On NLIHC’s most recent (November 7) national call for the “HoUSed: Universal, Stable, Affordable Homes” campaign, we received updates from Capitol Hill, heard about new research on the persistence of housing insecurity among women and LGBT people of color, learned about how landlords use the threat of eviction, and more.
Sarah Javaid, research fellow at the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC), provided an overview of NWLC’s recent brief examining how the housing and food crises continue to create economic insecurity among women and LGBT people of color. The brief noted that single Black, non-Hispanic women, Latinas, disabled women of color, and LGBT people of color were especially likely to be renters, and significantly more likely to have experienced rent increases in the prior year. These increases were on average more than $250 per month, or $3,000 per year. The brief also found that one out of four Black women, and three out of 10 Black women with a disability, reported being behind on rent, putting them at increased risk of eviction.
Eva Rosen, associate professor at Georgetown University, and Philip Garboden, assistant professor at the University of Hawai’i, shared findings from a recent study on how landlords use the threat of eviction to extract money from tenants and keep tenants in arrears. The researchers found that roughly half of evictions are part of a serial chain of eviction filings, and that large landlords are much more likely to file against the same tenant multiple times than are smaller housing providers. Filing against a tenant “assists [the landlord] in rent collection by leveraging the state to materially and symbolically support the landlord’s debt collection,” while continuing to house tenants with small rental debts “aggravates the power imbalance within the landlord-tenant relationship,” giving landlords “the legal pretext to remove a tenant for any reason and [preventing] tenants from exercising their legal rights regarding code enforcement.” The results of the study point to the continued need for legislative and administrative action that will help balance the power between landlords and tenants.
NLIHC Housing Advocacy Organizer Courtney Cooperman joined the call to share Election Day resources, including materials from the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) on ensuring people experiencing homelessness are able to exercise their right to vote. Sophie Siebach-Glover, NLIHC’s research specialist, shared the latest data from the U.S. Department of the Treasury on emergency rental assistance (ERA) spending and reallocation. Abram Diaz, policy director at the Non-Profit Housing Association of Northern California, and Brenda Clement, director of Housing Works Rhode Island, provided field updates. NLIHC Senior Vice President of Policy and Field Organizing Sarah Saadian closed out the call with an update on fiscal year (FY) 2023 budget negotiations and the tax extenders package.
National HoUSed campaign calls now occur every other week. Our next call will be held on November 21 from 2:30 to 4:00 pm ET. Register for the call at: tinyurl.com/ru73qan
View slides from the November 7 call at: tinyurl.com/3zxauuh8
Watch a recording of the November 7 call at: tinyurl.com/3t5rrsu8