The number of potential evictions Americans are being faced in the coming months is hard to fully comprehend. Some are estimating upwards of 40 million Americans could be kicked out of their homes. The moves by local leaders to “ban” evictions, or put a moratorium on evictions, is simply a finger in the hole of a crumbling dam as federal relief is what is needed.
Houston, Texas, as one of the largest cities in the country without eviction protections, has become the shining example of our country’s failure to protect its citizens during the pandemic. When the state’s Supreme Court declined to extend the moratorium on evictions in the middle of May, Houston’s eviction numbers exploded. For weeks, news story after news story of families living out of cars, looking for work, looking for help, and being evicted have been filtering out. On Wednesday, CNN’s Kyung Lah logged a report detailing the brutality going on in our country.
The report, like many in Houston, follows Deputy Bennie Gant of the Harris County Constable's Office as he carries out court orders to evict people from their homes. "Since the Covid-19 issue, I've had no significant number of families that are crying like that, men and women.” The story shows 20-year-old Israel Rodriguez and his 4-year-old and 20-month-old sons being evicted. He lost his job, and when he was able to find another job, the $300 dollars he’s pulling in every couple of weeks wasn’t enough to dig himself out of the financial hole his family is in. You can watch it below.
There are two things at work here: the failure of the worldview that excludes housing as a human right, and the worldview that believes only giving out taxpayer money to the richest entities among us. As people are evicted, the number of evictions, the sizes of the debts, and the prospects of gainful employment all match up to an enormous multimillion dollar hole in local economies that will need federal assistance.
On top of all of that, throwing out tens of millions of people is not simply inhumane, it is asinine. While it is pretty well documented that the case numbers of COVID-19 across the country, but especially in places like Houston, are far higher than what are the official—already terrible—numbers. Those numbers can only get worse as people lose the ability to literally shelter in place, a foundational physical aspect of social distancing.
Houston-area 29-year-old mother of four Kenia Madrigal has been living in her SUV with her children since June. She was laid off from her job during the stay-at-home order, could not pay rent, and became one of the first casualties of the ineptitude of our federal government’s leadership. Whether or not her oldest two children (11 and 8) will be able to attend whatever the hell school looks like is completely up in the air. Madrigal has landed herself a new job, but $11.50 an hour will not get her a new place to live.
Many of the already meager shelter options are filled up with others, and there seems to be very little relief in sight. "All I can tell them is 'One day at a time. Hopefully, I can get somewhere to call home, to get a roof over their heads because it's been almost three months without having a home and I don't know how much more I can take." Kenia and her family got some relief after a local news story reached enough people to boost her GoFundMe page. But, as with health care, we can’t GoFundMe tens of millions of people over the coming months and years.
And while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced a national moratorium on evictions recently, this will only delay the huge financial issues we will face in 2021—if it carries any weight. Landlords will likely sue in order to get the money that the government should have allotted to the millions of people in need during this pandemic. It also won’t help the many people who don’t realize the do-nothing federal government has potentially provided the thinnest of protections that can keep them housed for a few more months. As attorney with Lone Star Legal Aid and member of Harris County and the city of Houston’s joint housing stability task force, Dana Karni, told Houston Public Media: “I think sadly, there will be lots of tenants who don’t know about the protections that are put in place and will continue to self-evict at the very high rates that tenants have historically self-evicted when landlords threaten them with eviction.”
Without extended unemployment benefits, without better unemployment benefits, millions of Americans have moved beyond needing help to needing a ton of help. Every day, every week that our current administration, the House, and the Republican-led Senate sit on their hands, the price tag of what this crisis will cost us in the long run grows exponentially.
And a report from The Washington Post.
And another awful story.
