Rep. Ilhan Omar says mortgage and rent payments should be suspended during the pandemic
A prominent House Democrat is calling for the cancellation of mortgage payments and rent due to the economic impact of COVID-19.
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) made the call in a Thursday tweet.
“Evicting millions of people during a pandemic would be a moral outrage,” Omar tweeted. “Cancel rent and mortgage payments now.”
Omar linked to a CNN article that warned that a “huge wave of evictions” could be coming in January.
Evicting millions of people during a pandemic would be a moral outrage.
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) November 19, 2020
Cancel rent and mortgage payments now.https://t.co/XIggUrRQvz
Currently, an order from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has imposed a moratorium on evictions. However, that order is set to expire at the end of the year, putting up to 13 million renter households at risk of eviction, according to CNN.
Last month, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) warned that the country could face a wave of foreclosures once the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s forbearance programs expire.
“It is unlikely that borrowers will understand how quickly foreclosure could begin” after forbearance ends, Brown wrote in a letter to Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Kathy Kraninger. “If servicers begin the foreclosure process before the borrower has an opportunity to either extend their forbearance or be evaluated for an appropriate modification, it could add unnecessary costs for borrowers, make it harder to complete a request for assistance, and risk triggering foreclosures that could threaten families’ and neighborhoods’ recovery from the pandemic.”
