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Pandemic threatens wave of homelessness as 23 million Americans face eviction

05 August 2020
 Dan Ackermann

The coronavirus pandemic threatens America with a new wave of homelessness due to a cratering economy, expiring unemployment stimulus payments and vanishing renter protections.

What they're saying: "I've never seen this many people poised to lose their housing in such a short period of time," said Bill Faith of the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio to AP.

The big picture: 23 million Americans are at risk of eviction and exposure to the shelter system during a pandemic, the AP reports, citing the Aspen Institute.

  • The latest Census Bureau Household Pulse Survey found last week that more than 26.5% of American adults 18 or older questioned whether they would be able to make last month's rent or mortgage payment or had little or no confidence they could pay next month, the AP notes.

Many lower-income Americans initially got by on credit cards and stimulus checks, National Apartment Association CEO Bob Pinnegar told Axios' Kim Hart.

  • Now those options are gone. "The hole that they're getting in from a financial standpoint is going to take years for them to dig out of, if they ever can."

Among those seeking help is Natasha Blunt of New Orleans, who could be evicted from her two-bedroom apartment where she lives with her two grandchildren, the AP reports.

  • Blunt owes thousands in back rent after she lost her banquet porter job. She has yet to receive her stimulus check and has not been approved for unemployment benefits. Her family is getting by with food stamps and the charity of neighbors.
  • "I can't believe this happened to me because I work hard," said Blunt, whose eviction is at the mercy of the federal moratorium protecting low-income renters, which expired in July. "I don't have any money coming in. I don't have nothing. I don't know what to do . ... My heart is so heavy."

The bottom line: "The whole purpose of the eviction moratorium [was] a stop-gap measure," Alieza Durana from Eviction Lab at Princeton told the "Axios Re:Cap" podcast.

  • "Do they have money for rent, money for food or health care, that sort of thing — that is a separate but overlapping issue."

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.