About five million Americans lose their homes every year due to eviction or foreclosure, researchers said on Wednesday, urging policymakers to use their new country-specific data on housing loss to target coronavirus aid more effectively.
The research by New America, a think-tank, stitches together county-level eviction and mortgage foreclosure data for the first time to create a National Housing Loss Index, comparing 2,200 US counties for which data was available.
As housing campaigners warn of a possible surge in evictions and foreclosures due to the Covid-19 pandemic, report co-author Yuliya Panfil said the index helped highlight which were likely to be the worst-hit areas.
“Because the same communities tend to be impacted over and over, by looking at where housing loss has been the most acute, we could help predict where Covid-related instability is going to happen,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
The report said the pandemic could exacerbate higher rates of housing loss in mainly non-white areas dominated by renters where residents often lack health insurance. The cost of dealing with a medical emergency is a major cause of losing housing.
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At the same time, people forced to leave their homes during the outbreak could face a greater risk of catching the virus by moving in with friends and family, according to the report.
“In a context where social distancing is important, we see housing loss as even more of a trigger for increased infections,” said Panfil, who directs New America’s Future of Property Rights program.
States with the highest rates of eviction and foreclosure between 2014 and 2018 - including Arizona, Nevada, Florida, Georgia and South Carolina - have also reported a spike in Covid-19 cases in recent months.
The US has the world’s highest number of confirmed Covid-19 cases.
