The coming eviction tsunami.
 | By Jyoti Thottam Deputy Op-Ed Editor |
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In a pivotal scene in one of my favorite novels, E.M. Forster’s “Howards End,” the imperious Henry Wilcox pronounces the Porphyrion Fire Insurance Company, which he had earlier warned was in trouble, to be, in fact, “safe as houses.” The comment sets off a chain of events ensnaring three families in the vagaries of early 20th-century capitalism. |
I’ve often wondered about that phrase, “safe as houses.” The grand estate of the novel’s title comes to symbolize security and wealth for everyone who lives in it or covets it. This year, we have come to understand the safety of houses quite literally. Those of us with the luxury of living and working securely from home enjoy a protection from exposure to the coronavirus that many essential workers and families with unstable housing do not have. So there is a particular cruelty to the pandemic-induced economic crisis of 2020. |
As Francesca Mari explains in her essay this morning, more than 30 million Americans will be at risk of losing their homes on Dec. 31, when a federal moratorium on evictions expires. |
This housing crisis, as she explains, is a multilayered problem. It isn’t enough, she argues, to “Cancel rent,” as the movement for rent strikes advocates. Nearly half of American rental units are small homes or buildings, and if tenants don’t pay their rent, the landlords won’t be able to pay their mortgages. Those properties, in turn, become easy prey for “vultures,” the investors waiting patiently to scoop up distressed houses and rental properties. |
Francesca is the perfect person to tell us how this works. She wrote a memorable story earlier this year for The Times Magazine about the destabilizing effect of private equity firms entering the market for single-family homes — even before the pandemic. |
The solutions she proposes are pragmatic: reimbursements for renters and small landlords, more short-term direct assistance, low-interest loans to help people pay back rent and a fund that would allow the government, rather than private equity companies, to buy distressed companies. |
This year’s housing crisis, she writes, is different from the crash of 2008: It’s the result of a natural disaster, not man-made financial engineering. But the solutions will have to come from us. |
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