During the most recent national call on coronavirus, disasters, housing, and homelessness, Julia Orduña of Texas Housers, Denise Galataf of Southern Mutual Health Association, Inc., Renard Thomas of Reentry Alliance of Louisiana, and Andreanecia Morris of HousingNOLA shared field updates on the impacts of Hurricane Laura in Texas and Louisiana. Ilene Jacobs and Jeffrey Hoffman from California Rural Legal Assistance provided updates on the destruction caused by the California wildfires. Sara Buck, the housing programs manager for the City of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, shared updates on the recovery process from the derecho storm in August.
Sam Batko from the Urban Institute shared information on Institute’s new tool to help state and local decision-makers prioritize emergency rental assistance. The tool identifies priority neighborhoods using economic and demographic indicators, creating an index score for each census tract that can be used to allocate rental assistance to neighborhoods most impacted by coronavirus.
Noelle Porter of the National Housing Law Project discussed how advocates can use 2-1-1 to collect data on evictions. Calls to 2-1-1 regarding utility payments, rental assistance, landlord-tenant issues, and housing and shelter inquiries have increased since the beginning of the pandemic. NLIHC’s Sarah Saadian and Joey Lindstrom provided congressional updates and next steps for advocacy.
NLIHC hosts national calls on coronavirus, disasters, housing, and homelessness every week. On today’s call, we will be joined by Matthew Desmond, author and principal investigator for Eviction Lab, as well as Shamus Roller and Eric Dunn of the National Housing Law Project to discuss the recent federal moratorium on evictions. Register for today’s call (Tuesday, September 8 at 2:30 pm ET) at: https://tinyurl.com/ru73qan
Watch a recording of the August 31 call at: tinyurl.com/yxbryf6k
Access presentation slides at: tinyurl.com/y6dn9uhe