April 23, 2020

Black and Latinx populations are disproportionately being infected by the coronavirus and dying from COVID-19. Health experts and activists say this pattern reflects long-documented inequities—in employment, health care access, environmental quality, and more—in the United States, making it a civil rights issue. In New York City, Latinx people make up 29 percent of the population but 39 percent of COVID-19 cases, and, in New York, Black and Latinx patients are dying at twice the average rate. Housing activists are protesting nationwide, including a “car caravan” tenant protections protest outside of Mayor Eric Garcetti’s house in Los Angeles and a highway block to demand rent cancellation in Missouri. In line with these demonstrations, recent plans released by racial justice and civil rights organizers center housing stability measures, such as moratoria on rent, mortgage payments, evictions, and utility disconnections, in their demands to lawmakers.

In a letter addressed to Mayor Bill de Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo, 500 New York–based physicians, social workers, and nurses urged the government to more aggressively address the myriad hurdles to quarantine and social distancing that people experiencing homelessness face by expanding shelter space to empty hotel rooms. The city recently committed to placing 6,000 people with COVID-19 in hotels, but the medical professionals wrote that all people experiencing homelessness in New York City, regardless of their COVID-19 diagnosis, should have the opportunity to safely distance. Separately, the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) requested that owners of city-funded affordable housing buildings allocate up to 30 percent of those apartments for people experiencing homelessness. The HPD plans to use city rental voucher money to pay these residents’ rents. “We must work together to solve the problems exacerbated by this unprecedented pandemic, which is why we’re asking our partners to do their part by making more homes available for New Yorkers experiencing homelessness,” said HPD spokesperson Matthew Creegan.

Despite eviction moratoria in more than 30 states and dozens of cities, landlords are illegally forcing some tenants who are unable to pay rent out of their units. Vast disparities in laws and suspensions among states and municipalities is resulting in a confusing, patchwork landscape for renters, landlords, and law enforcement and leaves many tenants without clear recourse for illegal evictions. Even in states with eviction moratoria that expand the protections in the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, only 20 explicitly prevent law enforcement from carrying out eviction orders, and only two states (Connecticut and New Hampshire) have frozen every step in the eviction process. In other states, tenants must prove that their financial hardship is directly related to COVID-19 to be protected. “The level of [police] compliance we see is directly related to the state of landlord-tenant law, and to the amount of protections tenants have,” says Cashauna Hill, executive director of the Louisiana Fair Housing Action Center.

For many LGBTQ young adults, student housing provides a safe living space away from hostile, homophobic living environments. But nationwide campus closures from to COVID-19 forced students out of college housing back into family homes, a dangerous reality for some queer youth. Service providers report that many LGBTQ youth fear they will be kicked out and homeless if they are outed to people they live with. Though unsafe housing and disproportionate rates of homelessness among the queer community are not new issues, the pandemic’s impact exacerbates these existing threats. Their vulnerability is even greater in rural areas, which have more discriminatory laws against the LGBTQ community and fewer transgender-inclusive legal protections than urban areas. “With all of the closures that have resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic, you have fewer resources than ever for transgender and LGB students… who are looking for support and for resources. It's really no laughing matter that people are being forced back into the closet, so to speak, just to be able to survive this pandemic," said Chinyere Ezie, staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights.