Giving Compass' Take:

• At The Hechinger Report, Barbara Shelly warns of the disproportionate effects of rising evictions during COVID on kids and students.

• How do rising evictions during COVID impact kids in marginalized communities? What are you doing to support kids' learning as the pandemic-induced health and economic crises continue?

• Look for funds to guide you in supporting children who've been displaced by rising evictions during COVID.

A model created by the COVID-19 Eviction Defense Project, a coalition of economic researchers and legal experts, estimates that roughly 20 percent of the 110 million Americans who live in rented homes risk displacement by September 30 unless policymakers enact aggressive relief measures. That would amount to 19 to 23 million people, many of them schoolchildren.

“Even if it’s remote learning, the eviction is going to have an effect,” said Lavar Edmonds, a research specialist at Princeton University’s Eviction Lab. “How are you going to do your homework or participate in classes at home if you don’t have the internet, if you’ve been kicked out of your home?”

“Housing is everything,” said Melissa Douglas, the liaison for homeless students in the Kansas City Public Schools district. “Moving from place to place is an unwarranted stress on adults and students. We know that the more moves [kids’] families make, the more gaps in their education that they may have.”

And student moves can be especially problematic in Kansas City. The metropolitan area, depending on how it’s defined, is a patchwork of 20 to 30 school districts. A move of just a few blocks can easily place a family in a different district. The region also includes districts in both Missouri and Kansas, with schools using different curriculums and standards across the state line.

As school districts in the region contemplate hard choices on reopening this fall, educators and others anticipate more instability for families and more students on the move. Coronavirus cases are rising in the Kansas City region, forcing more businesses to lay off workers. Landlords, who had been temporarily barred by local government orders from evicting tenants during the pandemic, are resuming those efforts as cities and counties lift the holds.

Read the full article about rising evictions during COVID by Barbara Shelly at The Hechinger Report.