MIAMI VALLEY — The Miami Valley’s elevated Covid levels are protecting renters from getting kicked out of their homes or apartments.
This week, the CDC signed a new order, banning evictions in places with substantial or high Covid spread.
The CDC said counties with 50 to 100 Covid cases per 100,000 people have substantial Covid spread. The agency defines counties with more than 100 Covid cases per 100,000 people as counties with high Covid spread. Miami Valley counties all fall into either the “high” or “substantial” classifications.
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Tom Maultsby president and CEO of United Way of the Greater Dayton Area thinks the moratorium is necessary.
He explained, in the counties his organizations serves, the most recent data shows, more than 30 percent of people fall below the poverty line or just above it:
- Montgomery County: 40 percent
- Preble County: 32 percent
- Greene County: 31 percent
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Maultsby said the CDC’s new two month moratorium on evictions will stop people from becoming homeless.
“I think it absolutely will prevent some major issues that would have occurred immediately, think that would have been far greater than we can handle,” Maultsby said.
One of the intended purposes of the order is to mitigate Covid spread within crowded, congregate or shared living settings, or through unsheltered homelessness.
“We don’t want families to become homeless,” Maultsby said.
The CDC doesn’t either. Its order said vaccination efforts have been slower among people most likely to be evicted, and stopping evictions gives people who get Covid a place to quarantine so they don’t spread the virus.
Maultsby said the moratorium will give the agencies and organizations that give financial assistance to struggling people more time to help.
“We need for that to happen so that these systems that are required to process people and to get them help don’t become log jammed,” Maultsby said.
The CDC’s moratorium expires October 3rd.
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