NEW YORK (Reuters) – Last month, when the coronavirus was on the rise in Houston, recently unemployed hospital secretary Ramzan Boudoin received more bad news: He had six days to vacate his apartment for not paying rent.
An entrance is seen to the Providence at Champions apartment complex, amid the outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Houston, Texas, USA, July 22, 2020. REUTERS / Adrees Latif
A Texas eviction ban allowed Boudoin to keep the two-room spot he shared with his daughter and granddaughter while looking for another job. But that moratorium expired on May 18. The landlord took legal action and Boudoin was unable to obtain $ 2,997 plus interest to resolve the judgment.
So this month, Boudoin, 46, packed his family in a 2008 Nissan and headed to New Orleans, where he moved with his mother and sister’s family. In total, nine people share the three-bedroom full house. Bedouin said his mother suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, a lung disease that makes him particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 in a city where cases are increasing at an alarming rate.
“Every minute, we are concerned that someone will give it to him,” Boudoin said.
As the coronavirus began shutting large sectors of the U.S. economy in March, causing millions of Americans to fall into unemployment, a mosaic of state and federal eviction bans were enacted to keep people in their homes. Now those protections are disappearing. The moratoriums have already expired in 29 states and are about to expire in others. On Friday, a federal suspension, which protects about a third of American tenants living in buildings with federally-backed mortgages, will be exhausted unless Congress acts quickly.
Up to 28 million people could be evicted in the coming months, according to Emily Benfer, a visiting professor of law at Wake Forest University and co-creator of the Princeton University Eviction Laboratory, a national center for eviction research. That’s almost three times the 10 million Americans who lost their homes in the years after the 2008 mortgage crisis.
Public health and housing experts say such a massive displacement of tenants would be unprecedented in modern history. In addition to the difficulties of losing the home, they say, the evictions could lead to a second-wave public health crisis, as the newly homeless are forced into shelters or tight neighborhoods with family members, increasing the risk of COVID-19 spread.
Evictions have been resumed in cities like Houston, Cincinnati, Columbus, Kansas City, Cleveland and St. Louis, according to data collected by Princeton University in its eviction lab. There is no single, comprehensive source to track America’s evictions across the country.
In Milwaukee, eviction requests fell to near zero after Wisconsin instituted a 60-day emergency ban on evictions on March 27. But after the order was lifted on May 26, the evictions exceeded their pre-pandemic levels. Milwaukee registered 1,966 eviction requests in the seven weeks after the ban expired, an 89% increase from 1,038 notifications filed in the seven weeks before the moratorium, Princeton data shows.
(For a graph on Milwaukee evictions, see: tmsnrt.rs/2Bmc6Ae)
Dr. Nasia Safdar, an infectious disease physician and chief medical officer for infection prevention at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, said that at this time it is impossible to establish a scientific correlation between evictions and the spread of COVID-19 and deaths; diagnosed coronavirus cases have increased 150% in Milwaukee, for example, since the eviction moratorium ended.
What’s not in doubt among public health experts, he said, is that evictions are dangerous during a pandemic. “A key principle of prevention in a pandemic is to have the infrastructure that minimizes person-to-person transmission,” said Safdar. “Any activity that breaks down that structure … makes containment of a pandemic extremely difficult.”
A July 17 study by the Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank found that in 44 U.S. cities and counties, landlord eviction requests have nearly returned to their usual levels in places where moratoriums have expired. , or where prohibitions were never enacted.
That study said evicted tenants are “at increased risk of contracting, spreading, and experiencing complications from COVID-19” because people with precarious housing often cannot shelter-in-place and because they tend to use crowded emergency rooms for their care. primary medical.
As evictions increase at some coronavirus hotspots, displaced families double with family members or move to shelters, creating conditions for the virus to spread widely, according to Diane Yentel, president of the Netherlands National Housing Coalition. Income based in Washington, DC. America’s leading group of affordable housing policies
“In these cases where social distancing is difficult or impossible, the probability that they will contract and spread the coronavirus increases exponentially,” Yentel said.
A fragile safety net adds to the tension. The weekly improved unemployment benefits of $ 600 provided by the federal government will evaporate next week, at a time when the national unemployment rate is 13.3%.
The owners say that the pandemic is also a crisis for them. Bob Pinnegar, CEO of the National Apartment Association, says eviction is always a “last resort,” but “the rental housing industry alone cannot bear the financial burden of the pandemic.”
He said that almost half of the country’s landlords are family operators who have invested in rental properties for retirement income.
POSITIVE LIVES AND FACING EVICTION
For weeks, eviction courts across the United States were closed due to COVID-19. Now, through Zoom, conference calls, and even in-person in some places, procedures are speeding up again.
In Harris County, Houston, there have been more than 5,100 eviction cases since the virus destroyed the US economy in March, according to data compiled by January-January data advisory firm Advisors.
That remains about half of the pre-pandemic levels. But it’s troubling for public health advocates given that Harris County has seen a 500% increase in confirmed coronavirus cases since the Texas eviction ban was lifted on May 18, Reuters tracker shows. COVID.
Swapnil Agarwal is the founder of Nitya Capital, 39, one of the largest homeowners in Texas and owner of Providence at Champions Apartment Homes, from which Boudoin was evicted. During the pandemic, the company has filed more than 120 eviction notices against tenants in Houston, according to a Reuters review of court records. Houston-based Nitya has $ 2 billion in real estate assets under management, according to its website.
Agarwal said her firm evicted Boudoin because she was behind on her rent and “we realized that there was no intention to pay,” an allegation she denies. She said Nitya has done everything possible to keep tenants in place and has provided $ 4 million in rental assistance to those who lost their jobs.
Meanwhile, in Milwaukee, Mariah Smith received an eviction notice on July 1. As a shipping clerk for an aircraft parts manufacturer, she lost her job in May. Smith said she has been unable to pay her rent because she never received her $ 1,200 federal stimulus check and is still waiting to receive unemployment benefits.
His fortune has only worsened. Smith, 25, last week was diagnosed with coronavirus after experiencing chills, body aches, and a sore throat. She said that just walking leaves her breathless.
On Thursday, he faces a court hearing on his eviction. Nick Homan, an attorney for the Milwaukee Legal Aid Society, agreed to help. He said he now handles about 25 eviction cases per week, more than double his typical load.
After Reuters contacted Smith’s landlord, a limited liability company called LPT 46, an attorney representing the firm, Marvin Bynum II, said the company has just learned of Smith’s COVID diagnosis. “The owner is hopeful that Ms. Smith will recover soon, and is confident that the parties can quickly reach a mutually friendly resolution,” Bynum said.
Homan said he will see what happens on Thursday, but the biggest problem remains.
“There is no one in any position of authority to stop the eviction at this time,” said Homan. “I don’t see anyone making decisions about public health. I only see the owners making decisions about their finances. ”
Report by Michelle Conlin; Editing by Tom Lasseter and Marla Dickerson
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