April 30, 2020

On May 1, thousands of New York City tenants plan to join the city’s largest rent strike in decades. Advocates with the group Housing Justice for All organized nearly 2,000 tenants in 57 apartment buildings, joining 9,000 others who signed an online pledge to withhold their rent. Organizers demand that Gov. Andrew Cuomo cancel rent and mortgage payments for four months or the duration of the coronavirus pandemic, whichever is longer. This would significantly expand the state’s current solution: an eviction moratorium that expires June 20. Many tenants worry they will be unable to pay rent and evicted when the moratorium ends. Strikers posit small landlords could also benefit from the strike if legislators enact mortgage relief and are calling for tenant-centered solutions. But Jay Martin, executive director of the Community Housing Improvement Program, believes a rent strike could hurt small landlords and instead proposes that the federal government follow European governments and provide direct relief to tenants. Organizers state they oppose this sort of proposal, as they believe these plans put the burden on renters, rather than their landlords.

This week, the Federal Housing Finance Agency clarified that homeowners with loans owed to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (which account for about 70 percent of all home loans) will not have to pay balloon or lump sum payments once mortgage forbearance under the CARES Act ends. With the announcement, the agency aims to settle weeks of confusion caused by some loan servicers’ inconsistent messaging and false claims. Although this miscommunication is largely from confusion on the part of call center representatives, some housing advocates say companies are intentionally misinforming borrowers to discourage forbearance and avoid cash flow problems for the mortgage servicers. “When servicers are telling homeowners they have to make a lump sum payment, that’s contrary to the law and contrary to all of the guidance I’ve seen coming out from the various regulators,” said Diane Thompson, an attorney with the National Consumer Law Center. Instead, the enterprises offer a variety of repayment plans for loan holders. For most homeowners, missed payments will simply be put on the back end of their mortgage. Thompson recommends that Congress make this option the default for those who hold federal loans.

COVID-19 reignited debates around the potential benefits and risks of urban density, with some pointing to New York City’s epicenter status as proof that dense urbanization is detrimental to public health. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo blamed high-rise apartment complexes and packed public transit, hallmarks of the nation’s densest major city, for the city’s 150,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 11,100 deaths. California State Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco challenged Cuomo’s statement and pointed to preliminary research suggesting that proactive government measures influence COVID-19 death rates more than housing density. San Francisco, the second densest big city in the US, implemented a shelter-in-place order nearly a week before New York City and reports only 1,300 confirmed cases. Although experts agree density contributes to the spread, some say health disparities across race and income could be more impactful. “It’s not density itself, it is the fact that bad density plus social inequality is a deadly mix,” said Jay Pitter, distinguished visitor in planning at the University of Toronto.

Nonprofit affordable housing providers across the country are calling for federal action to ensure that amid falling revenue from missed rent payments, they can maintain sustainable affordable housing for their residents. The sector remains committed to preventing evictions, and many leaders, such as Warren Hanson, president and CEO of Greater Minnesota Housing Fund, recognize that “with less income, people are going to be making hard choices, and rent will be secondary to food and medicine.” Recently, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) announced a proposal for $100 billion in renter-focused relief. The Housing Partnership Network, Enterprise, the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, Opportunity Finance Network, Stewards of Affordable Housing for the Future, and the National NeighborWorks Association developed a proposal together that complements Rep. Waters’s and would expand relief access to owners. The proposal appropriates $20 billion in both rental and owner support through the US Department of Housing and Urban Development’s HOME Investment Partnerships Program.