A Primer On MD's Eviction Crisis, With Tenant Advocate Carol Ott

By Tom Hall,

Published August 5, 2021 at 3:26 PM EDT

Carol Ott is the Tenant Advocacy Director with the Fair Housing Action Center in Maryland, a program of the Maryland Consumer Action Coalition

Now, we’ll try to sort-out the back and forth that’s been going on with the new order issued Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) conditionally extending the moratorium on housing evictions.

It’s been quite a rollercoaster ride, with the White House throwing it in the lap of Congress late last week, just before the previous CDC order expired on Saturday. Rep. Cori Bush, a freshman Congresswoman from Missouri, camped out on the US Capitol steps for several days until action was taken. By Tuesday, the CDC had re-instated the moratorium for people in certain areas, until October 3rd. But the criteria for who qualifies is a moving target, and there’s plenty of confusion.

Housing activists protest evictions in Massachusetts, which recently allowed its sweeping statewide eviction ban to expire. That leaves residents with only a much weaker eviction protection order from the Centers for Disease Control and prevention. — Housing activists protest evictions in Massachusetts, after the state recently let its COVID-era evictions ban expire. A new protection order from the CDC halts tenant evictions, under certain conditions, until October 3rd.

To help us make sense of what’s going on, Tom is joined by Carol Ott. She’s the Tenant Advocacy Director for the Fair Housing Action Center of Maryland, a program of the Maryland Consumer Rights Coalition.

She joins us on Zoom, and as always, we welcome listener comments and questions.