Let’s Unpack This
The Impending Eviction Crisis Will Devastate Black Communities
Like all things in America, an eviction crisis will hit Black people the hardest
The impending eviction crisis is set up to become a catastrophic event for Black renters. To be clear, it’s going to be awful for everybody, but the problem will hit Black people the hardest. President Joe Biden came under fire after the original, Covid-inspired eviction moratorium expired on August 7. He’s since passed a 60-day extension that will expire on October 3, but he might just be delaying the inevitable.
The Pew Research Center, citing the U.S. Census Bureau, wrote that American renters made up roughly 36% of the nation’s 122.8 million households in 2019. Young people, racial and ethnic minorities, and those with lower incomes, which I’ll touch on in a bit, are groups more likely to be disproportionately affected when evictions resume.
Thanks to centuries of slavery and Jim Crow, paired with racial, employment, and housing discrimination, 58% of Black people are renting their homes. Black renters more than double White renters, who only make up 27.9% of renters, while Asian-led households are just under 40%.
