Consider This from NPR - Expanded Unemployment Set To Expire; Americans Face 'Utterly Preventable' Evictions

Episode Date: July 24, 2020

More than 25 million Americans have been receiving expanded federal unemployment benefits — $600 a week. Those benefits disappear in days.Congress is unlikely to agree on new package before the end of next week. And temporary moratoriums on evictions are coming to an end in many places around the country. NPR's Noel King spoke with Matt Desmond, founder of Princeton University's Eviction Lab, about what could happen if Congress doesn't provide more help, and why so many American families were already in trouble before the pandemic.Find and support your local public radio station.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Mary Collins is basically just waiting to be evicted. Most of my house is like 80% packed. Her landlord has taken her to court. A pro bono lawyer is helping her out. But still... I have to have everything ready because if they show up and say, you gotta go now, I have to be ready. Collins lives in Dallas.

She was a home health aide until she lost her job this spring. She has been getting by on unemployment, including that extra $600 a week from the federal government. But it took her a while to start getting those benefits. And that's how she got behind on her rent. She tried to work it out with her landlord. No deal. On June 16th, they filed, which was the first day the courts opened here in Dallas. Hold on, I'm sorry. I'm getting a little wounded. That's when they filed for eviction. Collins has trouble breathing because she has COVID-19. She's also a single mom who takes care of her teenage son with disabilities. He has

the virus too. And like we said, she is still packing up her house. So in the middle of me being sick, I'd get up and pack a box and then collapse. Just packing one box would wear me out. Collins says she's worried that the next thing that will happen is she and her son will have to live on the street. I'm scared. I really am. I'm scared. Coming up, $600 a week. Money from the federal government that has helped millions of people

in this country survive during the pandemic. In a few days, that money is scheduled to stop coming. And the President and Congress still haven't figured out what to do next. This is Consider This from NPR. I'm Kelly McEvers. It is Friday, July 24th. Support for this podcast and the following message come from Integrative Therapeutics, creator of Physician's Elemental Diet, a medical food developed by clinicians for the dietary management of IBS, IBD, and SIBO under the supervision of a physician. So yeah, we knew this was coming.

President Trump has enacted a historic $2 trillion stimulus package to ease the economic crisis caused by the pandemic. It was March 27th when President Trump signed the CARES Act, and of course gave it lots of superlatives. The single biggest economic relief package in American history, and I must say, or any other package, by the way. At that moment, Congress and the president knew they had a deadline. Expanded federal unemployment benefits in the CARES Act, that's 600 bucks we've been talking about, would expire at the end of July, whether the pandemic was under control or not. In the months since the bill was signed, more than 25 million people have gotten those benefits.

Again, this 600 bucks a week is on top of state unemployment benefits, which for months have helped tens of millions of people survive. So what happens when the money goes away? People were asking that question back in May. So I have said, and the president has said as well, that we need to take a pause here. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said back then it was too early to talk about more spending. That was the same week Democrats in the House passed another massive aid package that went nowhere. McConnell kept saying, let's wait. Maybe some jobs will come back. And also begin to encourage the governors around the country who have the decision-making ability to begin to open up the economy.

The day Mitch McConnell said that, there were a little more than a million confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. Today, there are more than four million. Now, Congress and the president are working on a new aid package. But a big sticking point? How important is a payroll tax cut in Facebook? I think it's very important. I think it's a very important thing. It's very good. A payroll tax cut.

A tax cut that would help people who already have jobs, not people who don't. Almost no one in Congress, by the way, thinks this is a good idea right now. What about the payroll tax cut? I want to see it. In a Fox News interview Sunday, the president said it was so important he might not sign a new spending bill without it. Yeah, I would consider not signing it if we don't have a payroll tax cut, yes. But then, four days later,

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said it was off the table. One of the issues I think you know about the payroll tax cut is people get that money over time. So the president's preference is to make sure that we send out direct payments quickly so that in August people get more money. There's no question this worked before retail sales. So yeah, it does look likely that Senate Republicans and the president will come up with some kind of new package soon. But it has taken a long time, and they still need Democrats to make a deal.

Any package will probably have less money than the one before. And with temporary moratoriums on evictions about to end in many places around the country, things are about to get really tough for a lot of people. And in some cities in the Rust Belt, you are seeing evictions go up. Matt Desmond is the founder of Princeton University's Eviction Lab, which tracks evictions across the country. Milwaukee and Cleveland, evictions have been hovering around 40% higher than they usually are this time in a typical year.

That's pretty scary. Desmond talked to my colleague Noelle King higher than they usually are this time in a typical year. That's pretty scary. Desmond talked to my colleague, Noelle King, about how things could get much, much worse if Congress does not give more help soon. One of the reasons for that, he says, is even when the economy was doing all right before the pandemic, many people were not. This country's economy was doing very well. We had unemployment below 5%. How many people were not. This country's economy was doing very well. We had unemployment below 5%. How many people were being evicted from their homes, say, every month? About the population of Pittsburgh? No.

Yeah, sure. So every year in America, 3.7 million evictions are filed. That's about seven evictions filed every minute. And that number far exceeds the number of foreclosure starts at the height of the foreclosure crisis. So before the pandemic, the majority of renters below the poverty line were already spending half of their income on housing costs or more. And one in four of those families were spending over 70% of their income just on rent and utilities. You know, when you're spending 70, 80% of your income on rent and the lights, you don't need to have a big emergency wash over your life to get evicted. Something very small can do it. What does it actually look like when the pandemic takes hold in this country for people being evicted?

It looks very scary for renters. Now, remember the stimulus checks came, they were about $1,200. Mediate rent in this country right now is $1,002. So if you're just a typical renter, that stimulus check isn't going very far. And if things go normal, I think we have to expect a rise of homelessness around the country. When this federal law expires at the end of the month, how would you characterize what you think we might see in terms of evictions? That's going to mean that our homeless shelter system is flooded and stressed. Shelter systems are really important, but they're horrible for social distancing.

You're sleeping next to people that you don't know. You're eating next to people that you don't know. In a moment where the home is the safest thing we can do to stave off this virus, exposing people to the lack of a home is going to spread more disease and pain. Across the United States, one in 20 renters faces an eviction every year. But for African American renters, that statistic is one in 11. We've created in low income communities of color, a semi permanent renter class. And so they're just disproportionately exposed to these problems. I have this statistic here. The American Bar Association's Task Force Committee on Eviction says that up to 28 million households are at risk of being evicted. Are there practical things that you can advise people to do in this moment to seek relief or resources that

they can access? My advice to you is to reach out to your landlord as soon as possible and start talking to him. This is a difficult thing to do. You know, my family lost our home to foreclosure. And I remember experiencing that moment as a moment of shame and embarrassment. And that's how a lot of folks experience their own evictions. No one is harder on the poor than the poor themselves. So, you know, an eviction comes with this mark or a blemish, a court record. And that can prevent you from moving into safe housing in a good neighborhood because a lot of property owners see that mark and they say no. And so this is utterly preventable. And if we don't prevent it, this is just going to cause more poverty and it's just going to cause

more disease. Matt Desmond, founder of Princeton University's Eviction Lab, talking to my colleague Noelle King. Additional reporting in this episode from our colleagues at All Things Considered and from NPR's Chris Arnold. For more news, download the NPR One app or tune in to your local public radio station. Supporting that station makes this podcast possible. The show is produced by Brianna Scott, Lee Hale, and Brent Bachman. It's edited by Beth Donovan and Sammy Yenigun with fact-checking from Anne Lee. Our executive producer is Cara Tallow. Thanks for listening. I'm Kelly McEvers. Until recently, Edmund Hong says he didn't speak out against racism because he was scared.

My parents told me not to speak up because they were scared. But I'm tired of this. Listen now on the Code Switch podcast from NPR.