Supreme Court Nixes Biden's Eviction Moratorium, But WA's Remains

OLYMPIA, WA — The Supreme Court has overturned the nationwide eviction moratorium, putting potentially millions of Americans at risk of being evicted over the next two months.

Despite that, Washington's own eviction moratorium will be allowed to run its course and expire at the end of September, as planned. The Supreme Court's conservative majority ruled that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Biden administration had not had the authority to impose the moratorium without congressional approval, the Associated Press reports. However, their ruling leaves space for smaller governments, like cities and states, to impose their own moratoriums, which Washington had already done.

As of the latest update to the Evergreen State's moratorium, tenants cannot be evicted for past due rent until Sept. 30, as long as those tenants have "demonstrably taken action to pay rent" like seeking rental assistance. Beginning Aug. 1, renters had to either pay their full rent, pay reduced rent if they have negotiated a deal with their landlord, or seek rental assistance support. Landlords can only evict tenants if none of those actions are being taken, and must offer tenants a "reasonable re-payment plan" before beginning the eviction process.

When Gov. Inslee announced the latest moratorium "bridge" back in June, the state estimated Washington renters owed between 1.1 and 1.2 billion in past-due rent accrued over the past year.

"As we all know, COVID has had a significant economic impact on our state and a lot of Washingtonians are still experiencing financial hardships. That is why I put an eviction moratorium in place last year," Inslee said. "These are all reasonable steps and will help ensure that renters and landlords have the opportunity to receive support and resources that are available to them."

Since then, the state has been working to distributed $650 million in federal relief funding, with the goal of helping than 80,000 Washington landlords and renters — and hopefully avoiding a wave of mass evictions when the moratorium does eventually expire. Some have raised concerns about how slowly government leaders are distributing that funding: earlier this month the Seattle Times found King County had only distributed $6.5 million to help struggling renters and landlords — about 4.5 percent of the $145 million the federal government has given the county for that purpose.

Outside of Washington, the Supreme Court's decision to overturn the ban will impact roughly 3.5 million people, according to Census Bureau data.