The Centers for Disease Control is issuing a new edict that would impose criminal penalties on landlords that try to evict tenants for failure to pay rent. Would someone please tell the scientists at the CDC to stop trying to be economists?
Increasingly, the CDC is attempting to exert its power over our economy in very strange ways…despite the reality that these scientists don’t have a clue how the real economy works. Think about it. First, they shut us down… now, they’re criminally going after landlords who try to collect rent? Listen to my podcast here for more on the insanity of this approach.
Hey CDC, what about the banks that need the mortgage payments from the landlords? What about the landlord needed to pay the costs to maintain the building? What about taxes? Who, exactly, is supposed to cover all that?
The stupidity of this policy is mind boggling. And although the President encouraged his administration to consider alternate measures to help prevent evictions and unnecessary hardship…this idea is the result of a group of not-so-grounded scientists trying to come up with a quick band-aid to help keep people in their homes during a challenging time. That’s all fine and good and I applaud both the sentiment and the goal… however, they’re going about it all wrong! The landlords, many of whom are middle income earners just trying to get by themselves, are ultimately the ones that will wind up with the short end of this stick.
Indeed, the National Apartment Association says it’s deeply concerned by the order adding that “without direct rental assistance, rents cannot be paid, and owners face a financial crisis of their own. By not being able to maintain properties and pay their mortgages or property taxes.”
Meanwhile, what landlord will want to buy or build housing for the middle class in this new environment? The only markets most landlords will have an appetite for would either be for extremely low-income (so the government pays the rent) tenants or luxury housing where tenants and landlords are not subjected to the same foreclosure issues. Once again, the government contributes to a haves and haves-not, two-tiered economy.
Mark my words: this policy will have the unintended consequence of making housing costs ultimately much higher for the middle class… that is, if they can find any.
