May 27, 2021

On Monday, Washington, DC, mayor Muriel Bowser announced a plan to invest $400 million into affordable housing production. The proposal would place an additional $150 million in the Housing Production Trust Fund for this fiscal year, and would aim to build 36,000 units, 12,000 of them affordable, by 2025. It also includes housing vouchers to ensure half of homes built using funds from fiscal year 2022 go to households in the lowest income bracket in DC. “I promise you, we will be very intentional about the types of housing that will come with these investments. We know, especially as the median income has gone up in our city, not all affordable housing is created equally,” says Mayor Bowser. 

In December and March, Congress allocated $45 billion in rental assistance to keep renters in their homes. But the end of the eviction moratorium is quickly approaching, many renters haven’t received that aid, and experts believe the money won’t be allocated before the eviction process restarts. Meanwhile, many renters have been paying rent. The National Multi-Family Housing Council’s rent payment tracker found 80 percent of apartment households had paid full or partial rent by May 6. But to make these payments, many renters have emptied their savings accounts, maxed out credit cards, or taken on loans. Some advocates want to extend the eviction moratorium, while others believe an extension could hurt small landlords.

Isatu Sesay, a student at the Boston Community Leadership Academy, was once one of nearly 24,000 grade school students experiencing homelessness in Massachusetts. Many come from working families struggling to make ends meet. Now schools are working with community partners to help families access stable housing. School districts have increased outreach to families to help them access assistance. “If you’re moving frequently or you’ve been displaced due to homelessness, that means that you’re likely to miss more school days. You’ve had housing instability, you have food insecurity challenges. It’s really hard to focus on your learning and your education when you have all of these huge challenges,” explains Brian Marques, senior director of the Boston public school district’s Opportunity Youth department. 

Eight nursing homes in Shelby County, Tennessee, have evicted, or “involuntarily discharged,” residents during the pandemic. All eight facilities had coronavirus outbreaks. Although nursing homes around the country were hit hard by the pandemic, they were exempt from the federal eviction moratorium, and some discharged residents during the height of the pandemic. “We still continue to see discharges that were either, the resident felt that they were not ready to be discharged or discharged, to unsafe locations,” says Sam Brooks, program and policy manager for the National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care.