NLIHC and the National Housing Law Project (NHLP) sent a letter on September 15 to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, HUD Secretary Ben Carson, Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, and Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mark Calabria urging the agencies to require federally supported rental property owners and housing authorities to provide tenants written notice of their rights under the federal eviction moratorium and steps they must take to be protected.
Since the CDC eviction moratorium was announced, corporate landlords have filed more than 900 eviction cases across eight metropolitan areas, despite the public health threat that evictions pose during COVID-19. In response, NLIHC and NHLP urge that federal agencies: 1) require housing providers to send a flyer with a description of the CDC order and its protections to tenants and include a copy of or link to the CDC hardship declaration, and 2) require housing providers to provide the flyer to a tenant when they serve of a notice of nonpayment of rent.
Federal agencies should provide property owners with copies of the declaration form and other materials in various languages to distribute to all households. Until declarations are prepared in other languages, federal agencies should use materials developed by NLIHC and NHLP.
Read the letter here.