April 09, 2020

Municipal health agencies reveal that Black people are disproportionately diagnosed with COVID-19 in the US, a trend that experts suggest is the result of compounded, systemic inequities in marginalized communities and existing disparities in health outcomes. Data from Milwaukee County show that though Black people make up 26 percent of Milwaukee’s population, Black residents account for 81 percent of the city’s recorded COVID-19 deaths. In New York, the neighborhoods with the highest rates of positive COVID-19 cases also have some of the city’s highest populations of service workers, rent-burdened households, and people of color. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, says that public health officials should prioritize releasing racial and ethnic data so government agencies can focus their attention on “populations that we know historically are more at risk.” “This is a public health crisis, but it’s also a housing crisis and an economic crisis and a racial justice crisis,” added Lena Afridi, director of policy for the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development in New York.

On Friday, California Governor Gavin Newsom announced Project Roomkey, a first-of-its-kind initiative through which the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will reimburse the state and local governments up to 75 percent of the costs of hotel and motel rooms to house people experiencing homelessness during the COVID-19 pandemic. The initial agreement includes the costs of meals, security, and custodial services and provides an opportunity for extensions beyond an initial three-month period. Project Roomkey aims to secure 15,000 hotel and motel rooms across the state to protect and isolate unhoused residents. Governor Newsom encourages local governments to “begin to fashion a long-term strategy where we can continue to utilize these assets that we’re procuring” to shelter people experiencing homelessness.  

Nationwide school and youth program closures because of COVID-19 are causing unique hardships for LGBTQ youth, who make up a disproportionate number of youth experiencing homelessness. The nation’s 260 LGBTQ community centers provide critical resources for queer youth experiencing homelessness, and although shelters like Detroit’s Ruth Ellis Center have shifted some services online, others have temporarily closed their doors. Additionally, some LGBTQ shelters lack the capacity to comply with social distancing guidelines, causing residents to worry that they may be “forced to live in a homophobic environment” should their shelter close. The Ali Forney Center, a LGBTQ youth shelter in Manhattan, experienced a 62 percent intake increase in March 2020 over March 2019, an increase the center attributes to COVID-19. The center’s director, Alex Roque, shared that some queer youth are facing a new, COVID-19-related crisis of coming out to hostile family and then remaining in an unsafe home during lockdown. “It’s interesting to hear this message of ‘go home, stay home, be safe’ and that everyone was finding that definition in the comfort of their family. Our young people didn’t have that,” said Roque.

The $2 trillion stimulus Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act gives homeowners two types of protection: a 60-day foreclosure moratorium and an initial 180-day mortgage forbearance for people experiencing pandemic-related financial hardship whose loans are backed by a federal entity. However, some borrowers say that lenders have told them they must provide all of their missed payments when the 180 days is up, rather than deferring payments to the end of their loan—contradicting the new legislation and causing confusion and fear. Mike Calhoun, president of the Center for Responsible Lending, attributes these contradictory messages to the federal government’s failure to provide a clear way for lenders to pay for the relief, causing “panic particularly among small lenders.”