In partnership with Economic Hardship Reporting Project
Tenants Facing Eviction Over Covid-19 Look to a 1970s Solution
This story was produced in collaboration with the Economic Hardship Reporting Project and is being published in partnership with The New York Times. It is the first in a series about evictions related to the coronavirus.
The Trump administration has extended the ban on evictions through the end of the year, but it does little more than stop the clock on a looming crisis for tenants and landlords. The Emergency Rent and Mortgage Cancellation Act before the Senate now contains a radical proposition, to help tenants buy their apartments. Like many unorthodox ideas, this traces back to San Francisco, when Mayor George Moscone attempted a hail mary pass to end nine years of hostile confrontations with police and activists working to keep a group of elderly Filipino residents in their homes. Retro Report draws a compelling and novel connection between this landmark housing fight from the 1970s to the situation facing renters impacted by covid today.
To learn more about Retro Report’s “Hitting Home,” a multicity, multiplatform reporting project that examines the process and impact of evictions caused by the Covid-19 economic fallout click here.
To watch Curtis Choy’s The Fall of the I-Hotel click here.
Related:
As Evictions Loom, Cities Revisit a Housing Solution From the 70s by Clyde Haberman
What Happens When a Sheriff Challenges an Eviction Order? by Emily Orr
More Like This
Burden of Richmond Evictions Weighs Heaviest in Black Neighborhoods
An eviction moratorium has slowed filings in cities like Richmond, but it hasn’t stopped them, and Black tenants are at highest risk.
We’re Catching More Diseases From Wild Animals, and It’s Our Fault.
Scientists who venture into rainforests and bat caves explain how viruses, like Covid-19, spill over from animals to people, and what we must do to stop the next pandemic.
How Decades of Housing Discrimination Hurts Fresno in the Pandemic
Decades of discrimination in Fresno laid the groundwork for a housing crisis today.
New York Tenants Are Organizing Against Evictions, as They Did in the Great Depression
Activists concerned about pandemic-related homelessness are seeking rent relief. In the 1930s, tenants banded together against evictions.