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Giving Compass' Take:
• Data from New York City shows that Black and Latinx people, already disproportionately impacted by the pandemic, will be most impacted by the end of the eviction moratorium.
• What role can you play in addressing the needs of communities facing housing insecurity due to the pandemic?
• Read about leveraging technology to address eviction rates across cities.
Over the course of just a few weeks in March and April of 2020, as businesses and organizations shut down to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus, hundreds of thousands of families across New York City lost their main source of income. Nearly half of New Yorkers who had been working and more than half of low-income New Yorkers lost income due to the pandemic. Before the pandemic, the city’s housing affordability crisis had already left 41% of renters rent-burdened — defined as spending more than 30% of their income on rent — so for many families, missing one paycheck could mean there was no way to make their next rent payment. In turn, the likelihood of falling behind on rent rose by 50% for those who lost employment income because of the pandemic, leaving them at a much higher risk of eviction today than in 2019.
The economic fallout driven by the pandemic has created a potential eviction crisis. But government policies, like eviction moratoria, rental assistance programs, and other pandemic-related relief policies have so far prevented a swell in eviction filings: weekly eviction filings in New York City for 2020 and 2021 were well below historical averages. But these policies and programs have either exhausted their funding, already expired, or will soon, while more than 1-in-4 renters in New York City continue to report having missed a rent payment or being in arrears. For example, New York State’s $2.4 billion Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP) helped tenants who owe back rent cover up to a year’s worth of missed payments, but the funds were largely paid out as of December 2021, while only covering a third of the applications received. And New York State’s eviction moratorium, the policy that has likely played the most powerful role in preventing evictions, is scheduled to end on January 15th, 2022. (See Appendix A for additional information regarding these policies.)
As New York State’s eviction moratorium ends, New York City will be at risk of a massive increase in evictions and homelessness. To prevent this crisis, policymakers must implement solutions that address both short-term needs related to pandemic arrears and longer-term issues of housing affordability in New York City. This report uses Poverty Tracker data to examine possible consequences of ending the state’s eviction moratorium, the factors driving the potential eviction crisis (including those that pre-date the pandemic), and policies that could help avert an eviction crisis and promote greater housing stability in the long run.
Extending the eviction moratorium would forestall an eviction crisis in the short run, but it would not address long-standing issues that force so many households into housing hardship and instability. To protect New Yorkers and build towards a more equitable and secure future for residents, New York City policymakers could implement and expand a range of policies that will help New Yorkers afford housing. This includes expanding rental assistance to more low-income New Yorkers who are at risk of eviction and homelessness.