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News from 2020

CRE Asks: What Happens To The Bottom Line When Unemployment Benefits Run Out?


“The flip side of the moratorium is that it’s an unfunded mandate. We’ve been asking the landlords to carry the weight, and the smaller ones especially don’t have the resources to do that. Even larger owners have negative balance sheets and increased costs, especially of maintenance and sanitation.

So there’s a crisis for both renters and apartment owners. We’re headed for a cliff, and it’s approaching fast. The answer is rental assistance at the federal level, because states moratoriums mean people aren’t paying their rent for now, but they will have to eventually.” -David M. Dworkin

Evictions are likely to skyrocket this summer as jobs remain scarce. Black renters will be hard hit.


The moratoriums are a temporary remedy that could lead to a bigger problem for renters asked to quickly catch up on missed payments when the bans lift, said David Dworkin, president of the National Housing Conference, which has called for the creation of a large-scale rental assistance program. “This is a once-in-a-100-year pandemic. It is not unreasonable to expect the government to cover” lost rental income, he said.

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