I really don't know how we can properly convey how bad things are about to get in the United States. Americans are losing their jobs. They are running out of money. We are on the brink of a homelessness crisis, and all of that is happening even before the pandemic began to get much much worse.
In an interview with CNBC, American Bar Association Task Force Committee on Eviction Chair Emily Benfer estimates that between 20 and 28 million Americans will face eviction between now and September; for context, 10 million were evicted during the Great Recession. She is urging a nationwide moratorium on eviction. But it has to happen soon. Very soon.
In Michigan, the statewide eviction moratorium will be lifting this Thursday. The result is expected to be 75,000 new eviction filings, with debts that will quickly overtop the amount of state funds—$50 million—made available by the state's eviction aid program.
Eviction moratoriums are also lifting soon in New York, expected to result in a "tsunami" of new filings. It will "overwhelm the courts and likely prompt a new wave of infections and evictions," Legal Aid Society attorney Judith Goldiner told the Daily News.
That's the next problem on the horizon. You cannot evict 20 million Americans without a good number of those families becoming homeless. Emergency shelters are now preparing for the expected wave of newly homeless, but they can neither handle that load nor are they safe places, during the ongoing pandemic, for families to congregate. It is reasonable to expect at homeless shelters will themselves further spread the virus, leading to further lockdowns, leading to further job losses, leading to more evictions.
Yet another problem: Forceable evictions are the tasks of county sheriff departments. The Justice Collaborative and other groups are asking sheriffs to themselves halt ordered evictions due to the public health risks in carrying them out. There is a real risk of virus spread in entering someone's home, forcibly removing their belongings, and engaging in (sigh) sometimes violent confrontations with residents. The decent thing to do would be to put such measures on pause for the safety of each community.
It is asinine to turn tens of millions of Americans out of their homes during an ongoing pandemic. It makes no sense. It is absolutely assured to result in more deaths. The federal government has botched or sabotaged every aspect of pandemic response, and seems eager to continue; Congress needs to take it out of administration hands, and the hands of the states, by instituting nationwide rent relief.
It will cost a staggering amount of money, but that is what we get for screwing up pandemic safety measures so badly as to result in 140,000 dead Americans and counting. Much of the rest of the world is already in various stages of recovery. That could have been us, too, if we were not governed by malevolent, corrupt and deeply stupid trashbags.