Millions of Americans can’t afford rent and eviction looms

[beijingwalker]

Millions of Americans can’t afford rent and eviction looms
Nearly 12 million adults live in households that missed their last rent payment
The Wall Street Journal

ECONOMY
Published 6 hours ago

Millions of Americans who have missed rent payments due to the coronavirus pandemic could be at risk of being evicted in the coming months unless government measures to protect them are extended, economists and housing experts say.

Nearly 12 million adults live in households that missed their last rent payment, and 23 million have little or no confidence in their ability to make the next one, according to weekly Census Bureau data.

About a third of the country’s renters are protected by an eviction moratorium that covers properties with federally insured mortgages. That expires July 25. Many renters are jobless and depend on supplemental weekly unemployment benefits of $600 that are due to end on July 31.

A number of cities and states have broader protections that will remain in place longer. Boston has banned evictions from public housing through the end of the year. Pennsylvania recently extended its moratorium against evictions for nonpayment of rent until Aug. 31.

The White House is negotiating with Republicans and Democrats in Congress to pass another round of economic relief during the last week of July. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has said supplemental jobless benefits have created a disincentive to return to work as the economy starts to reopen and should be reduced.

House Democrats voted in May to expand the eviction moratorium to cover all residential dwellings and extend it by a year. The bill included an extension of enhanced jobless benefits and $100 billion in rental assistance. The office of Sen. Mike Crapo (R., Idaho), chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, declined to comment on any GOP plan to keep people in their homes because negotiations are under way.

Paying rent is a struggle for Americans whose jobs evaporated when government-imposed lockdowns closed businesses ranging from barber shops and restaurants to stores and fitness centers. More than 18 million people were receiving unemployment insurance during the last week of June.

“They all had jobs, and they had economically viable jobs, but we told them they couldn’t work—to protect us—and now we’re going to kick them out of their houses,” said Shamus Roller, executive director of the National Housing Law Project.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/millions-of-americans-cant-afford-rent-and-eviction-looms

 

[beijingwalker]

32 percent Americans struggle to keep a roof over their heads

• Caresse Jackman
• Updated 5 hrs ago | Posted on Jul 16, 2020

SPRING HILL, TN (WSMV) - A study finds 32 percent of Americans including some in Tennessee did not make a full on-time housing payment in July.

"It’s devastating. The unknown. It’s so hard to deal with. All I can do is pray," Carla Loftin said.

Loftin said it has been a hectic and troublesome last few months for her.


“The Bishop from church did help me with bills this past week. Otherwise, the electricity would’ve been turned off,” Loftin said.

Loftin drives school buses for Williamson County, but the pandemic reduced her hours. Loftin is like thousands of others across Middle Tennessee, trying to keep her head up while the money in her wallet dwindles.

“I just need some help. Please, I can’t pay my rent!! I can’t pay my bills,” Loftin said. "I don’t have anything right now."

Not only is she financially strapped, Loftin said she is also taking care of her sick husband.

“I can’t get a job where I would be overly exposed to the COVID virus because it would not be good for him to get it at all,” Loftin said.

So many Americans are in Loftin’s situation. According to researchers at Apartment List, a retail marketplace, 32% of Americans did not make full on time housing payments in July, up slightly from 30% in June.

“Those situations are highly correlated with all of the other sort of negative economic situations that people find themselves in,” Rob Warnock, who is a research associate with Apartment List, said.

Warnock has been tracking these numbers for several months.

“A good number of the people that we survey said that as a direct result of the coronavirus, they experienced either just a layoff or a more nuisance, short reduction in their income,” Warnock said. "They’re working fewer hours, or they’ve been furloughed in some way."

Loftin said she’s going back to work in August and she misses working. She said she just wants to stay healthy and lift the heavy burden she’s feeling right now.

“It’s just a constant struggle and battle,” Loftin said. "And I don’t need much in life. I just need to be able to make due and it’s really really hard."

https://www.wsmv.com/news/32-percen...cle_68efd08a-c7a7-11ea-bb5a-cf7612a6a84e.html

 

[khansaheeb]

How sad, families being evicted, living in cars and on the streets is truly tragic. Capitalism gone rogue.

 

[vi-va]

No worry. US is totally fine. All fake news.

US 2 aircraft carriers are patrolling in SCS. Freedom of Navigation is much more important than Americans lives, they can take care of themselves.

 

[PakFactor]

How sad, families being evicted, living in cars and on the streets is truly tragic. Capitalism gone rogue.

It'll get worse as companies have realized work from home will save them cost of real estate rentals and purchases and adorning tech will require less workers, etc. Next 5 years big shifts in the work force will be happening.

 

[beijingwalker]

That's why Chinese feel so strongly about buying our own houses, even when worst comes to worst, we at least still have to place to live.

 

[beijingwalker]

Wave of evictions sweeps US amid impasse over coronavirus protections

• Moratorium in federal housing expired at end of July
• Trump stopgap measures seen as of doubtful efficacy

Tue 11 Aug 2020 10.02 EDTLast modified on Tue 11 Aug 2020 10.27 EDT

People gather outside an apartment complex with the intention to stop the alleged eviction of one of the tenants in Mount Rainier, Maryland, on Monday. Photograph: Leah Millis/Reuters

A huge wave of evictions is gathering pace across the US, with tens of millions of people facing the looming prospect of being ejected from their homes with the expiry of federal government protections.

A moratorium on evictions from most federally backed housing, along with a $600-a-week unemployment benefit, helped ensure many Americans avoided being made homeless from an economic crash sparked by the coronavirus pandemic.

But these protections expired at the end of July and a slew of evictions are starting to unfurl across the country, while party leaders are at an impasse over further economic relief and a slew of stopgap measures from Donald Trump are on an uncertain path.

A picture shared widely on the internet described “eviction cairns” in New Orleans, showing belongings heaped beside the road, reportedly from a family of six that had been evicted from their home after being unable to pay rent.

According to the Aspen Institute, a non-profit thinktank, at least 30 million Americans out of the 110 million who live in rental housing are at risk of eviction by the end of September.

The organization warned the Covid-19 crisis will cause “long-term harm to renter families and individuals, disruption of the affordable housing market and destabilization of communities across the United States”.

The lapsing of eviction protections means that many people, unable to afford rent or mortgages, have been plunged into a precariously vulnerable situation. “There’s tremendous urgency,” Diane Yentel, president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, told NPR. “There are millions of renters who can’t sleep at night because they don’t know what they’re going to do if they become homeless.”

The fresh disaster to stem from the pandemic is set to reach all corners of the US. A study by UCLA found that as many as 120,000 households in Los Angeles county, including up to 184,000 children, will probably become homeless when evictions resume.

Meanwhile, in South Carolina, 52% of renters cannot afford their rent and risk eviction, with about 185,000 evictions possible across the state by the end of the year, according to Stout Risius Ross, a consultancy firm.

“A lot of the safety net things that people relied on are gone,” said John Pollock, coordinator of the National Coalition for a Civil Right to Counsel. Stripped of federal assistance, and with many states also scaling back help, many people are having to rely upon savings or credit in order to retain their homes.

On Saturday, Trump signed an executive order on evictions that the White House said would address the situation. In the action, the president vowed to defer payroll taxes, waive student loan payments and secure unemployment benefits, albeit at a lower rate of $400 a week. The order also pledged to help renters facing eviction, although all of the measures were provisional on other actions or studies, and sowed confusion and controversy about certainty and timescale.

“I’m protecting people from eviction,” Trump said on Saturday. “You’ve been hearing a lot about eviction, and the Democrats don’t want to do anything having to do with protecting people from eviction.”

However, the order doesn’t actually extend the moratorium on evictions, nor provide any rental assistance to those unable to pay. Instead, it orders federal agencies, such as the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, to look at options for protecting renters. Housing advocates attacked the order as a toothless gesture.

“The president alluded to ‘stopping evictions’, but the executive order fails to provide any meaningful relief to the millions of renters who are at risk of losing their homes,” Yentel said. “President Trump failed even to use his existing authority to reinstate the limited federal eviction moratorium that expired on July 24, which covered 30% of renters nationwide.”

Deferring evictions is only one part of the action required, advocates argue. Even though many landlords have been barred from removing renters unable to pay until now, the owed amount of rent has continued to accumulate, meaning that tenants will face a huge bill once protections are lifted. About half of landlords are small, family-run operations, meaning that they, along with renters, may require substantial financial assistance to avoid ruin.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/11/evictions-us-coronavirus-protections

 

[beijingwalker]

40 million Americans are at risk of eviction without a stimulus bill
By Vanessa Yurkevich, CNN Business

Updated 12:47 PM ET, Fri August 7, 2020

New York (CNN Business)Up to 40 million Americans could be evicted by the end of this year, according to a new report published Friday by the Aspen Institute.

The report warns that the United States may be facing the most severe housing crisis in history if conditions do not change, with up to 43% of renter households facing eviction this year.

"As the data demonstrates, the gravity of this situation cannot be overstressed," said Emily Benfer, law professor at Wake Forest University School of Law and a co-author of the report. "Unless the federal government invests in eviction prevention, we are not only risking widespread eviction and homelessness, we are guaranteeing negative health outcomes, greater unemployment, educational decline, and long-term harm for renters, property owners and communities."

People of color -- particularly Black and Latino Americans -- make up about 80% of those facing eviction. Last month, 26% of Black renters and 25% of Latino renters were unable to pay rent compared with 13% of white renters, according to US Census data analyzed by the Aspen Institute.

Renters in the southern part of the country face the highest risk of eviction, with the highest percentage in Louisiana (56%), and Mississippi (58%). Up to 48% of renters in Alabama are at risk of eviction, with 45% of renters in Connecticut, Florida and Georgia.

The federal protections on evictions expired on July 24, while 30 states are without state-level protections against eviction. At least $100 billion in emergency rental assistance, with the extension of enhanced unemployment benefits, would help stave off millions of evictions, according to the report.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/07/economy/eviction-stimulus/index.html

 

[OIO]

How sad, families being evicted, living in cars and on the streets is truly tragic. Capitalism gone rogue.

Story of life ---- Trump

 

[OIO]

That's why Chinese feel so strongly about buying our own houses, even when worst comes to worst, we at least still have to place to live.

China is totally different, even the poorest peasants have their own house and land.

 

[khansaheeb]

China is totally different, even the poorest peasants have their own house and land.

American dream gone China!

 

[letsrock]

China is totally different, even the poorest peasants have their own house and land.

so do most americans. And USA land quality is much better than china which is mostly still uninhabitable.