LOCKED OUT

As I pen this blog, we're knocking on the door of 300,000 COVID related deaths. It's also clear that non-White folk, especially Blacks and Indigenous Americans, are being hit disproportionately hard by the current pandemic. Compared to a White COVID mortality rate of 75.7 per 100,000, the mortality rates for Black and Indigenous Americans are 123.7 and 133.0, respectively.

And, as if that's not bad enough, there's something else hurtling down the pike. Something moving at breakneck speed. Something catastrophic. Something that's bound to compound the health and economic misery unleashed by COVID. While there's still time to avert the hit, the window is rapidly closing. Absent some quick move--some rapid and robust policy intervention-- tens of millions of people are fixing to catch some serious hell.

A POTENTIAL TSUNAMI

What's rushing toward us, and staring us dead in the eye, is a potential tsunami. Not a high sea wave generated by an earthquake, a landslide, or a volcanic eruption. But something more like a rising tide of furniture and personal belongings being set on the curb. Something more like a wave of ominous notes being tacked on front doors. Something more like an avalanche of loud knocking on doors.

In a study published in August 2020, the Aspen Institute estimated that 30-40 million people could be at risk of eviction by year's end. When the new year rolls in, then, millions could find themselves living out of their rides, stressed out on the streets, residing in shelters, and temporarily posting up in the cramped quarters of friends and loved ones. To put that number in context, imagine California's entire population of 39.5 million persons being kicked out, and locked out, of their homes.

Serious stuff. But also potentially deadly. Because it would take place against the backdrop of a resurgence in COVID. You can't practice social distancing and engage in safe sanitary practices when you're roughing it out in your ride. Or trying to survive on the streets. Or packed in your cousin's crib. What you'll get, is what you don't want: A pumped-up pandemic. An increase in the number of number of persons contracting COVID. A more rapid rise in the body count.

BLACKS GET BURNT

And, not surprisingly, Black folk will be disproportionately burnt. Study after study indicates that, everything else being equal, Black are significantly more likely than White renters to face eviction. Increased joblessness, low wages, over-representation amongst front-line workers, racial discrimination and low to nonexistent levels of net worth--all of these, and more, forces Blacks and poor folk to the front of that dreaded line of "candidates" involuntarily queued for getting bounced out of their cribs. The very people who have borne the brunt of the pandemic are the very ones who'll get especially burnt by the possible coming avalanche of evictions.

The coming hit, as mentioned earlier, is lurking right around the corner. The CDC's moratorium on evictions is scheduled to expire December 31st. And this moratorium is on evictions for qualified tenants, not on rental payments. Come New Year, these tenants will have to collectively cough up $34 billion in back rent. Which, by the way, does not include any fees or interest charges lodged by landlords. $34 billion. That's a lot cheese.

Come January 2021, it shouldn't be surprising that landlords are going to want their money. It also shouldn't be surprising that most of these renters aren't going to be able to cough up the kind of cash that'll make that $34 billion get gone. Ugly situation, right? People who want their money and people who, because they've been battered by a jacked up job market, don't have the wherewithal to cough up the cash they owe.

DIGGING OUT THE QUAGMIRE

We can begin the arduous task of digging out of this quagmire by pushing and fighting for an economic stimulus plan that, among other things, writes off the $34 billion in rental arrearages and that provides recurrent monthly checks to low and moderate income households in the United States. With regard to that first part, I'd suggest that the Federal Government use the power of the purse to pay off up to six months of back rent and to pay it directly to the housing provider/landlord on behalf of the tenant. That way a burden would be taken off the back of the renter and the housing provider/landlord --some of whom are of the "mom-and-pop" variety-- wouldn't be forced to open up wide and eat the loss whole.

The second part has already been tried, and we know that stimulus payments can play a vital role in juicing up a slumping economy. They don't slip that money under the mattress. Or save it up in the hope of scoring some piece of art. They do exactly what's desperately needed in a slumping economy:

They spend it and, in doing so, provide income to someone else who, in turn, spend some portion of what they received. We need to reinstitute the provision of $1200 monthly checks to the nation's most economically pressed households. And why not do something novel:

Empower a panel of policy wonks, public health experts, faith leaders, and community organizers to develop the metrics needed to determine when, if at all, the monthly stimulus checks should end.

Yeah, it's going to cost some money. Yeah, it's going to raise the debt. Yeah, you're going to gag if you're all up into austerity. There's always a chorus crying broke whenever it comes to doing something for the non-elite, for folks in the economic basement and for people who don't live in the penthouse. They'll break into an aria when it comes to giving tax breaks that primarily benefit the top 1%. But try to really help out workers and the poor? All of sudden don't nobody know their note.

We need to dream big. Think big. Talk big. And fight big.

Lives are at stake.

Human dignity is at stake.

Black lives are at stake.

Justice is at stake.

Puny imaginations only result in people getting punched.

Catch you on the flip side

Doc Greene