 The moratorium on evictions is set to expire at the end of this month. The CDC extended it for another 30 days and now we're approaching a deadline. So in Jackson, Mississippi, Demia Burse worries about driving home from her housekeeping shift at a hotel and finding her life upended. Her apartment complex in North Jackson has already told her it wants her out. Burse, a mom of three, fell behind on rent after she left her job as a certified nursing assistant to help her children with virtual school. Burse started asking Hines County in April for help paying two to three months of back rent, but she questions whether any of the 25 billion Congress approved in December for emergency rental assistance will reach her landlord in time. And this story is a microcosm of a bigger issue because a lot of Americans currently are wondering what's going to happen come August 1st. I pray to God when I get home my stuff's not sitting outside, Burse said. While Burse is seeking assistance locally, Mississippi separate federally funded 186 million statewide program has faced its own trials as of July 13th. The Mississippi Home Corporation, which oversees paying out the funds had distributed 10 million or just about 6% of the money. The sparse spending isn't isolated to Mississippi. Only a fraction of the country's funds are expected to be distributed before the eviction moratorium expires at the end of July. NBC News contacted all 50 states in the District of Columbia about their emergency rental assistance programs and analysis of responses from 41 states found that 26 of them, 26 states, had distributed less than 10% of their first allocations, although several programs had just begun distributing money in June. The reasons the aid hasn't reached frustrated landlords and nervous tenants are complex from the inevitable stumbles that come with setting up new programs to software woes to varied degrees of hesitancy among states to sign off on payments without extensive documentation of need. What's clear is the fallout could be punishing for generations. So this is potentially catastrophic and it's not like we haven't already had a housing crisis in the United States, but it's about to get a lot worse. So I wanted to ask Amy about the situation. Amy has been a long time housing advocate. What are your thoughts on this? What do you think can happen? Is there going to be another extension? Give us basically some general takeaways here. I think it's going to be the biggest mistake of Joe Biden's tenure as president if he allows the moratorium to expire. During the Trump administration, the CDC went ahead and pulled blank because it was a public health crisis. And we are seeing a similar instance right now where it is to a public health crisis with the Delta variants leading to the number of cases that we saw in February of 2021. So this is gross negligence on all fronts and basically it is looking to be about 7% of total allocated funds for the first emergency rental assistance program that's ER1 that has reached the hands of either tenants or landlords who were applying for assistance on behalf of their tenants. We're not even there with the second ERA funding that is around $22 billion. So with the amount of money that's currently in transit or unaccounted for because states were left to their own devices to find the best or optimal program available, there has been a lot of delay in getting the money from the states to the applicants. To be honest, the Treasury Department hasn't even allocated its full funding for the first ERA program, which makes it seem highly unlikely that the government can feel comfortable or confident with the decision to go ahead and lift the ban on evictions when they haven't even fulfilled their obligations to providing the full amount of funding to the states for the first program, much less the second. So what's going to maybe happen is the states that have extended their own statewide moratorium, they will offer those protections to their tenants. Tenants who are in states that do not have a state or a local eviction moratorium, they will be at risk for eviction and the total at this at this juncture is looking to be somewhere between 7 and 10 million people who could be at risk for eviction, could be completely displaced from their homes, dispossessed during this new wave of Delta variants that's more deadly, more infectious, and it's really coming down to the CDC and the Biden Administration by extension and their failures to understand the severity of what is happening right now. Unemployment is still incredibly low, people are being punished for being in the wrong sector, losing their jobs, and then at the mercy of the state to provide them with the funding that they applied for, they did all of the right procedures, they went through the proper channels and I can't believe that the burden is disproportionately falling so heavily on tenants who literally did nothing wrong other than you know experience unemployment and fall behind on the rent. Yeah, yeah I wanted to also ask Jen because you're pretty involved in your community what are the thoughts out in in Florida because I know that you have a lot of people who are also wondering what's going to happen, I know somebody personally in Portland who has a lot of back rent that that is due and so what's what's going on in in Florida? Uh it's I mean it's really bad here and and and we not only have a severe homeless problem but we have a severe criminalization of homelessness problem so so what we're seeing is and this is you know I think more prevalent in Miami-Dade where they come and do sweeps but they do it in Fort Lauderdale they do it in Brower too and so it's people not only have nowhere to go but then they're being criminalized for having nowhere to go so it's definitely a big problem we we have I think what is it the largest income inequality so I mean like our housing crisis is horrible nobody can afford to live here that works here and it's really really challenging on a good day so we're going to see a lot of that seven to ten million people or whatever the number is are going to be down here and it's it's a real problem but I just wanted to say that the reason that these states aren't getting like aren't doing the funding from what that article says was like all the bureaucracy and validating this and double checking that and I just like to point out that basically what we're talking about is some sort of means testing situation that's going on and had we just given everybody two thousand dollars a month in the beginning of this thing then we wouldn't have to be wasting our time with sitting there means testing who can and should and could and what that's the problem that's why so it's like if we didn't even have like we shouldn't even be having this discussion you know it's just silly anyway that was that was my point like the hold up is that yeah and you know the thing that's frustrating is that what what government officials don't necessarily realize is that just because somebody wasn't technically below the poverty line before the pandemic that doesn't mean that their situation hasn't changed financially because of the pandemic and so it's it's really frustrating to see just this this iceberg dead ahead that we are going to hit in a couple of days and I wanted to ask have what is the situation in the UK because I feel like the United States has been like one of the worst in the developed world as to how they've handled the pandemic but how is the UK government just more broadly speaking addressing the pandemic and the housing crisis and whatnot yeah I guess I had two separate issues I always say about the US it's like the most cut by capitalism country and on earth because like you don't even have like the very basic necessities of universal healthcare for example and it's not even like part of the wider debate like Joe Biden isn't like I said to you before the show Joe Biden isn't fighting off Democrats who are forced into past universal healthcare really like there's obviously like a significant movement but like he does not feel the pressure to make that part of his agenda but in terms of coronavirus it's quite similar like people like begging for two thousand dollars and Joe Biden not even like how much do you send in the end was it one thousand four hundred was that his his check he said it was one thousand four hundred because that was in addition to the six hundred that was initially sent in in December but yeah it was 1400 overall yeah so in terms of the UK the main the main help was um this thing called the furlough scheme is that you could be furloughed from your job and get paid 80% of your salary so I know my girlfriend was for like five months getting paid like quite a decent amount of your salary and you're basically staying at home so it's a bit of a luxury for some people but obviously the fret is there your job might not actually exist after the furlough scheme so that's something that has been renewed a lot of times but in terms of like the housing crisis it's kind of like the US you're pretty screwed if you've lost your job and um you know you're you're living paycheck to paycheck we have something called universal credit but it's pretty notorious for being quite a brutal system it's basically the Tory government I think is in 2010 they basically made all the benefits one single thing and basically you have to go through hoops to get it and then you have to be applying for jobs and talking to people all the time it's like looking for a job basically so while they have been better than the United States government like it's crazy there's not like a massive revolt because it feels like um you know they're giving you crumbs and they think you should be grateful why why are they fighting to give you one check what why can the UK with this horrible right wing government like the most right wing government in my lifetime they're giving people loads of their income to help them stay afloat why can't the US do that as well if if the if like this hard right wing government can do it in the UK this so-called you know the most progressive president since FDR cannot give more than a thousand four hundred dollars hardly better than Donald Trump in the end and it's absolutely insane I feel like the US a lot of the problem is you don't realize what the rest of the world's politics are like because that just wouldn't fly like France is like probably like the least cut country that would burn stuff down if they try and raise the retirement age over 62 or something but like the US seriously needs like I guess it's lucky for us because we live in Europe we can just travel really easily but in terms of like the US I think they really need some perspective but in terms of the rent thing specifically the UK is really bad this like the prices for rent are insane I live in London and it's like one of the most expensive places to live in the world like housing prices rent prices so I feel like there's a similar situation but I don't think it's necessarily as severe as the US and that like it seems really really bleak reading that and I watched that documentary about like the Kushner's empire like the landlord empire they have that type of stuff is just like absolutely insane I don't think that like slumlord type of politics is as prevalent in the UK of course exists so I do feel like awful for just generally Americans because lots of you are you know totally nice people you're not crazy Trump supporters but you still get the burden of living in a system where the overtime window is so shifted to the right people are grateful for one check of you know a thousand four hundred dollars it's crazy yeah yeah Lumi I wanted to ask you a question that's a little bit more broad do you feel like and I'm a little bit more doomer lately so this is why I'm passing this question up to you because I feel like you could bring more optimism to the conversation do you feel like it actually is going to get worse before it gets better like I'm not promoting the idea accelerationism that it's good but do you think that there's going to be like is there going to need to be a groundswell of people to actually force the government essentially to take action as it relates to rent because I feel like you know right now so long as people are in their homes things are going to be okay but once people start get getting evicted or the seven to eight million as Amy said like the government has to pay attention at that point if so many people have lost everything what's your overall thoughts on this and if you have any positivity to insert that'd be appreciated but I understand that there's not a lot to work with no yeah absolutely so I what I suppose what I'd say is I hope not I hope that they come to you know they wake up a bit and realize that this would be an absolute tragedy it would be horrifying I think in the article it goes into you know how awful these situations these evictions how long lasting they are on people and I keep coming back to thinking about how people are returning to brunch now that Biden is there and in something I keep thinking is okay well we need to use brunch as a time to build because if we see our fellow citizens going out getting evicted and having these very lasting effects that's weakening us we need to be building on our revolution or whatever you would like to call those changes so I hope not because that is a scary place to be where we have to come forward with a lot of a lot of anger and hurt and trauma um whereas I'd I'd rather us to be able to get together go to brunch that'd be so wonderful to to move forward and say these are the things we need to be doing this is the the revolution whatever you want to call it that we are building into the future yeah yeah no I'm with you right there and part of the reason why I really appreciate people trying to you know stay focused on this issue is because once we pass this cliff it only gets worse like the issue gets worse so I know people who they weren't evicted because of the pandemic but they finally were able to get apartments and then they couldn't afford it their situation changed financially so they had to break their lease and then once this happens once you break your lease if you're evicted I mean getting an apartment again once you get back on your feet is so difficult and before we move on to the next topic I wanted to have Amy plug her a medium article about this because I think people really need to educate themselves because that's that number one uh in fighting back because if you if you don't like housing in America is a very complex and convoluted issue perhaps not as complex and convoluted as like health care but it's still really like this is a really huge issue and it varies depending on the area that you live in Amy can you plug that article yeah um the name of it is allowing the eviction moratorium to expire before the treasury department has even completed its first round of funding seems highly suspect I just took like a I just very quickly like a little snippet from the article and made it the title but it's on it's on my sub stack it's my second article that I've written I'm very new to this my first article was about the acquisition of single family homes from wall street backed entities and that is titled but Blackstone all my single family homes hate Blackstone and that is an incredibly important piece to understand what is happening right now how private equity firms capitalized on the precarities tied to the 2008 housing collapse before closure crisis and how they're repeating history right now so what we are experiencing right now with the housing market and what looks to be the next foreclosure crisis it's not just going to be the people who are living in single family homes and suburbs they are at risk there is a 2.8 percent rate of delinquencies right now but the reason why we are seeing a really high barrier of entering to the homeowners market is because the Federal Reserve has been pumping money directly into the economy by way of purchasing mortgage backed securities the purposes for this was to keep interest rates down so what Blackstone did and a whole bunch of other private equity firms they went in they bought up as many single family homes as they could during the months of March April May of 2020 they locked in that really low interest rate they took as many homes off the market they were paying with cash competing with owners or prospects who were looking to enter the market they were kicked out of that prospect and now we're seeing a decline in the total number of sales while the value of the homes have steadily risen and the price of homes have steadily risen too so that is what we are seeing right now with the overall housing market and what is likely to occur is a small foreclosure crisis with the rental property investors who took advantage of this time period where banks weren't necessarily providing loans private equity firms were and that could be kind of a second market collapse that we see from the single family residential market because people cannot pay their rents so some tenants who can't pay their rent might have put a little burden on the landlords who can't pay the mortgages and understanding understanding that this this new iteration of the securities market that could lead to another huge bailout is what is likely to occur in this next potential market collapse