.

The Supreme Court has just ruled on this specific question. The Court found that the CDC does not have the right to institute a nationwide eviction moratorium. Period. Only Congress can do that.

Now, the Court didn’t make its guess on their view of this, the Court put this in writing in the clearest possible language. There is no debate about that. The Biden administration just ignored what the Court said.

How can they do that? Well, Congresswoman Maxine Waters of Los Angeles understands exactly how they did it. Waters is hardly a genius. It is likely she has never read an entire book, but one thing Maxine Waters knows very well is how third-world regimes operate. When you want something, you simply take it. You’ve got the guns, who is going to stop you? Might makes right, the Fidel Castro method.

Waters explained that out loud today as she pushed Rochelle Walensky to suspend private property, quote: “I don’t buy that the CDC can’t extend the eviction moratorium,” Waters wrote on Twitter, perfectly aware, as she did that, the Supreme Court has already prohibited this. Who is going to stop them? Who is going to penalize them?

Well, good question. Nobody. And Nancy Pelosi knows that, too.

Pelosi knows that what Rochelle Walensky just did is illegal by definition. She also understands that openly ignoring a Supreme Court ruling will mean the end of our current system, and that’s fine with Nancy Pelosi, quote: “The CDC has the power to extend the eviction moratorium,” Pelosi said. Pelosi didn’t explain where that power might come from, she simply declared that it exists, as dictators do.

Keep in mind that even Joe Biden who knows very little knows that what his administration has just done is against the law. He said that on camera yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I’ve sought out constitutional scholars to determine: what is the best possibility that would come from executive action or the CDC’s judgment, what could they do that was most likely to pass muster constitutionally?

The bulk of the constitutional scholarship says that it’s not likely to pass constitutional muster, number one. But there are several key scholars who think that it may and it is worth the effort —

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: So, the eviction moratorium has been in place for months. It has just been extended as of today. So, people have debated this. Jurists have weighed in on it and so we know it won’t quote, “pass constitutional muster” says Joe Biden. In other words, it is illegal.

The people doing it are criminals. That’s the word we use for people who knowingly break the law, but like most criminals, are not embarrassed by breaking the law. That’s what they do.

Watch Joe Biden’s senior adviser, a thoroughly oily character called Gene Sperling tell you that the rule of law just isn’t relevant here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GENE SPERLING, WHITE HOUSE AMERICAN RESCUE COORDINATOR: To date, the CDC Director and her team have been unable to find legal authority even for a more targeted eviction moratorium that would focus just on counties with higher rates of COVID spread.

This is a President who really understands the heartbreak of eviction. He is — the reason why he is pressing and pressing even when legal authority looks slim is because he wants to make sure we have explored every potential authority.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: These people are so filthy, but they are self-righteous. Did you catch that? We don’t have the legal authority to do what we’re doing, but we’re doing it anyway because who is going to stop us? Republicans? Mitch McConnell? Please.

Mark Milley doesn’t report to Mitch McConnell. Mitch McConnell doesn’t control the FBI or the Intelligence Agencies. Mitch McConnell is unarmed. What’s he going to do about it? Give a grumpy speech and drive back to his condo?

That’s what they’re saying. That’s what criminals always say when they shake you down at gunpoint and make no mistake, that’s exactly what they’re doing because that’s exactly who they are.

ATTACHMENT SIX – from the Washington Examiner

THE EVICTION MORATORIUM IS A HOUSE OF CARDS

by Joshua Crawford & Abigail Hall | August 09, 2021 10:00 AM

Millions of tenants are behind on their rent. Absent some sort of intervention, these leaseholders face the real chance of being evicted from their homes. Due to a federal eviction moratorium, which prohibited landlords from enforcing evictions during the pandemic, many renters haven’t paid rent for months.

In many cases, tenants owe more than a year of back rent but are still in these leased properties.

Earlier this month, the Biden administration, through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, issued a new eviction moratorium to run through Oct. 3. This "targeted" moratorium applies to parts of the country experiencing "substantial" or "high" spread of COVID-19. This includes the vast majority of the United States.

But like the original eviction moratorium and its two extensions, this policy has two major problems.

First, it’s unlawful. Second, it will undoubtedly backfire.

From an originalist judicial perspective, these moratoria are unconstitutional. Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, commonly referred to as the Commerce Clause, allows for Congress "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes." By contrast, most rental agreements are exclusively intrastate commerce, not the kind of interstate commerce encompassed by Article 1, Section 8.

The short answer is that the CDC doesn’t have any such authority, and for that matter, neither does Biden. One of the fundamental functions of government is to protect private property rights. These policies don’t just fail in that regard, they actively undermine those rights. The eviction moratorium is nothing short of government-sanctioned theft.

There are further problems with these policies. They will undoubtedly serve as a lesson in unintended consequences. While many individuals who missed rent payments during the pandemic faced legitimate economic hardship, economics teaches us that people respond to incentives. While these moratoria don’t offer tenants a free lunch (they still owe back rent), they do allow people a temporarily "free" place to live — and those places belong to someone else.

Landlords have been all but neglected in these discussions. While the moratoria may have paused evictions, it hasn’t paused mortgage payments, property taxes, insurance premiums, or upkeep costs for property owners. Although people are quick to demonize landlords as cruel and obscenely wealthy conglomerates, this is far from the reality. Some 22.7 million rental units are owned by individuals. About half of all landlords are in this "mom-and-pop" category, meaning they own only one or two rental properties. One-third of these landlords come from low-to moderate-income households. It’s easy to see how this could lead to financial ruin for many property owners.

The amount owed to landlords is not small. A recent federal lawsuit claims that landlords are out $26.6 billion due to the moratoria. Making matters worse, that figure assumes the almost $47 billion in federal funds allocated for rent relief actually makes it to renters and, eventually, their landlords. So far, only $3 billion has made it out the door.

Unable to make mortgage payments, many landlords will likely lose their properties, thus exacerbating an existing national housing shortage. In the future, landlords leery of finding themselves in another situation where they cannot evict a nonpaying renter may decide to forgo renting their property. Those who do decide to rent will meticulously screen rental applicants, require higher rents and higher deposits. Tenants with poor rental histories or without cash reserves will be out of luck. The most disadvantaged among us will lose the most.

So what is to be done?

There are no easy answers. One option is to allow renters and landlords to make their own arrangements. Evictions are time consuming, costly, and put property at risk. Landlords want to avoid them, and many are willing to work with their current tenants on payment plans. The quickest way to correct this problem, however, is by getting people back to work. This current policy promotes the opposite.

Joshua Crawford is the executive director of the Pegasus Institute, a public policy think tank in Louisville, Kentucky.

Abigail R Hall is an associate professor of economics at Bellarmine University, a senior fellow at the Pegasus Institute, and a Young Voices contributor.

ATTACHMENT SEVEN – from Jacobin

WE NEED A WORLD WITHOUT LANDLORDS

BY BEN BURGIS

Recent battles over eviction moratoriums and homeless encampments have shown the depressing limits of our political horizons. We need to envision a radically different system that guarantees everyone the right to decent, stable housing.

An estimated 15 million men, women, and children faced eviction last week when Missouri representative Cori Bush launched her protest on the steps of the Capitol. It worked, for now. Joe Biden was pushed to announce a new sixty-day moratorium on evictions (although it’s more limited in scope than the old one).

That’s very good news for the millions of tenants that were at risk of getting thrown onto the streets. Some of them might have ended up sleeping in the kinds of homeless encampments that the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has been busy forcibly removing this week. Progressive activists in Los Angeles have vigorously opposed the anti-homeless crackdowns, just as progressives around the country spoke out against letting the eviction moratorium expire.

These are easy calls. The criminalization of desperate people sleeping in parks is an obscenity. So is telling millions of people who are economically struggling but at least have a roof over their head to pack up their things and leave — even if they have nowhere to go.

In both cases, though, the limits of the current housing debate are depressingly apparent. If the Supreme Court allows Biden’s new moratorium to stand, an estimated 6.5 million renters (whose households make up the 15 million people in danger of losing their housing) will face the same problem on October 3. Some will have gotten back on their feet financially by then, and perhaps a few will have managed to pay back their landlords. But many, many others will simply owe two more months in back rent.

On the issue of homeless encampments, it’s certainly true that police crackdowns were the worst possible outcome. But forcing people to live in inhumane conditions is a close second. As left-wing journalist Ana Kasparian has rightly emphasized, the encampments are horror shows of crime, violence, and drug abuse. That’s not the fault of residents themselves, who are victims of a brutal social system. But it is pretty bleak that the comparatively progressive option in the current debate is to let people continue to suffer.

We desperately need a more ambitious vision.

No More Landlords

The Left is far from controlling the levers of the US state. In fact, we control so few that a democratic socialist congresswoman seeking to influence events had to resort to sleeping on the Capitol steps to get the attention of the media and the president. But we should at least have a clear vision of a better alternative going forward. That means explaining what we would do if we were in power.

First, pre-October rent shouldn’t just be postponed but forgiven entirely. Housing owned by landlords who couldn’t take those losses could be bought up on the cheap by the federal government. Any financial contribution tenants are expected to make to their buildings’ upkeep after that should be indexed to income level. An unemployed person shouldn’t be charged anything to stay in their apartment.

All the people sleeping in parks in Los Angeles and other cities should be given normal, permanent housing where they aren’t subjected to degrading rules that require them to leave behind most of their possessions — or even their beloved pets. In quite a few cases, this would also need to be paired with well-funded mental health services and addiction counseling.

In the long term, our goal should be a world where landlords don’t exist. The existence of this class distorts all our debates about housing. The eviction moratorium would never have been in any danger of expiring, for example, if landlords didn’t wield massive political influence.

Landlords typically don’t build the housing they buy and rent out. Some small-scale landlords do upkeep themselves instead of hiring maintenance workers, but that doesn’t make rent their salary for performing this work, any more than the owner of a small restaurant who sweeps the place up himself is a janitor. There’s no reason that apartments can’t be built, or necessary maintenance can’t be done, without landlords taking their cut in the process.

The idea of a socialist vision of housing might conjure up bleak images of concrete apartments in 1970s Moscow where multiple families were forced to share the same kitchen. But we don’t need to limit our imaginations to that model and the dystopian housing system of the United States.

In Vienna right now, 62 percent of the population lives in “social housing” that, depending on the building, is owned either by the city or by nonprofit housing associations. It’s one of the crowning achievements of 1920s and ’30s “Red Vienna,” when Social Democrats ran the city.

Social housing in Vienna consists of attractive single-family apartments. There are strict controls on what can be charged in rent, with the rest of the tab picked up through progressive taxation. Unlike public housing in the United States, it’s not economically segregated. Middle-class tenants are not only permitted to live in social housing but sometimes eager enough to do so that they wait “a year or two” until a spot opens up.

This is an extremely attractive model, but it doesn’t quite get us to a society without landlords. If the only options were buying your own home or living in Red Vienna–style social housing, what about those waiting lists? Would we be back to Soviet-style housing arrangements after all?

It’s easy to say that we would spend so much on building social housing (after nationalizing landlord-owned buildings) that there would never be a lag between housing needs — as people move from place to place, leave old relationships and start new ones, or simply grow up and move out of their parents’ housing — and new units becoming available in the right cities at the right times, but this might not be plausible. Perhaps some privately owned housing responsive to market pressures would be necessary to fill the gap. Even so, there’s no reason this would have to be landlord-owned housing rather than housing owned by associations of tenants using seed money from publicly owned banks.

Why We Need a Positive Vision

Everything I’ve described already exists in the real world. Vienna exists. Tenant-owned housing exists. Public development banks exist. In a fully landlord-less housing system, these elements would simply be combined in a way they haven’t been before.

The point of putting forward this vision isn’t to suggest that it’s the necessary end point. Perhaps an even better housing system will be possible further down the line. Perhaps one day we can de-commodify housing entirely without replicating the problems of previous attempts. I don’t know. My point is simply that, one way or other, we can realistically move past the current system.

As battles over eviction and homeless encampments show, we’re nowhere close to this horizon of socialist housing. But we need to have such an animating vision as we navigate the often-hellish choices of contemporary capitalism. When the alternatives we advocate are only slightly better than the worst-case scenarios — and there are sometimes very real trade-offs in both directions — it’s much harder to get people excited about fighting for (comparatively) progressive outcomes.

We need a vision of a qualitatively better world — one where housing rights reign and landlords are a thing of the past.

ATTACHMENT EIGHT – FROM daily mail UK

LA MAYOR ERIC GARCETTI SIGNS ORDER CRIMINALIZING HOMELESSNESS

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti recently signed into law an ordinance that criminalizes homelessness in most parts of the city, a motion that has drawn just as much fierce support by some as it has opposition by others.

The law specifies certain times and locations where it will be 'unlawful for a person to sit, lie, or sleep, or to store, use, maintain, or place personal property in the public right-of-way'.

The ordinance, which will go into effect 30 days from last Thursday, makes it illegal to sit, lie, sleep, or set up encampments within 500 feet from 'sensitive use' properties, which include schools, parks, libraries, overpasses, underpasses, freeway ramps, tunnels, bridges, pedestrian bridges, subways, washes, spreading grounds and active railways.

The ordinance also makes it a crime to sit, lie, sleep, or set up encampments within 1,000 feet of or on a 'street, sidewalk, or other public right-of-way'.

Individuals who violate the law will be issued a citation from the City's Administrative Citation Enforcement Program.

However, individuals who refuse to comply or obstruct a city employee from enforcing the law will either face a misdemeanor charge, imprisonment for up to six months in the LA County jail and/or a fine of up to $1,000, as laid out in Section 11 of the Los Angeles Municipal Code.

Garcetti and other proponents of the law say that its intentions are not to punish unhoused individuals, but to promote public safety and cleanliness.

'The homeless crisis has reached epic proportions across the City of Los Angeles,' the ordinance reads. 'It is the obligation of the City to keep its public rights of way clean and available for public use, and to protect the public health, safety, and access by City constituents.'

Garcetti signed the law Thursday, following a 13-2 vote in favor by the Los Angeles City Council.

The following night, about 50 protesters rallied outside Garcetti's house with some leaving protest placards on the sidewalk and others vandalizing the exterior with toilet paper and graffiti.

Police in riot gear responded to the protest and cleared the area, but no arrests were made, according to Fox News.

According to the Greater L.A. Homeless Count, there were 66,433 homeless people living on the streets of LA County in 2020, a 12.7 percent

increase from the previous year.

Over the last decade, Los Angeles County has seen the number of homeless double from about 40,000 to about 80,000, according to the Los Angeles County Homeless Count.

Mike Bonnin, one of two city council members who voted against the ordinance, said at Wednesday's city council meeting, 'There are far more people who want housing than we have sufficient resources for.

He added that the city only has enough shelter beds for 39percent of the unhoused population, but 'What about the other 61%? Where can they go? Where can they sleep?'

Bonnin previously spoke out against the motion and gave a personal anecdote about his experience with homelessness, as reported by Spectrum News.

'Some of those nights I slept in the car, some of those nights, when my car was in the shop, I slept on the beach,' he said.

'I cannot tell you how much turmoil is in your heart when the sun is setting and you don't know where to sleep. I cannot tell you how demoralizing and dehumanizing and defeating that experience is when you don't know where you're going to sleep.

'That's what it comes down to for me ... where can people go, where can people sleep when they do not have an alternative.'

Ricci Sergienco, of the LA People's City Council, spoke at Wednesday's meeting against the ordinance and said that it's 'basically saying that poor people just existing will be criminalized'.

He added, 'This law unfairly paints unhoused people as a threat to children and the public. The lack of appropriate housing is the real threat to public safety.

'I've been down on the Venice boardwalk in the middle of the night for the past month or so and the cops are moving people from 2 to 5am. How the city is handling the homelessness crisis is not appropriate. And if you all think that you're all doing a good job, you should take a long look in the mirror.'

Many took to Twitter to express their dissent for the new law. Yoonj Kim, an MTV News correspondent, tweeted, 'So instead of responsible policy reform around affordable housing, zoning, or even rent control, Los Angeles—the epicenter of the housing crisis—has officially criminalized the act of sitting and sleeping outside.

A left-leaning podcaster called Lefty-Desiree McLefty Face, Milkshake Whisperer, tweeted, 'The City Council in Los Angeles is pretty much outlawing homeless instead of addressing the very real structural issues that cause it. Minimum wage should be around 30 an hour for starters. Tonight protesters will be heading to Garcetti's house to press the issue.'

But some residents were just as passionate about their support for the law. Sulman Mancus, who's on the board of a local condominium association, spoke in favor of the motion and said that when it comes to seeing dozens of homeless people camped on public streets, 'we all feel our hands our tied to do anything about it.'

'Children are feeling unsafe, people are feeling unsafe in my building to walk around the neighborhood,' he added. 'Previous speakers do not speak for most Angelenos. We are a compassionate city, the city council members are compassionate as well, but there has to be a balance between a full heart for people that do not have homes and also a full heart for our community and our sense of neighborhood and safety.'

Councilman Paul Krekorian, who voted in favor of the law, told The Independent earlier this month that the law does not make it illegal to be homeless. 'It does not make any conduct that is fundamental to being human illegal,' he said.

'What it does do is it guarantees that we will reestablish passable sidewalks. It protects the users of our public infrastructure and the unhoused residents of our city from being put into positions of interaction with automobiles, around loading docks, driveways and so forth. It guarantees access to our fire hydrants, entrances to buildings.'

A statement the mayor's office sent to The Independent describes the city's attempt to find a balance between public safety and the homeless crisis.

It reads, 'We don't need to choose between keeping our public spaces clean and safe, and connecting Angelenos experiencing homelessness with the housing and services they so desperately need.

'We can and will do both, and I support the council action because it will help achieve that goal in a way that is humane, compassionate, and responsive to the urgent needs in our communities.'

Meanwhile, the morning Garcetti signed the law, authorities cleared dozens of homeless encampments dotting Venice Beach and, starting last Friday, camping is no longer be permitted in the area.

The homeless encampments have become a virtual tent city with violent crime and rampant drug use, pushing tourists and families out. City workers began the process of tearing down homeless camps along Venice Beach ahead of the July 4 weekend this year.

The move followed the discovery of a dead homeless man in his tent on the boardwalk, according to Fox News. And another homeless man was arrested in connection with the killing.

Fox News reported that Venice had a 132 percent increase in assaults in which a homeless person was a suspect in 2021 and a 126 percent increase in cases in which a homeless person was a victim as of the end of May.

Meanwhile, robberies in which a homeless person was the victim increased by 1,100 percent while robberies in which homeless person was a suspect increased by 160 percent.

Felony arrests have increased by 81 percent so far this year, the outlet reported.

ATTACHMENT NINE - From la weekly

GARCETTI HOME VANDALIZED AFTER SIGNING HOMELESS ENCAMPMENT BAN

BY ISAI ROCHA. JULY 30, 2021

The Getty House, which is the official residence for mayors of Los Angeles, was vandalized Thursday night with messages that opposed the recent ordinance affecting homeless encampments.

While it is not clear if Mayor Eric Garcetti was home during the protest, the home’s gate pillars and nearby sidewalks were covered with graffiti reading, “Fuck Garcetti,” “Housing is a right” and “Repeal 41.18 D,” which is the municipal code that Garcetti signed into law Thursday.

The newly signed law will not be allow homeless encampments within 500 feet of schools, parks, bridges, overpasses, libraries and homeless shelters. The ordinance will also restricts people from sleeping in these areas, as well as sidewalks and bike lines that would stop the flow of traffic.

“I never understood how fining people who have no money or threatening them with arrest will help their situation,” Kenneth Mejia, candidates for Los Angeles City Controller said Thursday. “How will they pay for these fines? Where will they go if they’re not sure where they can sleep or rest?”

The city council voted 13-2 in favor of the ordinance, citing that encampments interfere with the American Disabilities Act, as well as council president Nury Martinez stating that a homeless lifestyle cannot be “normalized.”

“We cannot normalize people living in encampments,” Martinez said. “We’ve got to encourage the building of homeless shelters, housing has to be the priority… getting people off the street as soon as possible needs to be the mandate of the day. Encouraging people to remain on the street and normalizing this way of living and allowing people to die is not something that I will ever accept.”

The law will go into effect 30 days after its signing on July 29.

ATTACHMENT TEN - from business insider

LA MAYOR SIGNS ORDINANCE PROHIBITING 'SITTING, LYING, OR SLEEPING' NEAR STREETS, BRIDGES, SCHOOLS, WHICH CRITICS SAY CRIMINALIZES HOMELESSNESS

BY Taiyler Simone Mitchell, Jul 29, 2021, 11:20 PM

The mayor of Los Angeles signed an ordinance Thursday making it unlawful for people to "sit, lie, sleep" or otherwise situate their belongings in the "public right of way" — a law that will almost exclusively disenfranchise the unhoused population of LA.

According to the official action, Mayor Eric Garcetti had until August 9 to act. He signed a day after the Los Angeles City Council voted in favor of the ordinance 13-2, as mentioned in a previous Insider article.

The ordinance goes into effect 30 days from signing, CBS LA reported. Garcetti did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

The ordinance restricts "sitting, lying, or sleeping or storing, using, maintaining, or placing personal property in the public right-of-way." The measure makes it illegal to sit, lie, sleep, or set up encampments within 500 feet from "sensitive use" properties, such as schools, parks, and libraries, and other areas such as "overpasses, underpasses, freeway ramps, tunnels, bridges, pedestrian bridges, subways, washes, spreading grounds, or active railways."

The ordinance also makes it illegal to sit, lie, sleep, or set up encampments within 1,000 feet of or on a "street, sidewalk, or other public right-of-way."

LA residents and organizations have posted their grievances and opposition to the ordinance on Twitter, and have made plans to camp outside of Garcetti's house in protest.

Mike Bonin, one of two city council members who voted against the ordinance, noted during the vote that the city only has enough shelter beds for 39% of the unhoused population.

"What about the other 61%?" Bonin asked.

Bonin shared his own story of being unhoused during the meeting.

"Some of those nights I slept in the car, some of those nights, when my car was in the shop, I slept on the beach. I cannot tell you how much turmoil is in your heart when the sun is setting and you don't know where to sleep," he said, according to Spectrum News. "I cannot tell you how demoralizing and dehumanizing and defeating that experience is when you don't know where you're going to sleep."

He said the ordinance tells people where they cannot sleep, but it doesn't tell them where they can sleep.

"That's what it comes down to for me ... where can people go, where can people sleep when they do not have an alternative," Bonin said.

Read more about the anti-homeless ordinance here.

ATTACHMENT ELEVEN – From the New York Post

LAS VEGAS LANDLORD KILLS TWO TENANTS, INJURES ANOTHER OVER UNPAID RENT

By Emily Crane, August 13, 2021 2:00pm

A Las Vegas landlord accused of shooting dead two female tenants and critically injuring a man in a dispute over unpaid rent allegedly said he’d “handle it his way” instead of trying to evict them.

Arnoldo Lozano Sanchez, 78, shot the three victims inside his home early Wednesday after an argument broke out regarding the rent, police say.

The landlord, who also lived at the home, allegedly laughed and smiled as he opened fire on the victims in their rooms, according to an arrest affidavit obtained by the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

It is not clear how much rent the tenants owed.

Police say a witness told them Sanchez had become enraged about the unpaid rent in the days leading up to the shooting spree.

When the witness told Sanchez to try to evict the tenants through the court system, Sanchez allegedly said he would “handle it his way.”

Another tenant inside the home at the time of the shooting told police that he heard the two female victims scream as multiple gunshots rang out.

The tenant said he heard Sanchez tell the male victim that “he would not be able to run from him anymore.”

Police found one of the female victims dead on the driveway when they arrived.

The injured man came stumbling out of the home suffering from multiple gunshot wounds, according to police.

They later found the other woman’s body inside the home.

A gun was found stashed under a bush outside the house.

Sanchez, who is charged with murder and attempted murder, has been denied bail.

During a brief court appearance, Sanchez told the judge: “I don’t know what I’m being accused of.”

Prosecutors argued Sanchez had a clear motive.

“He clearly wasn’t just trying to scare or batter these victims, but to kill them,” Chief Deputy District Attorney Tim Fattig told the court.