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evictions
Millions in US Toiling Under This Imposed Housing Crisis Need One Thing: Straight-Up Cash
The real-life stories of our clients moving through eviction court show us that what most struggling families really need is simple: money.
Oct 12, 2024
Katrina is the mother of three children, one of whom lives with major disabilities that require Katrina to spend most of her time as a caregiver. Katrina was already struggling to make ends meet, but then an unexpected car repair and reduced work hours caused her to fall behind on her rent.
Darren was hurt on the job and lost six weeks of pay. Now he is trying to put in as much work time as his employer will give him, but the pay is only about $17 an hour. Darren shares custody of two very young children, ages three and nine months, and he is desperately struggling to catch up on overdue rent.
Sheila‘s husband has been arrested and jailed for violently abusing her. Safe for the moment, Sheila has returned to work as a manager at a retail business. But she owes several months of back rent, plus late fees and court fees. It is more than she can pull together, so Sheila will have to move within the month. She is putting most of her possessions into storage. She is also packing a few trash bags of clothes to take with her to her new home—a friend’s unheated garage with no access to plumbing.
I teach a law school clinic in Indianapolis, where my students and I represent Katrina, Darren, Sheila and other clients in eviction court. They have a shared need, one that also applies to the nine million U.S. households that are behind on their rent right now:
They need money.
Katrina, Darren, and Sheila are among the three of every four households who qualify for subsidized housing, but do not receive it because we don’t fully fund the programs. They are forced to try to pay market-rate rent, which takes up most of their income even in the good times. In the bad times, the rent is more than what is coming in. So we see them in eviction court.
Turns out that some of the usual suspects—volunteer work, random acts of kindness—may not be as impactful as we hoped in delivering happiness. But what does work? You guessed it: money, especially for low-income folks.
We can do better than this. We know we can, because just a few years ago Katrina, Darren, and Sheila and almost everyone else we see eviction court now were safely housed. Emergency rental assistance, expanded child tax credits, maximized food stamps, and extended unemployment benefits prevented more than three million eviction cases, according to the Eviction Lab at Princeton University. In fact, poverty rates actually dropped during the Covid pandemic.
Since then, researchers from Columbia University and City University of New York, CUNY, studied the impact of those benefits, and confirmed what we saw in our clients’ lives. “We find that direct cash payments were the single most useful tool for helping people ride out the pandemic and were first and foremost, used to cover basic needs, including rent or mortgage payments, utilities, and food,” they said.
That is powerful evidence pointing us toward what we can do to help. Add that to the pile of research showing that strings-free cash leads to dramatically positive outcomes. Specifically to housing, studies have shown that unconditional cash given to unhoused persons both reduced homelessness and saved money that would have been spent on government programs the recipients. Cash is so effective because this and other studies show that low-income people are far more likely to spend cash assistance on rent, food, and transportation than “temptation goods” like alcohol or drugs.
More broadly, analysis in the Annual Review of Psychology reviewed multiple studies examining what actually makes human beings happier. Turns out that some of the usual suspects—volunteer work, random acts of kindness—may not be as impactful as we hoped in delivering happiness. But what does work? You guessed it: money, especially for low-income folks.
“A growing number of rigorous preregistered experiments suggest that such cash transfers and other forms of financial support can provide an efficient mechanism for enhancing happiness,” wrote Dunigan Folk and Elizabeth Dunn, professors of psychology at the University of British Columbia. “Cash seems to be as good or better than other interventions that carry similar costs, including psychotherapy and job training.”
This analysis matches what we see in court. Would Katrina and Darren and Sheila benefit from psychotherapy? Maybe. But for most clients it appears that their financial crises are causing their mental health struggles, more so than the other way around. Would job training help? Again, maybe. But these people are already doing work in the community—home healthcare, food, service, retail work, warehouse work, etc.—that is essential for our economy. So, shouldn’t those jobs pay a living wage?
As we evaluate presidential candidates’ responses to our housing crisis and the clamor over building more housing, it is worth keeping this simplicity in mind. Until and unless we create much more subsidized housing, which is the real solution to the crisis, what our clients need most is straight-up cash.Keep ReadingShow Less
50+ Groups Demand Biden Go Further on US Housing Crisis
"With the Supreme Court decision to criminalize people who are unhoused, we need you to stand up and create more humane housing policies today."
Aug 13, 2024
In the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that is devastating for homeless people, over 50 organizations on Tuesday urged President Joe Biden to take immediate action to address the nation's housing emergency before his first term ends next January.
"We appreciate the steps your administration has taken to address America's affordable housing crisis," the coalition wrote, applauding his proposed 5% cap on rent hikes for tenants of corporate landlords and "regulatory actions to use public land for affordable housing, provide grants for deeply affordable homes, and require 30-day notice for rent increases and lease expirations."
Noting that Biden is not seeking a second term—Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris is set to face former Republican President Donald Trump in the November election—and the urgency of the housing crisis, the groups argued that "taking stronger action will resonate deeply with working and low-income people and people of color nationwide."
"Now is a critical moment for aggressive action to help end the worst housing and homelessness crisis our country has ever seen, help renters and houseless folks struggling with the cost of rent now, and set the country on a long-term path of providing safe, stable, and permanently affordable rental housing for decades to come," the letter states. "We, the undersigned, are calling on you to show leadership by using your executive authority immediately, to effect change now—during the worst housing and homelessness crisis of a generation."
"We must urgently create a more just and sustainable housing system."
Specifically, the coalition is calling for Biden to issue one executive order to establish an Office of Social Housing at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and another for rent regulations and good cause eviction protections in federally insured properties.
Additionally, the groups want Biden to demand federal legislation supporting the right of all renters to organize and bargain collectively as tenant unions with landlords over rents and living conditions, along with appropriating $1 trillion over a decade to create 12 million permanently affordable homes, as well as $230 billion to fully repair and green existing public housing.
The letter—part of the House Every One! campaign—is led by the Center for Popular Democracy (CPD) Action and backed by groups including Stand Up Alaska, Make the Road Connecticut, Delaware Alliance for Community Advancement, Florida Rising, New Georgia Project, Step Up Louisiana, Maryland Communities United, Maine People's Alliance, Detroit Action, TakeAction Minnesota, New York Communities for Change, One Pennsylvania, Texas Organizing Project, and Our Future West Virginia.
As part of the campaign, "during the month of August, thousands of renters and community groups across the country will host local town hall meetings to call on their local and national representatives to crack down on corporate landlords, cap rents, and invest in tenant-owned, permanently affordable green social housing," CPD said in an email Monday.
The coalition wrote to Biden Tuesday that "we must protect families from the looming threat of unprecedented homelessness and displacement; halt Wall Street speculation and corporate landlords' growing influence over the housing market; create truly affordable green social housing; and redress our federal government's history of institutionalized bias, putting us on a path towards greater racial, economic, and gender equity."
"We all deserve a safe, stable, and affordable place to call home," the letter says. "We must urgently create a more just and sustainable housing system."
The letter also stresses that "with the Supreme Court decision to criminalize people who are unhoused, we need you to stand up and create more humane housing policies today, nodding to the City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnsonruling. The right-wing justices ruled that local governments can enforce bans on sleeping outdoors, regardless of whether they are able to offer shelter space.
Some Democrats are under fire for welcoming the June ruling—including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is widely believed to have presidential ambitions. Since the decision, Newsom has issued an executive order directing officials to clear out homeless encampments, participated in clearing of a Los Angeles encampment, and threatened to withhold funding from counties that don't crack down on unhoused people.
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The US Has a Housing Crisis, Not a Squatting Crisis
The real estate lobby is using its power to advance a flurry of anti-squatter bills to push back against tenant protections enacted in the early years of the Covid-19 pandemic. Lawmakers should not take the bait.
Aug 11, 2024
Alabama, Tennessee, and Florida’s new anti-squatter laws all went into effect in the last two months, the latest exhibit of the real estate industry’s influence in American politics. In this year alone, at least 10 states have considered legislation that revokes tenancy rights, making squatting—when someone moves into a vacant building or onto uninhabited land—a criminal matter instead of civil one.
While the fear-mongering around squatting started as a right-wing talking point, now anti-squatter bills have passed in several states with bipartisan support. Earlier this year, in New York, where Democrats dominate politics, Gov. Kathy Hochul and several state legislators took a victory lap after passing a budget bill that declared that squatters don’t have the same rights as tenants, and to support property owners statewide.
Some would assume that these legislative actions were taken in response to a threat of a mass takeover of homes in cities across the country. But in reality, as many experts have rightly pointed out, squatting is extremely rare. A threat does exist, which is why we’re seeing a rise in this legislation. It’s just not to property owners. It’s to the power of the real estate lobby.
The manufactured crisis around squatters is meant to distract from the fact that over half of Americans struggle to pay their rent or mortgage every month.
As outlined in a new report by the Private Equity Stakeholder Project and others, the real estate lobby is a sprawling, interconnected group of representatives from the top corporate apartment owners and managers in the country, who—by having members sit on each other’s boards—can tap into an enormous shared pool of resources that they’re using to destabilize communities across the country.
The lobby is using this power to advance a flurry of anti-squatter bills to push back against tenant protections enacted in the early years of the Covid-19 pandemic. This was a time when millions of people in the United States were kept in their homes thanks to policies like rental assistance expansion and foreclosure and eviction moratoria. For many of us, it was the first time we witnessed our country recognize the public health and economic value of keeping people in their homes. These protections made clear that regardless of race, class, or housing tenure, housing stability is the foundation for thriving communities.
Now, real estate industry groups, the second biggest lobbying spender in the U.S., are using anti-squatter legislation in a desperate attempt to undercut that progress. Capitalizing on America’s heightened anxiety about the housing crisis, they are scaring people into believing that tenant protections come at the expense of homeowners. Lawmakers should not take the bait.
At best, these bills are reactionary responses to a problem that doesn’t exist. At worst, they represent the worst of election season fear-mongering: anti-immigrant sentiment, dog-whistle racism, and calls for law and order. Look no further than the Florida attorney general’s celebration of legislation declaring that immigrants were taking over homes across the state, based on a viral TikTok. In reality, most states already have laws that address squatters adequately—it’s tenant protections that remain significantly weaker relative to property rights.
Advancing anti-squatter legislation is a slippery slope to eroding eviction protections passed during the last few years, and that’s exactly what the real estate lobby wants: They themselves refer to squatter legislation as “eviction policy.” Clearly, they are hoping to put legislators on a path to repealing hard-fought regulations to protect tenants by inferring a false equating of squatters (who live in vacant properties without legal agreements) and tenants (who legally inhabit homes with leases).The bills put any resident with tenant or ownership interest at risk of immediate displacement, often by a law enforcement agency, without the normal requirement of notice, proof, and judicial review before someone is removed from their home.
But their efforts to undo these gains won’t be easy, because the tide has turned in support of tenant protections as a way to address our housing crisis. In poll after poll, people in the United States say they want to see governments take action to alleviate the cost of housing. This has quickly become a front-burner issue for Americans and a top priority for them in the presidential election, only second to inflation. A recent survey of voters in battleground states found that 82% of renters believe that, if addressed, the cost of rent and housing would make their personal situation better.
The manufactured crisis around squatters is meant to distract from the fact that over half of Americans struggle to pay their rent or mortgage every month. And that a tenant-led movement to change this reality is building political power, winning local elections, and influencing federal policy.
Considering this, one can see why the real estate lobby, which amassed over $2.5 billion in revenue during the height of the pandemic, is grasping at straws to stay relevant to legislators. While it’s trying to ramp up efforts to unravel tenant protections, the lobby itself—the National Association of Realtors (NAR)—is unraveling. From Department of Justice investigations and anti-trust lawsuits to sexual harassment allegations, and a musical chairs of presidents and CEOs in the last two years, members are not happy. In October 2023, Redfin announced it would require many of its brokers to cancel their NAR memberships and stop paying dues. Reports of NAR running out of liability insurance coverage and rumors of real estate moguls starting alternative associations show cracks in a foundation that will be difficult to repair. No amount of fresh paint, even if it is in the form of throwing tenants under the bus, can fix such dysfunction. But they’ll try as long as they can.
As America increasingly becomes a nation of renters, lawmakers can’t lose sight of the bigger picture: We have a housing crisis, not a squatter crisis. Millions of people calling on leaders to alleviate their suffering cannot afford to be sold out with this distraction. Lawmakers should pass policies that we know advance housing stability, instead of doing the bidding of those attacking it.
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