August 13, 2020

The White House’s recent executive order fails to extend the eviction moratorium or provide direct financial assistance to renters. Instead, it calls on the Department Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease control to consider whether measures to halt evictions are needed to control the spread of COVID-19. With government agencies unclear about how to fund rental assistance or mechanisms to halt evictions, the executive order threatens to “mislead renters into believing that they are protected when they are not,” stated Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

A US Department of Housing Urban Development (HUD) study revealed housing authorities in Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi segregate Black and white residents into separate buildings, and white residents receive additional amenities, such as access to parks, libraries, and a food pantry. The Decatur Housing Authority, which houses low-income elderly residents and which HUD spokesperson Joseph Phillips said “was the most egregious,” will disperse $200,000 to compensate victims and will provide $1 million in upgrades.

The US Census Bureau’s final Household Pulse Survey reports that 34 percent of renters nationwide did not expect to be able to make their August rent payment. As the $600 per week boost to unemployment benefits and federal eviction moratorium end, more than 40 percent of renters say they are relying on sources other than regular income to pay their bills. People living in southern states recorded the highest rates of uncertainty over whether or not rent would be met.

A 37-unit permanent supportive housing complex with 6 respite rooms for people experiencing homelessness who were recently discharged from the hospital, 31 units for low-income residents, and onsite mental health services opens this month in Salem, Oregon. It is the first of its kind in the region, and its services for discharged hospital patients are unique and important because patients experiencing homelessness are often “put in a taxi and taken back to a camp or hotel” and not given stable housing to recover, said Jessica Blakely, asset and operations manager for the Salem Housing Authority.