Housing data to help focus Covid aid

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.

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.