March 19, 2020

On Wednesday, President Trump announced that the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) will suspend foreclosures and evictions through at least the end of April. He said the administration ordered the suspension to provide immediate relief for both renters and homeowners during the COVID-19 pandemic. Further details from HUD about the scope of the relief and moratoria were not yet available.

People experiencing homeless are especially vulnerable to COVID-19 because they do not have the ability to “stay home when [they] are sick [and] wash [their] hands frequently” and often have preexisting medical conditions, said Barbara Ferrer, Los Angeles County’s director of public health. Across the country, cities are moving to mitigate the spread of the virus in these communities and are taking action, such as San Francisco’s plan to lease motor homes to house people experiencing homelessness, Seattle’s conversion of a motel to quarantine COVID-19 patients, and San Jose’s suspension of camp sweeps.

To reduce the spread of the COVID-19 outbreak, more than 200 colleges and universities have shut down their facilities and moved coursework online. Many colleges have also shut down dormitories and other student housing, presenting a serious threat to housing stability for low-income students. “For a lot of students, college is the only place where they have access to food on a consistent basis. Oftentimes… it’s the only place they have shelter without the worry of disruptions in utilities, disruptions in feeling unsafe,” said Anthony Abraham Jack, a professor at Harvard University.

Near the green line in Saint Paul, Minnesota, the Amherst H. Wilder Foundation plans to sell a vacant two-acre parcel and use the proceeds to support its “mission to improve lives, which includes a continuum of programs that help hundreds of people find and maintain stable housing each year,” says Sean Kershaw, vice president of Wilder Center for Communities. The purchaser’s plan to develop market-rate housing at the site has met community resistance. Citing research on the impacts of new market-rate apartments on rents for “lower-tier” properties nearby, the Frogtown Neighborhood Association wants the terms of the pending sale to ensure that half of the new homes offer affordability at 30 percent of area median income.

In New York, the Chhaya Community Development Corporation (CDC) is pushing the Commercial District Needs Assessment for Jackson Heights, Queens, to collect data on street vendors—a group that advocates argue is essential to the neighborhood’s economy and reflects the ethnolinguistic diversity of Jackson Heights. The Chhaya CDC hopes the needs assessment reinforces the role of street vendors in the past, present, and future of Jackson Heights to developers and the city.