Hundreds of thousands of renters at risk of losing their homes throughout the US Midwest
There is a growing eviction crisis throughout the Midwest and across the United States with hundreds of thousands of people at risk of losing their homes. Despite a federal eviction moratorium, which is good through March 31, landlords are using alternative methods of forcing people out of rental units, such as locking them out of their homes or moving their belongings outside their dwelling. These illegal tactics make clear the toothless character of the moratorium.
Person packing an apartment (Image credit: Twenty20.com)
The inability to pay rent is directly tied to mass unemployment that has scourged the country since March, brought on by the pandemic. The nationwide unemployment rate for January 2021 was initially reported to be 6.7 percent, but Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell confessed on February 10 that the true rate was nearly 10 percent. Large numbers of unemployed workers had
Despite an eviction moratorium in Illinois, Luz Franco, 51, says she was nudged into leaving her apartment late last year after she got COVID-19 and missed work, which led to a late rent payment. She lost heat in her unit and some of her belongings were found on the front lawn.
Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
When Luz Franco got sick with COVID-19, she missed work and knew she wouldn’t have the money to pay the rent on her apartment in Brighton Park.
Franco, 51, figured she could give what she had to her landlord until she was able to catch up.
But she says the landlord said she was a year behind on rent, and soon she found the heat had been turned off in her apartment, and one day her son found some of their belongings on the front lawn.
Chicago real estate in 2021: Eviction crisis and Zoom rooms chicagotribune.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from chicagotribune.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Fighting No-Fault Evictions With a Just Cause Ordinance
Despite a statewide eviction moratorium, thousands of people have been evicted in Chicago since March. A coalition of housing advocates is proposing a just cause ordinance that would halt no-fault evictions. December 20, 2020, 9am PST | LM Ortiz Share
With the onset of COVID-19 in March, jurisdictions across the country began introducing eviction moratoriums to prevent the immediate displacement of renters at risk of being made homeless due to job loss. Despite the persistence of the pandemic and the continued state of job loss impacting the economy, many of these moratoriums are set to expire over the next several months, placing the U.S. on the brink of an eviction crisis that advocates say will impact millions of lives. Despite recent federal action that may extend protections for a subset of renters into the foreseeable future, households now thousands of dollars behind on rent are still at risk of displacement at