Popular Science, July 15, 2020: How eviction is feeding—and being fed by—the pandemic
In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, America is facing a crisis that could see more than twenty million people become homeless in just a few months. Those who study eviction say this unprecedented event will have devastating public health consequences—particularly as it unfolds in the midst of another national hardship.
“The United States is facing an eviction crisis of proportions that we have never seen in our history,” says Emily Benfer, a law professor at Wake Forest University. Benfer has spent her career studying eviction, and says a full federal moratorium coupled with rent and mortgage subsidies is necessary to thwart this devastating event, whose effects could be felt long after the pandemic has ended.
