CityLab Daily: Covid-19 Evictions Will Wipe Out Black Renters
Also today: The forces that may reshape U.S. cities, and how America spent billions of dollars militarizing cops.
Kerry Seerattan with a face mask she received at a bus station in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston on April 29..
Photograph: Boston Globe
Six-weeks notice: A new study out of Boston offers a glimpse of what the “tsunami of evictions” may look like as state moratoriums come to an end. Eviction bans in five states expired on July 1, leaving Massachusetts as one of the few with tenant protections still in place.
The state’s ban, which currently extends to late August, doesn’t stop landlords from seeking an eviction, as shown by the hundreds of cases filed in Boston between March 1 and April 20. When researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology analyzed the data, a clear picture emerged: More than three-quarters of filings were in majority-Black and immigrant neighborhoods. The results are in line with the racial disparities in America’s housing crisis. They also reflect how communities of color are bearing the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic’s health and economic impacts. With six weeks to go until the Massachusetts eviction ban ends, however, there’s still time for local lawmakers to craft policies to help the hardest-hit, writes Kriston Capps. Today on CityLab: The Coming Wave of Coronavirus Evictions Will Wipe Out Black Renters