2.3 million
evictions across the US in 2016
By Shelley
Connor
23 April 2018
A team of researchers from Princeton University, led by
sociologist Matt Desmond, has begun compiling a database of evictions throughout
the United States. The first of its kind, the database found that at least 2.3
million evictions were filed in 2016, a rate of 4 evictions per minute,
underscoring the heightening housing crisis in the United States a decade after
the collapse of the housing market.
Desmond’s project, Eviction Lab, has thus far collected 83 million
records from 48 states and the District of Columbia. “We’re in the middle of a
housing crisis, and that means more and more people are giving more and more of
their income to rent and utilities. Our hope is that we can take this problem
that’s been in the dark and bring it into the light,” Desmond recently told
NPR.
This scourge of evictions, Desmond reports, is rooted in the
stagnation of wages combined with escalating housing prices. “Incomes have
remained flat for many Americans over the last two decades,” Desmond explained,
“but housing costs have soared… between 1995 and today, median asking rents
have increased by 70 percent, adjusting for inflation.” As a result, he notes,
there is a “shrinking gap” between families’ income and their rent expenses.
Desmond’s assertion is borne out by research done by other
organizations. According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC),
workers earning the federal minimum wage ($7.25 hourly) would have to work an
average of 94.5 hours weekly in order to afford a basic, one-bedroom apartment.
The NLIHC’s annual report on low income housing, released in March, states that
about 8 million people nationwide pay greater than 50 percent of their income
for rent.
“The problem is not that low-income people aren’t working hard
enough. The problem, rather, is that many jobs don’t pay enough for low-income
people to afford to pay the rent,” Diane Yentel, the president and CEO of the
NLIHC told City Lab.
In the midst of the shrinking rent-to-income ratio, public housing
is not rising to meet the needs of low income family. In his interview with
NPS, Desmond explained, “...Wait a minute, where’s public housing here? Where’s
housing vouchers? Doesn’t the government help? And the answer is, it does help,
but only for a small percentage of families. Only about 1 in 4 families who
qualify for housing assistance get anything. So when we picture the typical low
income American today, we shouldn’t think of them living in public housing or
getting any kind [of] housing assistance for the government, we should think of
folks who are paying 60, 70, 80 percent of their income and living unassisted
in the private rental market. That’s our typical case today.”
The Hampton Roads region of Virginia, which comprises seven
cities, including Virginia Beach, Norfolk, and Newport News, has one of the
highest eviction rates in the nation. According to Eviction Lab, all the
region’s cities issued eviction orders three times more than the national
average in 2016. Landlords asked courts to issue eviction orders for at least a
fifth of rental households in Hampton Roads that year.
In Hampton Roads, the housing issues are manifold. As in many
parts of the country, incomes in the region have not risen in proportion to
demanded rent. In addition, public housing is not only failing to answer to the
problem but is actually exacerbating it. Three of Norfolk’s public housing
developments—Calvert Square, Tidewater Gardens, and Young Terrace—are slated
for “overhaul” over the next 10 years. Altogether, the developments currently
house about 4,200 people, many of whom will be displaced by the planned
renovations.
In April, Ben Carson, the Director of Housing and Urban Development,
visited Norfolk and praised the city for its plans to replace these public
housing developments with mixed-income housing. “The overall plan is very well
thought out. It’s something that will garner a lot of support and I think it
will likely be included in the opportunity zone,” Carson said during his visit.
Opportunity zones are economically disadvantaged areas targeted for
redevelopment by HUD. Investors who develop in opportunity zones are eligible
for tax deferments until 2026.
Carson sloppily dodged questions posed by concerned residents of
these housing developments during his visit. “In talking to the mayor and some
of the council members,” he said in front of the news cameras, “they are very
carefully looking at the displacement issue and they are taking it into account
in their planning, so I don’t think it’s going to be a big issue.”
The city, however, is not counting on public housing residents
coming back to the area. Officials cite the nearby Broad Creek development,
which “redeveloped” 767 units in the former Bowling Green and Roberts Village
housing developments; a mere 150 of the developments’ original residents
returned to the new, mixed-income housing. While the city chooses to frame this
as a choice made freely, it is more likely that residents simply could not wait
for the new developments.
The Hampton Roads eviction rate is extraordinarily high, but it is
not the only region where housing authorities are increasingly more interested
in developing real estate than providing affordable housing for low income
workers. Opportunity Zones have been designated in at least 15 states and one
territory since HUD initiated its redevelopment scheme in January.
Matthew Desmond points out that Eviction Lab can only provide a
portion of the real impact of eviction in the US. As he told NPR “...the
estimates that we have are stunning, but they’re also too low,” given the
myriad ways that people can be evicted without landlords bothering to file for
an order. He noted the many deleterious effects evictions have upon individuals
and families, from the resulting condition of homelessness to poor job and
school performance.
AS
WALL STREET PLUNDERS: A Nation of One Million Homeless and Overrun By Mexico’s
Export of “cheap labor”!
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2018/04/wall-street-plunders-ceo-pay-banksters.html
“But
a series of reports on CEO pay, bank profits and corporate cash released over
the past week reveal that corporate America and the financial oligarchy are
wallowing in record levels of wealth.”
MASSIVE TRANSFER OF
WEALTH TO THE RICH: YOUR DEMOCRAT PARTY AT WORK…. for Wall Street, Banksters,
Billionaires and LA RAZA.
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-democrat-party-for-billionaires.html
NANCY PELOSI, and her LA RAZA SISTERS, SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN,
FORMER SEN. BARBARA BOXER and NOW SEN. KAMALA HARRIS are a pantheon of staggering
self-serving corruption.
They and their families have all gotten filthy rich off of
these women’s elected office.
Their endless hispandering for the illegals’ votes has turned
California into Mexifornia, a drug, gang and anchor baby welfare third-world
dumpster!
“Liberal governing has
transformed beautiful California into the poverty
capital of America with the worst quality of life. Crazy
taxes,
crazy high cost of living, and crazy overreaching
regulations have crushed the middle class, forcing the middle class to
exit the Sunshine State. All that is left in California are illegals
feeding at the breast of the state, rapidly growing massive
homeless tent cities, and the mega-rich.” LLOYD MARCUS
AMERICA:
MEXICO’S WELFARE STATE
… and in
exchange we get 40 million Mexican flag wavers, homelessness, a housing crisis,
heroin & opioid crisis and jobs for legals crisis…. ALL THANKS TO THE
DEMOCRAT PARTY
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2013/08/how-cheap-is-staggering-cost-of-mexicos.html
“Thirteen years after welfare
reform, the share of immigrant-headed households (legal and illegal) with a
child (under age 18) using at least one welfare program continues to be very
high. This is partly due to the large share of immigrants with low levels of
education and their resulting low incomes — not their legal status or an
unwillingness to work. The major welfare programs examined in this report
include cash assistance, food assistance, Medicaid, and public and subsidized
housing.” Steven A. Camarota
AMERICA: ONE PAYCHECK AND TWELVE
ILLEGALS AWAY FROM HOMELESSNESS!
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2017/12/rick-moran-los-angeles-mexicos-second.html
A dashcam video of downtown Los Angeles on
Christmas day reveals a stunning sight: hundreds of tents and lean-tos on the
sidewalks that serve as shelter for the homeless. The scene is reminiscent of a
third-world country. RICK MORAN / AMERICANTHINKER
com
No comments:
Post a Comment