July 16, 2020

After Wisconsin’s eviction moratorium expired in June, 1,447 eviction cases were filed in Milwaukee, a 17 percent increase according to researchers at Princeton University’s Eviction Lab. Of the 1,447 cases, 978 tenants live in predominately Black neighborhoods. Alieza Durana, a researcher at the Eviction Lab, says the team is “treating Milwaukee,” a city perceived as being very tenant friendly, “as the canary in the coal mine” for the anticipated national eviction crisis as moratoriums expire.

The nonprofit Building Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency (BOSS) and developer Panoramic Interests began construction on a 39-unit modular construction supportive housing development for people who formerly experienced homelessness in Berkeley, California. This transitional housing development is projected to cost 30 to 40 percent less than traditional, nonmodular building construction. Many experts dubbed the development a promising prototype for future small-site construction to address homelessness in California.

As an eviction crisis looms, momentum is building in Minneapolis, Minnesota; New York City; Portland, Oregon; Los Angeles, Oakland, and Berkeley, California; and other cities in support of passing Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Acts (TOPA). TOPA policies help move tenants from renting to homeownership, promoting housing stability. Steve Fletcher, the Ward 3 councilmember in Minneapolis, is working with local community development organizations to guide policy on TOPA. Fletcher hopes the city will work to not only implement TOPA but help fund tenant purchases. But he cautions that COVID-19 budget impacts may impede these efforts.

Religious leaders and affordable housing advocates across the nation are collaborating to address the current financial hardships of religious institutions and the worsening housing crisis by converting churches’ surplus property into affordable housing. The financial fallout faith-based institutions are experiencing stems from a decline in congregation attendance exacerbated by COVID-19 social distancing measures. Monica Bell, a leader of the Yes in God’s Back Yard (YIGBY) movement in San Diego, says faith communities are increasingly framing this struggle as an opportunity to serve their communities because the “coronavirus [is] leav[ing] us with more open space to build more desperately needed housing.”