When a federal order limiting evictions expires at the end of the year, millions of Americans face the risk of losing their homes.

A national pause on most evictions is set to expire at the end of the year, and without those protections, children without a home could translate to more students missing from the classroom. .

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in September issued a national eviction moratorium that temporarily stops landlords from evicting tenants who have lost income because of the pandemic and have fallen behind on rent.

Kathryn Leifheit from the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, found that evictions led to a total of 433,700 excess COVID-19 cases and 10,700 additional deaths in the U.S.

Among other requirements, tenants must sign a form that states they have lost income due to the pandemic and have made their best effort to apply for federal housing aid. .

According to the COVID-19 Eviction Defense Project, which analyzed current Census Bureau data, 17 percent of American renters are behind on payments.

Because the federal moratorium currently halts most evictions for nonpayment of rent, upwards of 18 million people in America are currently at risk of being evicted when it expires at the end of the year, the group says.

"The pandemic hit on a deep housing affordability crisis and exacerbated the challenges Americans have paying rent," COVID-19 Eviction Defense Project co-founder Sam Gilman told 60 Minutes.

"They were one emergency away from not being able to pay rent, and the pandemic was that emergency." .

She and her boyfriend both work in the restaurant industry, so pandemic shutdowns have hit their income especially hard.

Last month, an amici curiae brief was filed in support of the CDC's eviction moratorium on behalf of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association, among others. 

"Eviction increases the likelihood of emotional trauma, lead poisoning, food insecurity, and academic decline for children."

Data analyzed by the COVID-19 Eviction Defense Project show that housing insecurity disproportionately impacts families with children

Within the renter population, about one quarter of families with children are currently behind on their rent, according the group

Barbara Duffield, executive director of SchoolHouse Connection, a non-profit organization that works to overcome homelessness through education, worries about the number of children who will be at risk when the eviction moratorium expires. 

"And that is terrifying, if you think about how many children were homeless before the pandemic