2 minute readSecond-quarter 2021 earnings among leading single-family enterprise and multifamily REIT strategic executives have been cause for jubilance. Housing’s meteoric recovery from last Spring’s abyss, and its resilience in the face of ongoing economic shocks and stresses reflect resolve, hard work, and courage.
Still, this profoundly sad tale-of-two-housing-realities moment starts a dark chapter for everybody whose livelihood springs from work producing homes and communities.
Wall Street back-flips at how great housing’s doing on the one hand;
An article from Social Forces found that neighborhoods with a higher number of children and female-headed households experience increased evictions, so we account for the percentage of female heads of household. Eviction filing and eviction rates increased for every neighborhood group in the top quarter of female-headed households.
The Brookings authors recommend six policy strategies that could help prevent high risk of evictions in the wake of the end of the CDC ban from becoming a catastrophe. Two of the five policy strategies speak to every person who regards building, remodeling, planning, investing, manufacturing, developing, etc. homes and communities as a livelihood.
Here they are:
Build more housing. In many cities, zoning laws prevent new housing stock from being added and restrict certain types of housing used by poor people and people of color—specifically, housing that is not single-family housing. Minneapolis changed their restrictive zoning laws just before the pandemic and became the first city to ban single-family zoning, with Berkeley and Sacramento, Calif. following suit this year. While the long-term effects on rent and availability remain to be seen, the reality is that for many cities without zoning reform, the status quo is untenable.
Finally, increase the minimum wage. Evictions disproportionately hit renters with low incomes and those in poverty; nowhere in the country can a single working adult afford a two-bedroom apartment on the minimum wage.
The public sector – at the local, regional, state, or federal level – by itself, can not solve for this, and ward off disaster. Nor can the private sector, by itself, solve for this looming crisis. What does that mean other than it’s an “us challenge?”
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