COVID-19

How is the community development world responding to the COVID-19 crisis? What are the most pressing policy issues that organizations should be paying attention to? How are groups across the U.S. coordinating? Shelterforce will be delving into these issues and lots more.

We welcome reader stories about the challenges and the moments of hope and collaboration that you’re seeing on the ground, and questions you want answered. Please let us know: what kinds of information would be useful for you to hear? Email us at info@shelterforce.org.

 

Racial Equity, Housing, and COVID: A Roundtable

Six regional and state housing advocates discuss the connections between uprisings over racial injustice, the pandemic, and the need for housing security.

Pollution, Place, and the Unnecessary Tragedy of Premature Death: Lessons for COVID-19

In Louisville, low-income and Black populations living in neighborhoods dealing with decades of industrial pollution are now suffering the worst public health outcomes of COVID-19.
in New York, a person walks to the left holding a stop sign.

New York State Stiffs Nonprofits

Is New York the canary in the coal mine when it comes to a nonprofit funding collapse?
Close up of a typewriter with the word "Regulations" typed out

Business as Usual: Trump Agencies Resist Calls to Suspend Non-Essential Rulemaking

Congressional leaders and community advocates are calling on HUD and financial regulators to suspend non-essential rulemaking. HUD appears to refuse.
home with sold sign

This Moment Calls for Finally Making Homeownership Access Fair

The worsening housing crisis shows that we must develop comprehensive tools and programs to keep families housed and their assets preserved.
Sanitation worker Bobby Parker was illegally evicted from his home for paying his rent late. He's seen here, walking the streets of New Orleans.

High-Risk, Essential, and Illegally Evicted

Eviction moratoriums are only as good as their enforcement, as one man’s harrowing story in New Orleans shows.
a person hold a #cancelrent sign in spanish.

What Would It Mean to Cancel Rent?

The growing organizing demand raises a host of questions for the affordable housing movement.

How State and Local Governments Can Avoid Mass Evictions

Beyond the immediate need to stop mass evictions, there is much more that state and local officials can do to facilitate housing stability in a longer-term transition out of the pandemic emergency. The time for those critical measures is now.

Nonprofit Housing Providers Face Down COVID-19

As organizers struggle to get strong eviction moratoriums passed and enforced around the country, there’s one sector where evictions during the pandemic were not on the list of options from the start—nonprofit-owned affordable housing. Projects...
A large group of cheering people wearing yellow T-shirts hold a sign that reads "Homes Guarantee". In the background, a large sign reads "People before profits, politics, polluters."

Housing Justice Organizers Don’t Want to Return to ‘Normal’

As they organize for immediate relief for those whose housing was affected by the pandemic, tenant leaders are also building power to demand long-term changes.

Real Estate Firms Take Federal Aid, Evict Tenants Anyway

When the pandemic hit, real estate firms gladly took government assistance to keep their businesses afloat as they faced financial hardships. Then they turned around and evicted scores of tenants enduring the same COVID-induced difficulties.

Social Housing: A Path to Housing for All?

How do we reduce the precariousness of housing so that a public health crisis or other disaster doesn’t snowball into displacement? Many people are calling for more social housing as part of that solution. What does that mean? What will it take to make it happen?
Squatters occupy the Arion building in Seattle after it sat vacant for months. There are signs that read "Operation Homestead" and "It's Alive" outside the large white building.

History Shows that in Times of Crisis, Housing Activists Get Radical

A recent spate of vacant home occupations echo squatters campaigns of the past.
A protestor holds a "Rent Relief Now" sign during a North Carolina demonstration this month

In Unprecedented Times, Nothing Less Than Universal Rent Relief Will Do

If we stick with yesterday’s policy and programs in an unprecedented year of crisis, we will leave an unconscionable number of people, families, and communities behind.

Why We Must Protect Young People from Homelessness Now

As past economic crises show, insufficient action today could all but ensure that high school and college graduates will struggle with housing insecurity as they age.

Feeding People in a Pandemic

Across the country, community organizations and food-related businesses have found creative ways to provide meals and groceries to low-income people in need.

The CARES Act Was Supposed to Protect NJ Tenants from Eviction. It Didn’t.

State activists say eviction cases were filed in violation of the CARES Act’s ban on evictions. Pre-trial settlement conferences are further complicating the situation.

Rescue Plan has Billions Available for Housing, Advocates Urge Officials to Take It

With relatively few strings attached to the $350 billion in funds states and municipalities will receive, the door is wide open for governments to make a dent in their housing needs. But will they?

Homeowners Seeking Foreclosure Assistance Face Delays and Confusion in Many States

While a lot of attention has been paid to emergency rental assistance, foreclosure relief funds are also being distributed at the state level—and are also having mixed results getting to those who need them.

NYC Hospital Closures: Land-Use Decisions Have Life and Death Consequences

How hospital closures in NYC follows an all-too-familiar pattern of disinvestment and a lack of resources in low-income communities of color.