Unsanitized: An Ominous First of the Month

The rent crisis, from Pennsylvania to California. This is The COVID-19 Daily Report for September 1, 2020.

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First Response

The first of the month has been an unrealized fear in this pandemic. Fears of mass evictions and foreclosures have been tempered by the robust unemployment insurance enhancement, federal eviction and foreclosure moratoria that kept some people safe, and more protections at the city and state level. Most of those have washed away now. The $600/week unemployment boost is gone, replaced by a stopgap $300 most states have been approved for but only three of which have actually started sending out. That $300 is only likely to last 3-5 weeks. Transfer payments from the government were still incredibly high in July, at $1.7 trillion; that’s going to fall precipitously in August. 

Combine that lack of federal aid with the end of the federal eviction moratorium (not that it was being enforced), and more important, the expiration of state moratoria and the resumption of housing courts. There was slight distress in August rent payments but without the unemployment boost, distress will grow, poverty will increase and people will grow more desperate. And now many landlords can act, not only on those who miss today’s rent, but those who owe from months ago.

Activist groups allege that 30-40 million renters are at risk of eviction; if even one-tenth of that number materializes it would be a catastrophe. “Before COVID-19 we were already facing a shortage of affordable housing,” said Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) at a press event with renters facing eviction yesterday. “Housing is a fundamental human right that should be afforded to all people.”

Yesterday I spoke with Migreldi Lara, a hair stylist and single mother of three who came to Reading, Pennsylvania from the U.S. Virgin Islands last December. She immediately got a job and, after saving while sleeping in her cousin’s hallway for weeks, found an apartment. “It seemed that we were finally going to be stable,” she told me through an interpreter. But the move-in occurred in February, and the pandemic in March.

Read all of our Unsanitized reports

Migreldi’s job stopped and her childrens’ school and day care shut down. Stimulus checks for her and the kids (she’s been a U.S. taxpayer for 20 years) covered the $800 rent for a few months, but she wasn’t eligible for unemployment. She has gone days without food during the crisis. Her job has since restarted, but since she has no childcare and schools remain in distance learning, she can’t leave the house. Her landlord recently reminded her that she’s months behind on rent.

A statewide eviction moratorium in Pennsylvania protected Migreldi, but Governor Tom Wolf let it expire yesterday, saying he had no legal authority to extend a prior executive order and needed legislative action. Republicans control the legislature in Pennsylvania, and while a moratorium has been introduced, its passage is not entirely likely. There’s a $100 million state rent relief program, but while over 13,000 renters have applied, less than 100 have been processed. Make the Road PA, a community action group for renters in the state, says that 1.3 million Pennsylvanians are at risk of eviction without the moratorium.

“I see me and my family out on the street,” said Migreldi. She’s looked into a shelter for her and her kids. “But I’m so afraid about COVID and other diseases that are in shelters. I’ve been through shelters, the kids have been in them before. It has traumatized me and my kids.”

Make the Road PA is one of several groups holding nationwide protests today, one under the banner of “We Strike Together,” another under “Relief is Due.” Make the Road PA will rally outside housing court in Reading. A majority of Black and Latino residents in the city are renters, and also make up a disproportionate share of homeless people. In this small-ish city, 2,300 households are at risk of eviction, including 1,700 children, three of them Migreldi’s. “People like Migreldi are doing everything they could and still ending up homeless,” said Patty Torres of Make the Road PA. But part of the protest is just making renters aware of their rights. The activists know that the evictions are coming.

I heard from numerous other tenants facing eviction risk yesterday, people who’ve been given notice or expect it soon. One called in from a homeless encampment. Nicole Cureton of ActionNC in North Carolina has housing court on Friday. “I am fighting for my human right to have housing for my family,” she said. “I will not stop fighting for my children.”

Watch This

I did a Zoom event for my book Monopolized with Zephyr Teachout and Barry Lynn of the Open Markets Institute. Watch here.

I also was involved in an event about the post office and postal banking with DSA and Dissent magazine, which you can watch here.

And here I am appearing at a SALT Talk with none other than Anthony Scaramucci (who was great, actually). Watch here.

California’s Non-Moratorium Moratorium

Among the states dealing with an expiring eviction moratorium was California. Yesterday, an eviction deal that was announced last Friday secured final passage before the end of the legislative session, and got signed by the governor minutes before the August 31 expiration date. Gavin Newsom called it “a bridge to a more permanent solution,” urging federal support.

Activists are calling it a bridge to nowhere. The moratorium, extended to February 1, 2021, only kicks in for renters who can show hardship due specifically to COVID-19. Tenants must pay at least 25 percent of new rent (not the arrears before September 1) to be eligible. Housing courts will reopen statewide tomorrow, as other types of evictions besides non-payment of rent can move forward.

Anya Svanoe of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) told me about one of their renters, Patricia Mendoza, whose unemployment currently doesn’t even cover that 25 percent rental requirement, let alone other necessities. “The landlord has been harassing her since her first missed payment,” Svanoe said. “Landlords do this all the time, harassing tenants to get them out of their home, whatever sorts of excuses they can make up.”

The fear, and it’s a reasonable one, is that landlords will figure out non-payment reasons to kick out non-paying tenants. And tenants having to certify that their payment struggles are COVID-related adds complications as well. The legislation, Svanoe said, “makes [Newsom] look good, but for people who lost jobs, it’s not even close to what we need.”

Activists wanted an extension of the statewide moratorium, a relief fund for mom and pop landlords, and forgiveness of pandemic-related rent debt. Instead they got a compromise, during a public health crisis that demands that people stay housed. Millions of renters could pay the price. As Mendoza said in a statement, “The rich get richer while the poor get forgotten.”

Days Without a Bailout Oversight Chair

159.

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