June 18, 2020

The federal COVID-19 eviction moratorium ends on July 24, and federal COVID-19 unemployment benefits (which many laid-off workers use to pay rent) end a week later. Black and Latinx people pay a higher share of income on rent in most major metropolitan areas, are twice as likely as white people to be renters, and are expected to be most impacted when these protections expire. The US Census Household Pulse Survey reports that 44 percent of Black tenants have little or no confidence that they will be able to meet their next rent payment.

The US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) proposed a new rule that would undo 2016 guidance by allowing single-sex homeless shelters to reject transgender people and to consider only a person’s assigned-at-birth sex, rather than their gender identity, in placement and accommodation decisions. Shelters would be required to provide transfer recommendations if they choose not to accept transgender people.

A new report by Redfin real estate brokerage expands insights on how redlining, a racist 1930s policy that blocked Black families from home loans and remains a major contributor to the racial wealth gap, continues to influence homeownership and equity rates for Black households. Today, Black homeowners are nearly five times more likely than white homeowners to own a home in a formerly redlined neighborhood. The analysis found that the typical homeowner in a redlined neighborhood has gained $212,023 (52 percent) less in personal wealth generated by property value increases than a typical homeowner in a greenlined neighborhood over the past 40 years.

On June 14, tens of thousands across the US gathered to honor the lives of Black transgender people recently killed, including Tony McDade, Nina Pop, Dominique “Rem’mie” Fells, and Riah Melton. They also demand that communities “actively and intentionally create space” for Black transgender people to thrive and combat epidemic violence against the Black transgender community, said Eliel Cruz, director at the NYC Anti-Violence Project. Organizers, including Gays and Lesbians in a Transgender Society (GLITS), which works to connect transgender sex workers with safe housing and shelter, advocate for both immediate support and harm reduction for the Black transgender community as well as overarching systemic change. According to a Human Rights Campaign report, “fatal violence that disproportionately impacts” Black transgender women is driven by “racism, sexism, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia [that] conspire to deprive [them] of employment, housing, healthcare and other necessities.”