Rent's Due And The Devil's, Too

It's April 1.  Rent's due.  And millions of Americans don't have it.

New York hair stylist Vanessa Karim has not worked since March 21, when the state closed all salons to slow the spread of the coronavirus. She only has enough cash on hand to cover half of her $1,400 April rent.
“It all feels like a bad dream,” said Karim, 36, who planned to ask her landlord if he would be willing to accept a partial payment. “Every day I’m like, ‘Is this really happening?’ I’m trying not to stress out.”

As the pandemic wreaks havoc on the U.S. economy and transforms Americans’ daily lives, the start of April brings a moment of reckoning for millions: rent checks are due.

Many Americans have already lost their jobs – last week’s national unemployment claims exceeded 3 million, shattering previous records – and huge swaths of the country have essentially shut down, with more than half of U.S. states now under some version of a stay-at-home order to curb the disease’s spread.
One third of the nation’s 328 million residents live in rental homes, according to U.S. Census data. In New York City, the epicenter of the U.S. outbreak, the proportion of those who rent is much higher.

Some states have instituted a moratorium on residential evictions. Housing advocates, however, have called for more dramatic action, including putting rent payments on hold altogether until the economy can restart.

Alfa Cristina Morales, 21, lost her job as a line cook at an Oakland, California, coffee shop, along with her health insurance, three weeks ago.

Now she has been forced to take the money she had saved for a U.S. citizenship application and use it to pay bills, including her April rent. She is not sure how she and her 2-year-old son will make it through May. She has applied for unemployment benefits, which could take weeks to arrive.

“We’re worried that it won’t be enough,” she said.

For millions of Americans, it won't be enough. Moratoriums on evictions won't be enough either, because landlords in nearly every state will still be able to initiate eviction procedures if there's cause. Landlords will absolutely pursue "material violations" of leases.  In Kentucky that means you get evicted after 14 days instead of the 7 for non-payment. Eviction still requires a court order, but it's not like a tenant is going to have the money to fight it.

So yeah, if a landlord decides to boot you for non-payment, you're still getting kicked out onto the street during a pandemic.

And it's going to happen to millions.