The White House and a growing number of congressional Republicans support a renewal of the federal evictions moratorium and rental assistance payments in the next economic relief package.

The GOP support is due to the fear of a wave of evictions due to the pandemic downturn. The federal evictions moratorium put in place by the CARES Act relief bill in March expired on July 25.

In Columbus, Ohio, judges have relocated eviction hearings to the cavernous halls of the city’s convention center, to ensure there’s plenty of space for the grim business of throwing families onto the street.

In New Orleans, piles of personal belongings on sidewalks — “eviction cairns,” in the haunting phrase of Sue Mobley, a member of the city’s planning commission — are an increasingly common sight.

Government aid for individuals during the pandemic was speedy but also limited in its duration. The expiration of eviction bans is a test of whether the U.S. will let a health crisis also become a housing crisis.

The first of the month had come and gone, and now in early July the man with the clipboard arrived at the apartments on North Hopkins Street, a plain two-story brick building where grass and weeds grow scraggly along the street and broken furniture lies abandoned around the dumpster out back.