The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed a basic fact of American life: When people unexpectedly lose work or face unforeseen expenses, they can’t pay their rent. What’s worse, they often get evicted as a result. As lawyers who represent low-income tenants, we are used to explaining to our clients the legal insignificance of their economic circumstances, however compelling. Your boss cut your hours? Not relevant. Your car needed a $600 repair? No defense. Your child support check didn’t arrive? Not the landlord’s problem. We tell our clients, “The law doesn’t care about that.” We usually follow up with, “It doesn’t seem fair, does it?”

The pandemic, terrible as it is, has given some tenants a reprieve from the usual injustice of eviction. It took the greatest public health emergency in a century, but the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, followed by Congress, has temporarily prohibited evicting tenants who can’t pay rent because of a loss of income or unexpected medical expense. The principle that made this eviction ban possible—that people shouldn’t be rendered homeless and their health jeopardized when they’ve done nothing wrong—should be extended past the Covid-19 crisis.