The first of the month is coming

 There's one every month. 

Now, thanks to the coronavirus aid package passed by Congress in December, DuBois and thousands of others across the state could soon see the crushing weight of debt lifted off their shoulders. DuBois is one of about 4,000 people who have signed up for New Orleans' rental assistance program in the last week, hoping to tap into the first infusion of what is expected to be about $26 million in cash from the U.S. Treasury Department's $25 billion rental assistance program.

$26 million sounds like a lot but it's nowhere near enough to fill the need. So the city will have to ration it.

The city's program, which can be applied for in the coronavirus section of the ready.nola.gov website, is going to pay all past-due rent for qualified applicants, plus one additional month going forward. The guidance from the U.S. Treasury Department allows for up to three months in advance, but given that demand will far outstrip supply, the city decided to pay just one month to help reach more people, Willman said. The city also decided not to use any of the money to pay residents' past-due utility bills, even though the Treasury funds are approved for that purpose as well. 

Willman said the city is working with applicants to get all the necessary supporting documents and once that happens, it will be 10-14 days for payments to be made directly to landlords.

Not that it won't help. It will. But it helps only just enough to keep desperate renters just as desperate. It's really more of a landlord assistance program.

What did we say about the first of the month?

 Was worried something like this was up. 

A woman facing eviction from her Central City apartment complex torched the building Monday night, killing a dog and displacing 26 of her neighbors, authorities alleged.

Police in Hunstville, Texas, on Tuesday captured Jazlynn Major, 25, on a warrant accusing her of 26 counts of aggravated arson following the three-alarm blaze at the Amies Paradise apartments in the 1600 block of Washington Avenue.

This is not a joke. Things are bad and are getting worse.  There are office holders at multiple levels who can do something to stop the tidal wave of evictions about to hit the city... about to hit every city.  Not seeing much action.  

Update: Like we said, could have done this the whole time.  

In an extraordinary move, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is moving to temporarily halt most evictions for Americans struggling to pay their rent due to the pandemic, in a step that’s broader than eviction protections already in place.

Many others could have taken action in various other ways.  But they all waited. Just to see how much pain they could inflict on people.  Well we are starting to find out. 

Craptacular August is here

Well, they did it.  They let the unemployment benefits extension expire.  I know a few weeks ago I wrote that they will definitely do that. But, like most people who also do not know the future, I thought probably there would be a last minute extension just before we all fell over the cliff.  Anyway, we fell over the cliff. So now the task is to climb up out of the ravine. But nobody seems to know how to do that.

Washington (CNN) The US economy, plagued by a resurgent pandemic, is showing signs of sliding backwards. Key deadlines on extending a federal eviction moratorium and federal unemployment benefits have come and gone. Yet lawmakers and the White House, sources say, are as far apart as they've ever been in talks on the next emergency aid package.

As one person involved told CNN on Sunday night: "No clue how we get this done at this point. Just so much outstanding."

Because we do not find it useful to despair, we at least try to find ways to explain how this can be so.  The easy answer is that our elected leadership exists in such an elite and isolated sphere of the upper class that it is profoundly disconnected from the needs of the vast majority of the people need. That has been true for long while, though. But even so, until now, there has existed at least a slight incentive to pander.  When things are getting really bad, especially with an election right around the corner, there would be some pressure to give people something, even if it's just a little something.

That's become less true over time.  The change hasn't been sudden. It's been a process of learning just how far they can push things. How much suffering can people endure through ruling class indifference? The 21st Century to this point has been one great exercise in finding out.  They've learned they can get away with leveling whole countries and committing unspeakable atrocities on the people there without ever having to answer for any of it.  They've learned that they can leave a city to drown for weeks after a hurricane while spreading lies about the victims' behavior and situation meant to imply they deserve what's happened to them. They've learned that the whole financial system can melt down triggering millions of home foreclosures and evictions and all that has to happen is some "too big to fail" banks need to be bailed out while everyone else is left to suffer.

So our unaccountable authoritarian state for and by the wealth holding classes has been learning to crawl and then to walk for a while.  And now we are going to see if it can stomp all over everybody as the pandemic-depression begins to hit people full force.  On Friday, the New Orleans Renters' Rights Assembly mustered a protest to stand in the way of  landlords stomping into eviction court.  They can't do that every day.   Unless and until congress makes a move to extend aid to people now, we're in for an especially rough end to 2020. And that rough end begins with August.

What could we do differently that would be better?

In a word, everything.

In mid-April, Representative Ilhan Omar introduced legislation to cancel rents and mortgages for the duration of the public health crisis. The legislation would also offer financial relief to tenants and small landlords, and establish a fund to finance the purchase of private rental housing by local governments, public housing authorities, nonprofits, and community land trusts.

In addition to its legislative cosponsors, the bill has been endorsed by over three dozen community and labor organizations.

A statement on Omar’s website emphasizes that “due to layoffs and mass unemployment, renters and mortgage holders are accruing mountains of debt, despite many not having a steady income for the foreseeable future. We must take bold action now that extends the same financial assistance and protections to our struggling citizens as has been offered to profit-driven corporations.”

Unlike many of the mitigation proposals advanced by other lawmakers, Omar’s bill not only addresses the cause of the current eviction crisis, but lays out a path to eliminating housing insecurity and ensuring housing as a right. That’s exactly the right approach. Unless we cancel rent and mortgage obligations during the pandemic and enact policies to guarantee housing for all, we will be placing the burden of the coronavirus pandemic on those who can least afford it.

Don't really see anyone advocating for that sort of land use policy locally.  Maybe ask the nearest "founding entrepreneur" what they think. 

It's going great

Everybody fired. Everybody being more than previously reported.

Recent news analyses have sketched out a dire picture of the scope of the jobless crisis in Louisiana and the extent of the expected damage that the state’s economy as the federal boost to unemployment benefits lapses.

But the true picture is actually worse than some of those reports have outlined. For instance, a Sunday story in The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate noted that more than 313,000 laid-off Louisianans had filed for state unemployment benefits as of July 18, the most recent data for which the state provided complete data. But that figure didn’t include the thousands of freelancers, independent contractors and so-called “gig” workers thrown out of jobs by the coronavirus crisis.

That latter group includes more than 152,000 out-of-work Louisianans who, although not normally covered by the unemployment insurance system, have been able to file for jobless benefits under a special federal expansion of the program to address the massive job losses during the pandemic.

Oh boy.  That's just Louisiana, of course. But this story cites a Brookings report that says New Orleans will be the third "hardest hit" metro in the country by the looming benefits expiration. On the other hand, the rest of the country is... well, it's not going so great there either. 

The number of Americans filing new claims for state unemployment benefits totaled 1.43 million last week, the Labor Department reported Thursday.

It was the 19th straight week that the tally exceeded one million, an unheard-of figure before the coronavirus pandemic. And it was the second weekly increase in a row after nearly four months of declines, a sign of how the rebound in cases has undercut the economy’s nascent recovery. Claims for the previous week totaled 1.42 million.

For those of you who are among the ever-dwindling number of still employed persons, let's try an exercise.  Please raise your hand if you have been obligated out of fear or lack of options to keep going in to work during the pandemic while becoming more frightened and demoralized with news of each death or of the rate of spread.

Okay well if your hand is up, Mitch McConnell says your boss should sue you now. 

The most obnoxious provision of the GOP proposal is one that shifts the liability in COVID cases from the employer to employee. This provision allows employers to sue employees or their representatives for bringing a claim for a COVID infection and offering to settle out of court.

Most specifically, the measure mentions "demand letters." These are communications to a prospective defendant setting forth the facts of the claim, evidence assembled by the plaintiff, a reckoning of the potential damages and a statement of how much the plaintiff would accept to make the case go away. Here's a sample letter published by the San Francisco law firm Rouda Feder Tietjen & McGuinn.

These documents are often designed as an opening brief in a negotiation; since neither side in an injury case really wants to go to trial, they make sense. The GOP bill would make anyone offering to settle, either through a demand letter or otherwise, liable to be sued for damages if the case they're making is "meritless." That's another term that's undefined in the measure.

Unlike the limitation on damages elsewhere in the bill, by the way, the punitive damages that can be awarded to employers bringing these lawsuits aren't capped.

The measure also gives the attorney general the right to bring his own lawsuit in such cases. As a result, Kennerly observes, Atty. Gen. William Barr would get the right "to sue unions, labor activists, lawyers, doctors — everyone involved in coronavirus claims."

Congress is choosing to send millions of people off of a cliff right now because 1) Republicans are openly hostile to everyone except the bosses and millionaires and 2) Democrats are running an election campaign based on the hope that they can get away doing nothing if everyone is miserable enough, because they just might blame the Republicans for it.

The first of the month is coming. (There's one every month!) But this time we're going in while deliberately cutting off everyone's income. Also the federal evictions moratorium is expiring and the courts are open.. or are they?

Too much world burning down at once

Sorry this space has been a bit sparse as of late. I took the whole weekend to just try and catch up on various projects and got zero of them accomplished. I'll get it all straight soon. I think. I did prove that a person can get drunk on a Saturday night despite there being zero bars in operation so that's something, at least.

Seems like a useful skill to have in the coming weeks when all hell really starts to break loose.

Kudlow, appearing on CNN's "State of the Union," said the 70% wage-replacement formula would be "quite generous by any standard."

But Pelosi predicted that the need for an individual calculation of benefits for each jobless recipient would quickly gum up states' unemployment systems, already groaning under the weight of 20 million to 30 million jobless claims. In many states, including California, workers have waited weeks to start receiving benefits.

"The reason we had $600 was its simplicity," Pelosi said. "So why don't we just keep it simple?"

They don't want to "keep it simple," though.  The bosses are trying to win the pandemic.  The more thoroughly they can destroy any sense of security in what's left of the social safety net, the bigger the win for them.

The whole point is to keep as many workers as desperate as possible. Without a true system of public benefits to rely on, workers are at the mercy of the boss for whatever wages and terms of employment there are to be had. And when there are none, they have nowhere to turn for aid except to... "philanthropy" outlets under the private management of the same class of bosses they're already begging from.  Is it really any surprise to find such offerings inadequate to the need?

"We have been leaning in to raise the money and get it out the door as quickly as we can," Greater New Orleans Foundation CEO Andy Kopplin said. "But it’s impossible for philanthropy to close the massive gap that would come from the expiration of federal unemployment assistance."

The philanthropic group has raised more than $3 million for low-income families and the nonprofits who serve them since the pandemic began, but Kopplin said that's a drop in the bucket compared to the need.

Of course it's a drop in the bucket. That's the whole point. There is no one coming to help. We're just supposed to get used to it.

That and the evictions. August is always the shittiest month of any year. This one is gonna be one for the record books.

The rent is too damn high

The first of the month is coming.  How is your piggy bank holding up?

People looking for a two-bedroom apartment in New Orleans need to earn about $20.73 an hour to live comfortably, according to a report released Tuesday, well above what most renters make in the city even before the economic disruptions stemming from the coronavirus.

The average renter in New Orleans earns only $16.25 per hour. And if you're only earning the $7.25 hourly federal minimum wage, you'd have to work almost three full-time jobs to afford that two-bedroom space, according to the report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

Meanwhile, there is still no guarantee that congress is going to do anything about extending unemployment benefits. If it happens, don't be surprised if Republicans take it out of your Social Security on the back end.  Locally, there is still no sign the state or the city has any interest in reinstating an evictions moratorium.  Probably still trying to find some "balance" for our "smalltime landlords"

Oh well, fingers crossed someone will come up with something.

First of the month is coming back around

There's one every month.  But this one will be worse if unemployment benefits are not extended and if evictions are allowed to proceed.  In the meantime, this state relief program is already out of money. It was never going to be enough in the first place.

The housing advocacy group HousingLOUISIANA said the inundation of the program was to be expected, given an estimated 142,000 unemployed renters across the state who are in need of its services.

"(HousingLOUISIANA has) said from the beginning that $250 million is the minimum amount needed for rental assistance through the end of 2020,” the group said in a written statement.

The group’s president, Andreanecia Morris, said when the program was unveiled Thursday that most Louisiana renters, particularly those in New Orleans, were already making below the salaries they needed to afford the costs of living across the state before the pandemic.

Oops! We're running for judge!

Who woulda thought we'd all end up here.

When candidates qualified for a vacant 1st City Court judgeship in January, there was no way to foresee the campaign turning into one of the strangest and most protracted local races on record.

Back then, Joe Biden was duking it out with Bernie Sanders for the Democratic presidential nomination, the coronavirus was not yet a global pandemic and the U.S. was enjoying a historic period of economic growth.

Fast forward seven months: the contagion has prompted Louisiana to postpone the election twice and thousands of New Orleans tenants are struggling to pay their rent.

Actually, this is a bad lede. The eviction rate in New Orleans was twice the national average before the pandemic hit. Housing advocates concerned with the plight of renters in this city have had their eyes on this election since before the COVID business arrived.

Jane Place Neighborhood Sustainability Initiative recently published this report (PDF) based on six months of monitoring evictions in the City Courts.  Among the findings JPNSI highlights on their website, we see that 82 percent of tenants facing eviction were black. 56 percent were black women.  JPNSI's site also points to a critical disparity in legal representation.  "65.4% of tenants with no legal representation were evicted, while only 14.6% of tenants with legal representations were evicted," it says.  They extrapolate that out to suggest that, with proper legal assistance, the number of evictions could have been reduced by more than three hundred.

With the courts reopening in the midst of a pandemic-depression, New Orleans is facing an evictions crisis. But we cannot say that it's a problem that just fell into the lap of these judicial candidates.  The inequities the winner of this seat will confront are systemic and longstanding. Let's see what they plan to do about it.

In this article Aylin Acikalin says,

“I understand in great depth the forces that have created this situation. When someone comes to court because they can’t pay their rent ... there’s a whole system of laws and government and policies that have put that person in that position,”

What she means is she has spent her career to this point working to put that whole system of laws and govenrment and policies in place herself as a staffer for Mary Landrieu and as legislative director for former City Councilperson Nadine Ramsey.  When we last saw Ramsey in that capacity, she was trying to sneak a zoning variance in that would have permitted Acikalin's father to operate an Airbnb in the building attached to his business on Frenchmen Street. So, it is true what she says about understanding housing policy in great depth.

Ramsey, by the way, is currently holding this judgeship on an interim basis. Small world, right? This will mark the second time Acikalin has run for a seat on a body just as Ramsey was leaving. She ran and lost a city council race in District A in 2017. Anyway the important thing to know here is that Aylin may know a lot of people but she is definitely not Illuminati or whatever such.

“I’m not part of a political machine,” she says. “I’ve run for office before, because I believe that I have something to offer, but I’m not part of an organization.”

If you do happen to know any machines that are hiring, though, please pass her resume along. She seems like she might appreciate that.

Schalyece Harrison has experience ruling on matters that affect renters. This says she has worked as a hearings officer for Sewerage and Water Board.  It doesn't say if she has ever decided whether or not to cut someone's water off the way the mayor was asking S&WB to do a few years ago.  As a city administrative hearings officer, she's also been in position to review code enforcement matters and short term rental permits as well as a few other things that might weigh on the availability and quality of housing.

All of which is why, to hear her talk about it, it sounds as if she is running for this judgeship so that she can have less power over anything that happens.

A landlord herself, Harrison says she was concerned about housing affordability and homelessness before the pandemic began, and she foresees an eviction crisis developing in the months to come. However, she says that in many cases judges have limited leeway to stop a landlord who is dead-set on evicting a non-paying tenant.

“We can always try and work with the landlords. They don’t have to cooperate, but at least you can ask them to work with you and the tenant so they’re not put out on the street,” she says. “If I do have to evict someone, at least we can provide them with resources, if there are any kind of programs or transitional housing they can seek.”

Harrison "foresees an eviction crisis," and her plan is to, "at least ask" the landlords to go easy on us if they can.

To be fair, all of these candidates seem to be saying some version of that. In fact, Louisiana's landlord/tenant laws are pretty heavily stacked against renters.  So it's true that the judges can only do so much.  At the same time, a lot of these statements sound either like buck-passing or, more likely, just the kind of thing most people assume they have to say in order to get elected judge.

So even when someone like Marissa Hutabarat here declares herself a "people's judge,"  she still can't be too clear about what she is offering to do for the people besides just "exhibit compassion." 

Hutabarat said she hopes to be a “people’s judge” who will help unrepresented litigants.

“It is the part of the judge to ensure that they exhibit compassion to them, to make them feel that they’re welcome,” she says. “It’s the part of the judge to decipher what it is that they are getting at, or ask the right questions to get to the base of the problem.”

Similarly, Sarah Lewis, described in this article as such a tough rhetorical disputant that her parents used to call her “Lawyer Lewis,” (adorable story, that) is also not convinced  a "Judge Lewis" would have a lot of power to actually affect anything. 

However, like other candidates, she didn't endorse advocates’ calls for local judges to extend an eviction moratorium.

“The judiciary branch has no authority under the State Constitution, where all elected officials' authority derives, to extend the moratorium on evictions,” Lewis said.

We're not sure this is exactly true. The judges may very well have the power to extend the moratorium if they decide it's not safe to open the courts. It might not be!

Robbins Graham is here also. I actually thought he had dropped out of the race until I got a mailer from his campaign last week. Unfortunately the information on that flier was nothing quite so useful as this.

His Facebook page includes false remedies for preventing coronavirus infections like drinking warm liquids or gargling with vinegar or lemon. In an interview, Graham said he wasn’t aware of the postings and blamed them on a campaign staffer.

We assume Ms. Paltrow is no longer with the campaign.

Home remedies aside, we're not able to determine much of any interest about the candidates from their public communications.  They all seem to agree that evictions are bad but landlords need to be considered also and that the judges don't really have much power or discretion over any of this in the first place. It's a wonder any of them even wants this job at all.

So, in order to handicap the race, we need to look, instead, at their endorsements and donors. And that is where we learn that, in all likelihood we are looking at a Hutabarat and Lewis runoff. Those are the only two candidates whose fundraising extends much beyond their own personal resources and immediate connections.

Hutabarat is endorsed by the Orleans Parish Democratic Executive Committee and carries the individual endorsement of several elected Democrats as well. This is probably not an exhaustive list but councilmembers Cyndi Nguyen, Joe Giarrusso, and Kristin Palmer have put their names in her corner as have State Reps Royce Duplessis and Jason Hughes. She is also backed by the Greater New Orleans AFL-CIO.  Lewis has, in her orbit, a more affluent circle of New Orleans liberal-ish politicos and donors from non-profit world. We see Sandra Herman's and Scott Sternberg's names among her contributors, for example. Also we see former school board member Seth Bloom in there along with some OPDEC candidates whose names you might have seen together on one of those "DAT" mailers.

Now you may ask, what is a "DAT?" I've never heard of dat before this election.  Well, it stands for "Democrats Align Today" but it's really not much of anything besides a slate of candidates. Candidates who, according to the website,"pledge to build a stronger, more viable Orleans Parish Democratic Executive Committee (OPDEC) and change the future." Sounds ambitious.

Who are these heroes, then?  The website doesn't say!  The only way you will know is if you find yourself the recipient of one of their targeted fliers. This is the one that came to me uptown.

You may also learn their names through their relentless social media advertisements (Democrats All over your Timeline?) but it's still hard to get a look at all of them. You could try driving all over town and checking your Facebook app once in each council district to see if you can collect the full roster.  That might take a while, though.  Another thing you can do is look them up in Facebook's ad library like so.

So, you know, you can start to piece it together. According to that, they've spent almost $10,000 just on Facebook ads.  That, plus the mailers (some of which are very large) seems like an awful lot to dump into an OPDEC election.  Who has that kind of money to throw around on something like this?  We can't say for certain. But given the particular candidates being promoted, we might look either at either the mayor's PAC (although I think they'd probably put their name on it) or at some of the other groups and individuals who are known to have the expertise and capacity to launch this sort of campaign.

Anyway, where was I going with this?  Oh yeah, so these things are always imprecise, but generally speaking, it looks like this DAT campaign aligns toward the professional class wing of the New Orleans Democratic Party. In other words, we may have a bit of a yuppie coup on our hands at OPDEC.  Something to watch.

In the judicial race, Sarah Lewis appears more closely aligned with the DAT people while Hutabarat's support comes from more of the traditional old guard of labor plus the current OPDEC. Lewis's financials also show a $5,000 in-kind consulting contribution from Kristine Breithaupt who is herself a DAT candidate for OPDEC and who works for Cantell's PAC. Probably Lewis and Hutabarat will end up in a runoff so all of this is To Be Continued in August.

For more on the OPDEC races, please see the always informative and entertaining Antigravity guide.  This year they're the only publication to try and cover every candidate on this sprawling ballot. God bless them for that.

What are they even doing there

Kicking people out of there homes in the middle of a pandemic/depression must be essential work. Otherwise, we wouldn't force people into dangerous conditions in order to get it done.

Tenant advocates said this week they’re also worried about conditions inside the courtrooms. Anderson-Trahan’s docket quickly became backlogged. One case that was scheduled for 11 a.m. was still being heard at 6 p.m. At one point, there were 24 people inside a small courtroom that doesn’t have working AC. One woman nearly collapsed in the heat.

The judge tried to cut down on the number of people in the courtroom, only to announce minutes later that an overflow room was also crowded.

There were clear signs that the court took some precautions: temperatures were checked at the door and masks were required — but the judge ordered litigants who stood a few feet apart from each other to remove the masks so the court reporter could hear them.

The landlord police are already de-funded

There's barely anything you can say to them. All these judges can do is ask them nicely to wait a few days.

“We gotta be aware and cognizant of the reality of life right now,” Judge Monique Morial said during one of the hearings. “Given the situation that we find ourselves in, the last thing that I want to do is contribute to an already dire homelessness problem in our community. I understand that landlords are entitled to their property. But I think also in the circumstances we find ourselves in we need to be a little bit compassionate in how we deal with these situations.”

In a typical “rule absolute” ruling, Morial gave tenants two days to move out. A notice would be put on the property the day after the ruling, which informs tenants they have 24 hours to vacate. But Morial urged several landlords to agree to give tenants extra time to find new housing. She said, however, that this was only a request she could ask of landlords, not an order she could impose.

“It doesn't mean that I can always force a situation, but I can ask you, because of what we’re dealing with, if you’re willing to give her a couple weeks notice to vacate,” she said. “Because it’s not gonna be easy for her to find another place to live.”

The first of the month is coming again. (There's one every month!)  The next few firsts of the next few months are going to be worse than this one. Unless somebody does something. Who can do something?

DeDecker, like Mabery, thinks that formal eviction filings will nonetheless rise over the coming months. Not only will CARES Act eviction protections expire, but the additional $600 federal supplements to unemployment benefits will run out at the end of July. Without those supplements, the maximum unemployment benefits that Louisiana residents can collect is only $247 a week — inadequate to cover the costs of living in New Orleans, critics argue.

“Extra unemployment is going to expire and the CARES Act protections are going to expire, and we are going to see a huge public health and housing crisis the likes we haven’t seen since immediately post Katrina,” DeDecker said. “Ultimately, reopening eviction court without ensuring that tenants can actually deal with their accumulated rent debts is a disaster. We need the state government, we need the city government, we need the federal government to step up and cancel rent and mortgages and supply enough funding to make sure people can pay their bills.”

Otherwise, a whole lot of renters are about to get the cops called on them. And the orders to vacate won't be delivered with anything like the deference the judges show to the landlords.

The Dread Index

Ten days ago, in keeping with the (obviously very well thought out, very safe and successful) "Phase 2" reopening process, the First and Second City Courts of New Orleans once again began accepting evictions filings from landlords. The response was...  impressive.

Last week, some courts and justices of the peace accepted eviction requests, but didn’t begin assigning them court dates. Badon waited until Tuesday, the first full day after Edwards’ order lifted.

Badon said his clerks on Tuesday received 63 requests for evictions, compared to about 25 on a normal day.

And that's after having turned away an apparently sizeable number of landlords who are still constrained by the federal rules that pause evictions on certain properties until August 25.  The city courts had been urged to push back their moratorium to match the federal guidelines but they decided to move ahead anyway.

It's hard to know what the reasoning is there. But there has obviously been pressure from property owners. We know they've been talking to the mayor, at least. In this interview back in April she was already talking about the coming eviction crisis in terms of having to "find a balance" with the needs of "our landlords."

Clearly she was still thinking about "our landlords" this week when she extended the deadlines for short term rental license applications and permit extensions. This extension even applies to STR licenses that were set to expire anyway due to a recent change in city regulations. It's basically using COVID as an excuse to keep STRs operating even while we are allowing people to evicted from their homes. That's one hell of a way to strike a "balance."

Anyway thanks to these policy decisions our leadership has made on purpose, a wave of evictions is coming soon.

NEW ORLEANS, La. (WVUE) - As the coronavirus pandemic persists it is feared that many low-income families in Louisiana and around the country could face eviction soon and as a result homelessness.

The Center for Planning Excellence of Baton Rouge and Urban Footprint released their analysis of the housing crisis amid the pandemic.

Camille Manning-Broome is President of the Center for Planning Excellence.

“In Louisiana, our development patterns are increasing the likelihood of this, of homelessness and high-risk burden because many areas your combined housing and transportation costs had up to more than 50 percent of your income,” Manning-Broome said.

The analysis found that Louisiana ranks 3rd in the nation for having a high risk for evictions due to job losses. Further it says 130,000 households across Louisiana are at risk of evictions and it shows the parishes most in need of rental assistance beyond July 31 when federal protections and assistance expire are in order of need, Orleans, Jefferson, East Baton Rouge, Caddo, Lafayette, St. Tammany, Tangipahoa, Calcasieu, Ouachita, and Bossier.

For further context, here is a cheering analysis of the Census Bureau's "Household Pulse" survey which finds:

Based on the Household Pulse Survey results released on June 17, which examined responses between June 4 and June 9, almost one-third of all households expect to experience a loss of employment income over the coming four weeks. Fully 10 percent of American families—that’s 25 million, half of which have children at home—did not have enough food to eat in the prior week. Even more disturbing, one in five households—over 50 million in total—are doubtful that they will be able to afford sufficient food in the coming month. And of the nation’s 65,000,0000 renters, almost 20 percent were unable to pay their rent last month and an even higher percentage—close to 30 percent—doubt that they will be able to pay their rent in the coming month. 

This week, another one million plus new unemployment claims were filed.  So it's staggering to think how many households are currently trying to calculate, according to their savings if they have any, how much time they might have between the day they are laid off and the day they are evicted. Call it the Dread Index.  And it's a frighteningly short number now that the courts are ready to hear evictions again.