On Tuesday, vacation rental service Airbnb announced that it will not be allowing landlords to list properties on its site if they evicted people for not paying rent during the coronavirus pandemic.
“With the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s national moratorium on residential evictions set to expire later this month, starting today, Airbnb will ban new US listings when a city notifies us that the listings are located at rental properties where the tenant has been evicted due to nonpayment of rent, and where the tenant had been protected by the CDC moratorium,” Airbnb announced, per The Hill.
Properties that are put up on the website after July 1 will fall under the new measure.
“You can either be a solution to challenges that are out there, or you can be compounding the challenges,” Chris Lehane, Airbnb’s head of policy and communications, told The Washington Post. “We want to be a solution when it comes to economic opportunity.”
The company also said that it created a new portal to “enable governments to manage short-term-rental policies. Lehane said cities could use these tools to flag properties that violate the eviction ban, notifying Airbnb directly. More than 40 governments and tourism organizations around the world have access to those tools,” The Post reported.
Airbnb has reportedly also named Andrew Kalloch to work with cities on the new efforts as its “anti-eviction administrator.” “Kalloch currently serves as the company’s senior policy development manager,” per The Post.
“Over the coming weeks, led by Mr. Kalloch, Airbnb will engage cities on implementing the COVID-19 Renter Protection Policy in their communities. This outreach will include a specific focus on those cities that are experiencing a high rate of evictions,” the company’s statement added.
Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, both the federal government and select states have taken efforts to ban landlords from evicting tenants who were not able to pay their rent, at the direction of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
As reported by The Daily Wire in March, the CDC extended its suggested moratorium on evictions through the end of June, causing some landlords to struggle to keep up with costs.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has presented a historic threat to the nation’s public health,” said CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky in a statement at the time. “Keeping people in their homes and out of crowded or congregate settings — like homeless shelters — by preventing evictions is a key step in helping to stop the spread of COVID-19.”
The ban was originally set to run out at the end of March but was extended. The Biden administration has requested that the Supreme Court further extend the moratorium after a group of real estate professionals asked the Court to end the measure. Smaller landlords have reportedly been harder hit than larger corporations by the efforts.
The moratorium has faced several legal hurdles. As NBC reported earlier this month, a group representing some landlords said that keeping the moratorium “‘will prolong the severe financial burdens borne by landlords under the moratorium for the past nine months.” The emergency application was “directed to Chief Justice John Roberts filed by the Alabama Association of Realtors.”
“‘Landlords have been losing over $13 billion every month under the moratorium, and the total effect of the CDC’s overreach may reach up to $200 billion if it remains in effect for a year.’ With the pandemic winding down the application said, the need for the eviction ban is fading,” the outlet noted.