The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has no expertise in housing issues, has issued its order based on inaccurate facts and wildly exaggerated projections and, in doing so, has violated numerous constitutional and administrative law protections. It was a surprise to see the CDC recently issue an unprecedented order for a national moratorium on evictions for some residents through the end of 2020.

Through the five months of virus closures, Coloradans have continued to make rent payments at a high and near-normal rate. Rent payment rates in April through August have stayed in mid-90 percentiles. As of Aug. 20, 2020, 94.7% of rent payments were paid. That payment rate is only 1.8 percentage points below the same date in 2019.

Additionally, eviction levels are at an all-time low. Since Colorado’s eviction moratorium expired on June 13, 2020, fewer than one-third of the normal pre-COVID-19 evictions have been filed. The only thing abnormal about evictions in Colorado is that they are abnormally low. Over the last 20 years, eviction filings have ranged between 36,500 and 50,200 per year with 88% of those cases settled before a sheriff move-out. The 1,598 evictions filed statewide in August 2020 is fraction of normal and reflects nothing more than ordinary economic friction in a state of 5.8 million people.

What the CDC doesn’t understand (and one wouldn’t expect them to since it’s not taught in medical school) is that housing policy must focus on encouraging one person to loan real property to another. No one will lend property to another if there is not a reasonable process to get the property back. Colorado’s eviction process takes between two and three months (depending on the county) in normal times. A moratorium on this long process destroys the incentives to provide rental housing in the first place and leaves an outright sale as the only safe way of transferring real estate.

The rental housing market is an ecosystem. When residents don’t pay rent, housing providers cannot pay their own employees who have housing expenses and families to support. Further, housing providers cannot pay property and other taxes, which reduces the amount of revenue available to pay teachers, first responders, and even federal agencies that are supposed to be focused on reasonable virus policies.

While the CDC’s moratorium only applies to residents who can income qualify, demonstrate an inability to pay the full rent, have paid the full partial portion of the rent possible, and have exhausted all available rental assistance programs, the moratorium will still hit Colorado’s small housing providers particularly hard. Rental properties of seven units or less make up more than 70% of Colorado’s rental units. Small housing providers don’t have enough customer diversification or capitalization to withstand constant meddling from the federal government, including (and especially) the CDC.

A CDC administrative order confiscating property rights depends on a declaration that it’s based on a health emergency and an inadequate response from the state. With 183 COVID-related executive orders issued by the governor (six directly dealing with eviction moratoriums), the issue fully debated and dealt with in the Colorado legislature, and Colorado’s new $19 million rental assistance programs, EHAP and POP programs by the Colorado Department of Labor now coming on line — it’s impossible to argue that Colorado has neglected this subject. The virus environment is not worse today than it has been during the previous five months (when the CDC chose not to impose such an order).

It’s understandable that the CDC is out of touch with the reality of the housing market, especially in Colorado. Ultimately, the order will make affordable housing less attainable by reducing the supply and availability of rental properties and will hurt the renters it’s meant to help.