Now it's the first of the month and rent -- and back rent -- is suddenly due for millions of Americans who have been shielded from eviction during the pandemic.

Millions of households could face eviction over the next month -- when lawmakers on are on their annual August recess -- and some have predicted a full-blown eviction crisis, just as a surge in Covid cases from the highly contagious Delta variant may be prompting renewed calls for people to stay home and keep their distance.

Today, there is a gaping divide over whether the government can or should tell private landlords they can't kick tenants out.

But this is a story of Democrats' failure to manage time just as much as it is about Republicans' obstruction.

"I absolutely believe that in this moment, yes, we are failing the American people," Massachusetts Democratic Rep.

Seven million, 6 million, 11 million, however many it is, they deserve human dignity and deserve for people that represent them to show up, do the work, to make sure basic needs are met today," said Bush, who had been unhoused and evicted before she came to Congress.

The exact number of people the lapse could affect is not entirely clear since some states and cities, like California, New York and New Jersey, have enacted their own temporary eviction bans that last a bit longer.

More than 3.6 million renters worried they would have to leave their homes due to eviction in the next two months, according to a biweekly survey conducted by the US Census Bureau with data through July 5.

Far more -- 7.4 million Americans -- reported being behind on their rent in the most recent survey, according to the Census data.

A review of Census data by the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities explains that those having trouble paying are more likely to be people of color and people with children in the household.

The moratorium protects tenants from eviction for nonpayment, but does not erase back rent owed.

The CDC declared the moratorium to help stop the spread of Covid-19.

But now the Delta variant is radiating from the South to the rest of the country and this tool to help people who can't work and shouldn't be congregating at homeless shelters is going away at exactly the same time cities and states are looking at new restrictions on congregating.

Why didn't the White House just extend the moratorium?

At that time, with the clock running on this "final" extension of the executive authority, the court had sided with renters and rejected an emergency challenge to the moratorium brought by a group of landlords, real estate companies and real estate trade associations.

Two conservative justices, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, sided with court liberals even though landlords argued they were losing out on more than $13 billion in unpaid rent per month.

Kavanaugh said in a concurrent opinion that he did feel the CDC had overstepped its bounds with the moratorium, but since this was the final extension of the authority and it would only last through July, he let it continue to "allow for additional and more orderly distribution of the congressionally appropriated rental assistance funds."

As CNN's Ariane de Vogue wrote at the time, Kavanaugh was very clear that if the government were to extend the moratorium past July 31, it would need "specific congressional authorization."

That authorization didn't come.

"Because of the link of eviction and the spread of Covid-19, it is critical that you apply for rental assistance and wait to evict because of the long-term hardship and also the immediate threat to Covid-19 surge that this will create."

Congress appropriated nearly $50 billion in assistance for both renters and landlords, but only a fraction of that has been spent as states, the federal government and the Treasury Department set up a rental assistance program from scratch.