MITIGATING HOUSING INSTABILITY DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Governments and public health authorities face a seemingly intractable paradox during the COVID-19 pandemic. Key tools used to manage public health dimensions of the crisis, stay-at-home orders and business shutdowns, have initiated a secondary crisis characterized by widespread evictions and housing instability. Housing instability threatens to undermine the public health response to the pandemic by increasing the number of households facing acute housing distress and various forms of homeless-ness, ultimately increasing the risk of transmission and exposure to COVID-19.1 The pandemic exacerbates longstanding housing issues—homelessness, affordable housing shortages, and more broadly, the relationship between income insecurity and housing instability.

In this Policy Spotlight, we have set forth two significant priorities: direct mitigation of housing instability during the pandemic, and place-based interventions to mitigate long-term housing instability and geographic inequality. We recommend the following approaches to mitigate housing instability during the pandemic: • Reinstatement of the Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing program • Expansion of the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program, as well as source of income protections for voucher-assisted renters • Establishment at the state level of a 5-year right-to-counsel program of civil legal aid in eviction and foreclosure cases. We recommend the following approaches to mitigate long-term housing instability: • Reinstatement of the Tax Credit Assistance Program and Tax Credit Exchange Program during the recovery period, and laws that allow these programs to be quickly reinstated during future crises • Expansion of competitively awarded grants to certified Community Development Financial Institutions and qualified non-profit housing organizations that partner with Qualified Opportunity Funds to develop affordable housing.