As American households are still recovering from the strenuous coronavirus pandemic, difficulties are continuing to arise. With financial strains on many households, over 800,000 tenants in New York alone are behind on rent payments according to NPR News.

With the eviction ban’s expiration around the corner, many New York tenants are worried about the impact of eviction on both their health and financial standing. Although the efforts will prevent mass evictions, extending the eviction ban should not be a priority for the country.

“This moratorium is the right thing to do to keep people in their homes and out of congregate settings where COVID-19 spreads,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said, according to The New York Post.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced pandemic rent relief in just her first week in office.

With surging rent costs in New York City, the budgeting of the rent relief remains in question.

New York City alone has accumulated a debt of over $3.2 billion in rent with hundreds of thousands of tenants left behind on rent, as stated in The New York Times,

The current ban on evictions is set to end on Oct. 3. If the Supreme Court upholds the extension , the nation will continue to drown in debt as a result of overcompensating the homeowners and tenants. The current outstanding amount shows that extending the ban will only worsen the financial health of the tenants.

The priority should be to put efforts and resources into vaccinating the nation’s population, except for the medically exempt. The vaccine significantly reduces the risk of COVID-19 among individuals that are fully vaccinated by over 90%, according to the CDC.

Instead of spending billions on rent relief, these resources should be given as an incentive in receiving the vaccinations or educating the unvaccinated. With the United States staggering just right above half the population in vaccination efforts, it is evident that more must be done to convince the population.

If the nation is concerned about the health risks that mass eviction manifest, the ideal solution would be to put more money into efforts to fully vaccinate the nation. This would prevent tenants from burying themselves in everlasting debt with the help of the government.

Extending the eviction ban will only delay all the consequences rather than alleviate them.