March 18, 2021

Eviction moratoria, unemployment benefits, federal stimulus checks, and Washington, DC’s requirement to extend short-term rental assistance helped the city reduce homelessness during the pandemic. Because this decline, DC government has warned it may reduce funding for homeless service funding next year. Community activists worry that when current protections end, family homelessness could increase. “In a high-cost market like DC, you need to have that rapid-rehousing mechanism, but you also need to be building affordable housing and also having enough subsidies for families who need them,” said Mary Cunningham, vice president for the Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center at the Urban Institute.

Despite Hartford’s awareness of numerous health and safety code violations, the city inconsistently inspects, documents, and corrects them. These violations most often occur in Hartford’s inner city, where many residents have low incomes, are people of color, and are at risk for developing health conditions such as asthma. “We’re working hard to implement changes and improvements to our housing code and the inspection process,” states supervisor and interim development services director I. Charles Mathews. Meanwhile, Shamiesha Inabinett, who rents a cockroach-infested apartment, wonders, “How long do we have to live like this?”

On Monday, the Housing Rights Initiative filed a lawsuit against 88 brokerage firms and landlords in New York City that have discriminated against people with housing vouchers. The suit argues that defendants’ disregard for the law exacerbates barriers to affordable housing access for the city’s 125,000 voucher holders, who are mostly Black and Latinx. “They are the gatekeepers of housing and get to decide where families live, where they work and where children go to school. Housing discrimination goes beyond the walls of housing,” says Aaron Carr, the founder and executive director of the Housing Rights Initiative.

New research from Redfin shows that historically redlined neighborhoods nationwide, many which are still predominately home to people of color, have a 1.5 percent higher risk of flooding than greenlined neighborhoods. Long-term disinvestment in infrastructure combined with climate change exacerbates flood risk in these communities. “Severe storms and hurricanes have a disproportionate effect on minorities in terms of damage done, life lost, and the amount of money that gets reimbursed. This project was done to look back at the legacy of redlining and link it to the outcomes we see today,” states Schery Bokhari, senior economist for Redfin.