As I've said from the very beginning, the people most likely to quit paying and then apply for assistance are the people most likely to have sketchy rental history in the first place. This may be their end. Many tenants took advantage of the eviction moratorium - without justification - and stopped paying rent because they could. They didn't even make partial payments. They cut communication off with the Landlord. Many of them were still working full time, getting stimulus checks, or making a killing on extra unemployment.
Now that the moratorium is over, they've dug themselves in a hole and reach out to government to fix the problem that government created. They'll clamor for money, and they may even catch up or get ahead. But once that well dries out, these Landlords will be ready to throw them out. Do you think the next Landlord will want to accept someone that put the previous Landlord through this nightmare?
I'm not expecting a large number of evictions like CNN predicts, but I do expect a large number of Tenants to be negatively impacted by this for the next few years. It's going to impact those that can least afford it, even if they didn't take advantage of the situation.
@Nathan Gesner, thanks for your post.. I've posted much of your sentiment on many other threads. In short, many of these tenants are taking advantage of a situation that government created. Government has done similar things in the past that they say is "helping" one group of people or another when, in the long run, it hurts the very people they claim they will help. IMO, it's basically liberal politicians creating dependency which creates dependable voters. It's very sad for the whole country.. Bottom line: the people that have been taking advantage of these programs will be hurt the most as landlords will not rent to them in the future.
Full disclosure: during this whole eviction moratorium, we only had one person that we "evicted" due to non-payment. This person said he was applying to various rental assistance programs which we helped him locate. But, he was not willing to follow-through. He then became non-communicative which ultimately led to us doing a "Pay or Quit" notice. He left and we got a much better tenant in the property. At same time, we had two other tenants where their jobs were impacted by COVID. They communicated the situation and we worked with them and all parties stayed in close communication until they were able to get caught up. Most landlords will work with tenants who are communicative and responsible.