Can the CDC suspend the laws of physics, and demand a free solid gold toilet for every citizen?

Yes.

You're comparing banning evictions to solid gold toilets?

Interesting.

No, I expect participants in HN discussions to see beyond the first-order results of well-meaning interventions.

Mmhm. Do you own property?

I’ve built several, but currently own none, so I don’t have a dog in this fight. I know many families, though, who have invested their life savings in building rental properties, most often in disadvantaged and working-class communities.

I feel for the poor owners. They are all trying to get out, but I’m sorry to say, I feel they’re doomed.

Well atleast the poor owners won't be getting evicted themselves. I'm sure someone can see the positive here? Your poor owner friends won't be living off the streets.

Why would no one think about the property owners. Who by the way lose a few months of income.

Your property doesn't disappear.

You bet it can disappear! There is no moratorium from the banks - if there is a mortgage on that property, and it's not paid on time, the bank will foreclose and take the house away.

Foreclosures for non payment on mortgages are stopped in many states.

Would've it been better for CDC to stop mortgage foreclosures too? Probably. Would people here still complain of overreach? Probably.

I skipped a few steps; here’s the layman’s interpretation.

Rental stock doesn’t spring into existence; it comes from private investment, predicated on reliable returns made possible by the laws surrounding rental. Suspending those laws in turn destroys this investment/return equation. No more rental stock.

Similar calculus for wage controls; no more profits - no more jobs/wages.

You can demand whatever you want; you just get to live with the results of your demands, long-term.

I’m actually a bit embarrassed to have to lay out such trivial and obvious outcomes of almost comically wrong-headed interventions...

Probably because you don't realize we have more housing than population in the US right now.

Housing is fungible.

Rental housing owners are not.

Elites (such as those who run the CDC) look at rental housing owners as a group, but the impacts are disproportionately borne by those who have the fewest properties - families who are doomed to lose their life-savings.

Real-estate investment trusts, etc., can both outlast family owners, and are usually owned as a fractional portion of people’s portfolio; their failure is not a catastrophic event.

Families losing their inheritance is catastrophic.

Elites extra-legally terminating historical conventions on rental liability are dooming families to poverty, not just “helping” a renter.

Please explain how rental owners are not "fungible" in an economic sense?

Does it matter to me if my landlord is a big real-estate trust or a poor put-upon "family" owner with only two or three spare houses to their name?

Sidenote: you could even argue that big corporate landlords are better for society. In my experience, they tend to be more professional, and more committed to obeying the letter of the law w/r/t to tenants' rights.