As housing advocates across the U. S. brace for what they expect to be a surge in evictions this summer, while government protections are on the verge of disappearing, a new study ranks the states and counties where tenants facing the burden of costs are most likely displaced due to the Covid-19 crisis.
In research published last month assessing the rent threat to jobless claims, housing spending, and social disparities at the national, state, and local levels, location-aware firm UrbanFootprint found that the threat of displacement weighs disproportionately on renters living in states with huge inequities. Rentals. Gaps.
Rent differentials refer to the amount of cash that would be needed to keep low-income tenants (who have the highest chance of having lost their wages due to the pandemic and being evicted) in their homes. The states that need budgets the most are also with gigantic populations, high rents, and a serious source of income inequality.
According to UrbanFootprint, due to Covid-19, around 7 million hiring families are currently accused of renting (paying at least a third of their source of income from housing) and unemployed, and are at risk of being evicted without ongoing government support.
“This point of displacement would be unprecedented in U. S. history and could destabilize communities for years to come,” writes Joe Distefano, executive director of UrbanFootprint.
To keep renters suffering from high prices for the next six months — which would close the nationwide rental hole by that time — would require between $16 billion and $32 billion, depending on tenants’ spending on housing.
Of the 7 million families burdened by rent and threatened with eviction in the United States, about a portion spend at least 50% of their source of income on monthly rent.
With more than a fraction of a million such families, California tops UrbanFootrpint’s list of states with the largest hiring gaps. The state wants $7. 6 billion over the next six months to prevent its citizens most affected by contracting from wasting their homes. And that doesn’t mean taking into account the one million hiring families who pay between a third and a part of their source of income in rent.
The five states with the largest six-month rent differences are New York, Florida, Georgia, and Texas. Some of those states have recently noticed a surge in Covid-19 infections, and the Sunshine State is now the most recent epicenter of the pandemic in the country. .
At the county level, UrbanFootprint’s research shows that the six counties with the largest hiring gap are concentrated in Southern California and New York City. Miami-Dade County, Florida, ranks seventh.
Urban Footprint
Of course, any local eviction ban that remains after the CARES Act moratorium expires would help citizens face monetary hardship. California, for example, has extended the statewide residential shutdown until at least early fall. However, in and of itself, this doesn’t do much good. to address the monetary pressures that underpin Covid-related evictions for non-payment of rent.
Last June, the U. S. House of Representatives passed legislation to provide $100 billion in rental assistance to low- and middle-income Americans. However, the federal government’s next bailout package is still being debated on Capitol Hill, after House Democrats passed the HEROES Act in May to inject a whopping $3 trillion into the U. S. economy, already supported through the CARES Act.