Updates and Resources from the office of Councilmember Brad Lander

Dear John,

If our current dystopian present wasn’t bad enough already, let me introduce you to Civvl: a gig economy company advertising freelance work helping to evict people from their homes. They tout the benefits of “flexible hours” for the “fastest money-making gig during COVID-19,” preying on the desperation of unemployed people to recruit them into temporary, precarious, work-without-benefits evicting other desperate people from their homes during a pandemic. It’s a tragically perfect distillation of the way the pandemic has accelerated the gaping holes in our social safety net -- in our workplaces, and in our homes. 

For the moment, a patchwork of ever-shifting eviction moratoriums are the thin line between tens of millions of people losing their homes in the middle of a pandemic. Each month, as rent day approaches, tenants are left scrambling to try to negotiate with landlords and navigate a shifting landscape of expiring and limited moratorium orders to determine if they can stay in their homes.

In New York, where nearly one-in-five people are unemployed, it's estimated that 25% of renters haven’t been able to pay their full rent. On October 1st, the rent is due again, and the latest eviction moratorium is set to expire.

Housing instability is devastating to the physical and mental health, education, and job prospects of families in normal times -- and was already an epidemic, as Matthew Desmond’s Eviction Lab makes so powerfully clear. Now, the risk of a massive wave of evictions in the middle of a pandemic is truly catastrophic. Families that have to turn to shelters or double up in crowded apartments with relatives will risk spreading the virus, while disrupting their already disrupted education and employment. And the brunt of these layered crises will fall on black and brown, low income communities, and especially on children (as the recent agonizing “Children of the Shadows” article in the NYT Magazine made agonizingly clear; if you missed it, read or listen to it). 

The federal government should be stepping up here, but it’s not. The Senate is rushing to confirm a new Supreme Court nominee, but has still not moved forward pandemic relief legislation with significant funding for rental and mortgage assistance and a universal eviction moratorium (or even just with pandemic unemployment assistance). Instead the Centers for Disease Control has issued a limited ban on evictions through the end of 2020, though the limited order has strict requirements that may exclude many and will leave renters on the hook for rent bills that continue to pile up. 

Here in New York, our current patchwork of protections held together by the courts is much stronger and applies more broadly -- but those protections are set to expire on October 1st. 

Housing advocates are pushing for three key bills in Albany: Senator Salazar’s bill to cancel rent for tenants made unable to pay by the Covid-19 crisis and provide relief to small landlords, Senator Zellnor Myrie’s bill to extend a moratorium on evictions until 1 year after the end of this crisis, and another to expand housing vouchers. You can join them in reaching out to your legislators here or join the march on October 1. 

The rent crisis isn’t just for residential tenants either. Recent surveys have shown that 87% of restaurants have not been able to pay their full rent, and many more small businesses are struggling to get through the next month. The commercial eviction moratorium (which is separate from the patchwork of court and state orders protecting residential tenants for the time being) was slated to expire on Monday, but was extended until October 20th. I’m working with State Senator Brian Kavanagh, Assembly Member Yuh-line Niou and Councilmember Keith Powers on a proposal to create a recovery lease program to help address past due rent for small businesses and help them secure long-term affordable leases. It's a good proposal, and I think we can make it happen, but we need to act quickly.

In the last few weeks, there’s been a raging debate over how and where the City houses the tens of thousands of people who have already lost their homes. While the media understandably focused on the mayor’s caving to NIMBYism of some Upper West Side residents, closer to home the first of two Win shelters opened on 4th Avenue without incident or protest, and the second will open soon. I’m grateful for the opportunity to welcome our new neighbors (in a setting far better than any that Prince and Fifi, the family featured in the NYT article, found in their traumatic travels through the shelter system). 

Unfortunately, the city’s budget decisions have thrown nonprofit human service providers operating supportive housing and shelters into uncertainty, the mayor cut the “indirect cost rate” nonprofits rely on to survive, the essential workers who operate them are still not being paid a living wage -- all while demand for services are rising. We have let our social safety net wither and contract over the years, and now, when we need it most, the holes are so big local governments can’t fill them on their own. 

Housing has always been a major public health issue, and it is only more so during a crisis. The months and years ahead are going to require us to be much more creative and flexible to prevent evictions and expand the availability of truly affordable housing. I’ve proposed using tools like land banks and community land trusts to convert distressed properties into permanently affordable housing. One especially timely idea is to convert failing hotels into supportive housing. If we’re going to do that, we’ll have to restore funding cut from the City’s capital budget, as we’ve been pushing for months. More will undoubtedly be required.

As in so many other areas, it feels utterly grim, leadership is lacking, and it’s easy to despair. But a cascading crisis of evictions and even more homelessness is not inevitable. The choice is ours. 

Brad

Updates and Resources

456 Fifth Avenue, 3rd Floor
Brooklyn, NY 11215
718-499-1090
[email protected]

    

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