City Lab: April 29, 2020, ‘Cancel the Rent’ Could Be Just the Beginning
A campaign dubbed Our Homes, Our Health is pressuring lawmakers to suspend rent and mortgage payments nationwide during the coronavirus crisis.
For the second time since the country started lockdown protocols to flatten the curve of the coronavirus pandemic, the rent is coming due.
Colorado’s governor has directed landlords, banks, and sheriffs to avoid evictions, but without the power of a state order, it carries all the weight of a polite ask. The state’s coronavirus-related tenant protections rank among the worst in the U.S., according to Princeton University’s Eviction Lab.
Other housing experts have said that the best way to avoid any potentially disastrous unintended consequences is to keep money flowing through the system — to have governments provide relief to renters, who in turn lift up landlords, banks, bond-holders, and other pillars of the economy simply by paying the rent.
The federal stimulus simply isn’t reaching enough families in need. More than 88 million Americans so far have received their promised $1,200 stimulus payments from the federal government, but tens of millions of people are still waiting for their checks.
