During the most recent national call on “HoUSed: Universal, Stable, Affordable Housing,” we heard from HUD Senior Advisor Richard Cho about updates on homelessness and housing resources from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). We also discussed the latest developments on the CDC eviction moratorium and emergency rental assistance; learned about new research on eviction filings and vaccination rates; and got the latest from Capitol Hill and the field.
Mr. Cho discussed housing resources available from the American Rescue Plan, including the 70,000 new emergency housing vouchers targeted to people at risk of or experiencing homelessness and survivors of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, stalking, and human trafficking.
Olivia Jin and Emily Lemmerman from Eviction Lab shared insights from their new study on the correlation between eviction filings and vaccination rates. The study found that neighborhoods with the highest eviction filing rates have the lowest levels of COVID-19 vaccinations, which suggests that allowing evictions to move forward may threaten the progress made in curbing COVID-19 transmission.
NLIHC’s Emma Foley provided the latest updates on NLIHC’s emergency rental assistance (ERA) tracking database and guidance on direct-to-tenant ERA applications. NLIHC’s Sarah Saadian gave an overview of our comment to Treasury on its interim final rule for the Fiscal Recovery Funds allocated in the ARPA (see Memo, 6/21), and the congressional “Dear Colleague Letter” being led by Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Representative Ritchie Torres (D-NY) on the necessity of affordable housing investments in any infrastructure package. We received field updates from Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey’s Sharon Barker, and Transit Riders Union and Stay Housed Stay Healthy Coalition’s Katie Wilson.
NLIHC hosts national calls every week. On today’s call, we will be joined by White House American Rescue Plan Coordinator and Senior Advisor to the President Gene Sperling. Register for today’s call (Monday, June 28 at 2:30 pm ET) at: https://tinyurl.com/ru73qan
Watch a recording of the June 21 call at: https://youtu.be/clq77BjnHBE
Access presentation slides at: https://tinyurl.com/yj7wwwn8