Congress: Respect tenants’ rights to receive notice before eviction
March 2025
The Respect State Housing Law Act (RSHLA) seeks to repeal the CARES Act 30-day eviction notice requirement for families and individuals living in federally-assisted housing and in properties with federally-backed loans.
Big Cities Health Coalition and nearly 250 other organizations are asking Congress prevent a floor vote on RSHLA and vote NO if the bill is brought to the floor.
The CARES Act 30-day notice of eviction requirement prevents eviction and its harms and achieves Congress’s goal of preventing homelessness and helping low-income families and individuals afford safe and decent housing.
According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the 30-day notice requirement greatly reduced evictions in public housing and project-based rental assistance (PBRA) housing. Evictions from PBRA housing alone were reduced by 44% between 2019 and 2022, largely attributed to the 30-day notice.
Federally assisted programs provide support to extremely vulnerable populations, including low-income people of color, families with children, people with disabilities, veterans, and seniors. These groups face eviction at the highest rates. With the critical time provided by the CARES Act notice requirement, families are able to financially recover, pay back late rent, and avoid eviction.
The CARES Act 30-day notice requirement also prevents the countless physical and emotional health harms that are associated with eviction, including all-cause mortality, increased risk of adverse birth outcomes; increased rates of PTSD, depression, anxiety, and suicide; and increased rates of domestic violence and physical and sexual assault, among other negative outcomes. Preventing these harms results in substantial cost savings to communities nationwide: HUD estimates that the 30-day notice requirement in public and PBRA-assisted housing, alone, reduces societal costs by $8.3 to $52.5 million annually.
In light of the ongoing housing crisis in the United States, preventing evictions from federally-assisted and federally-backed housing is paramount. Repealing the 30-day notice will only contribute to rising eviction rates, increase costs for property owners, and penalize the most vulnerable and lowest-income Americans.
More information about the CARES Act 30-day notice can be found in this research brief.
