It wasn’t my niche of law so I didn’t pay much attention to the caselaw relating to the CDC’s imposition of an eviction moratorium. I didn’t understand how such a thing could fall within the CDC’s authority, and even so, I didn’t understand how a governmental taking of private property could be constitutional. This isn’t to say that renters weren’t in desperate straits, but that doesn’t mean other people’s property was available for the government to give away. Still, there were people far more knowledgeable, and who cared more, about the issue, so I left it off my plate.

Come this Saturday, the moratorium ends. It could be extended, although that just kicks the can down the road. At that point, something is going to happen. At the moment, the federal government has a program to assist renters who can’t afford to pay. Whether it’s adequate or finely tuned is another matter, but not one relevant to this discussion.

It was a safety net to prevent a mass of homelessness, which is not only a terrible state for people, particularly families, but which gives rise to a host of consequential problems as well. But then, what of the people who used their savings to buy a rental property? They have to maintain it, provide heat in the winter, and depend on it for their sustenance. That’s hard when no rent is being paid.

There are a few distinct groups involved here, and too many people either focus on their own circumstances as if they are the norm, or at least the only party worthy of empathy. You’ve got big landlords and small. The big ones have a legal entitlement to their rent. The small ones are being hurt much like their tenants, some forced to walk away from their buildings, their life savings, knowing that there is no chance of recouping the loss and that they aren’t the group anyone cries sad tears over.

You’ve got tenants who were living hand to mouth, trying their best before the pandemic and, after their job went poof, could barely feed the kids. And you’ve got tenants beating the system because the system made it too damn easy to beat, and who will never pay the back rent whether they can or not. Tenants are neither the inherent good guys nor bad, even though they have access to the sadder story of the moment and the willfully dumb relate to them better, even if nobody mentions that they bought a new car during the pandemic.

To the unwary, the solution seems clear. We need to distinguish by need and by “worthiness.” Whose sad story is really sad, and who’s really scamming the other for a free ride.

Alongside the prospect of a new surge in coronavirus infections, another crisis is on the horizon: A nationwide wave of evictions threatens more than six million families that have fallen behind on rent.

The true extent of the threat has been masked by a national moratorium on evictions. But that ban will expire on Saturday, allowing landlords to start or continue eviction proceedings in most states.

Eviction proceedings aren’t what people think they are for a landlord. There are legal fees. They can take a long time. The eviction won’t happen for months, perhaps a year. And even if the landlord prevails despite the tenant’s complaint that the landlord failed to fix the hole the tenant put in the wall the day before court, there’s almost no possibility that the landlord will collect the back rent.

And then there’s the question of what becomes of the evicted renters?

The numbers in large urban areas are staggering. Nearly 300,000 renters owe an average of $5,300 each in Los Angeles County. In New York City, over 400,000 renters owe a collective $2 billion. Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Miami-Dade, Philadelphia, Phoenix and San Diego all show at least 55,000 families at risk of eviction for nonpayment.

And of course, there is the social justice angle, just in case you forgot who is affected most when a meteor strikes earth.

This crisis also underscores existing inequities in America. Those who’ve lost employment income in the pandemic face three times greater odds that they are in arrears. According to our analysis, being Black means you are approximately twice as likely to be behind on rent, even after accounting for differences in education, employment, living situation and other factors. Hispanic and Asian families are also considerably more likely to have fallen behind than white families (about 10 percent of white households owe back rent).

At the start of the pandemic, cries of anguish rang out, so something had to be done and this moratorium seemed like a reasonable stop-gap measure. It was a reasonable reaction, and the last thing we needed in the midst of a pandemic was to put millions of people, families, children, on the street because jobs disappeared and people were dying. It wasn’t that the plight of small, decent landlords was ignored, but a decision was made that they could weather the storm better than penniless tenants. It was the right call for the moment.

But since then, nobody’s given much thought to how this knee-jerk fix plays out when the moratorium ends.

This is a preventable crisis.

Oh? Well, that’s good to hear.

It should be much easier for families to get access to programs that can help them pay their rent. In addition, states and localities should invest 10 percent of their federal funds in eviction diversion programs, such as legal aid and mediation; these programs could help people who don’t qualify for Emergency Rental Assistance because their incomes are too high.

And this is why we can’t have nice things. We let people who held their jobs during the pandemic get a free ride on not paying rent along with the people who lost their jobs. If their incomes are too high for the safety net, then why should they get a government bail out to pay the rent? Just pay the rent. Yes, there will be burdens, which is unfortunate since we are largely incapable of distinguishing the deserving from the undeserving. But does preventing the crisis mean nobody is ever being responsible because it requires them to make hard  or better choices in how to live their lives,

At the start of the pandemic, we defaulted to helping tenants at the expense of landlords, knowing that there would be some who would take advantage of the situation, as helping the families who would suffer was the critical problem of the moment. At some point that has to come to an end and people have to return to some degree of responsibility. The landlord can’t carry them forever, and contrary to the assumption of those who passionately believe that everything is a right and should be free, since Bezos can pay for it out of pocket change, those of us who pay taxes aren’t going to work in the morning so they don’t have to. The moratorium is over. The rent is due. Pay up.