Black Renters Are Most Likely To Face Coronavirus Evictions

Even as coronavirus case counts continue their ominous rise across the U.S., protections to stall evictions in U.S. states are slipping away. Eviction bans in five states expire on July 1, leaving only a few places with protections that extend beyond the end of the federal eviction moratorium this month. One of them is Massachusetts, whose moratorium extends until at least August 18. So tenants in Boston have more time to prepare for the pandemic than most.

Boston also has a clearer picture of where evictions will hit hardest once these cases resume. A new study paints a severe portrait of disparity: Eviction cases filed since the start of the pandemic are overwhelmingly located in majority-Black neighborhoods.

The study, from researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, predates the Covid-19 crisis, which hit Boston relatively early, thanks to the superspreader event at the Biogen Conference in late February. The researchers set out to map housing instability in predominantly African-American neighborhoods such as Roxbury or Mattapan as well as immigrant communities in Chinatown and East Boston. But when Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker ordered a moratorium on evictions in April, the research fundamentally shifted. Between March 1 and April 20, landlords still filed hundreds of evictions cases. That seven-week interregnum offers a window into the pandemic eviction crisis.

According to the MIT study, 78% of the Boston eviction cases currently suspended by the moratorium were filed in majority-minority neighborhoods. As businesses closed and workers were laid off, landlords in Roxbury and Dorchester moved to evict the most tenants, before it was clear what kind of support or regulations would be made available. This research shows that communities of color — eviction hubs even under normal times — are already bearing the disproportionate burden of the pandemic housing crisis.

Evictions were highest in neighborhoods with larger Black and immigrant populations.

City Life/Vida Urbana

Those evictions are frozen until courts resume hearings, but when the cases thaw, it will be Black and immigrant households who are subject to displacement.

“Unemployment claims in Massachusetts are higher than they have been since the Great Depression, with an estimated 21 percent of renter families across the state unable to afford housing costs,” the study reads. “In the first five days of the City of Boston’s Covid-19 Emergency Rental Assistance Fund opening, 5,500 Boston renters applied, indicating the huge need for help paying for housing. Low-income people of color, who often work hourly jobs and pay more of their income on housing costs to begin with, are especially at risk of losing their housing.”

The report from MIT and City Life/Vida Urbana, a Boston grassroots organization, examines the structural factors that threaten to exacerbate the damage from the pandemic. Along with data on evictions in Boston, the paper also presents a detailed history of racial segregation in Boston, from the pre-New Deal restrictive covenants in the 1920s to exclusionary restrictions on multifamily zoning today. Along with this timeline of the pitfalls of America’s discriminatory housing policy, the report also boasts a rather more unique history of resistance in Boston. It covers efforts to mobilize against urban renewal in the South End and Roxbury in the 1960s, the successful campaign to prevent Massachusetts from building the Inner Belt Highway in 1972, and movements to introduce tenant protections and expand homeownership opportunities from the 1980s through the present day.

In some ways, the study reveals the routine reality of evictions in Boston. Between 2010 and 2019, Boston landlords filed nearly 55,000 eviction cases, at a steady clip of about 5,500 evictions per year. While this number might sound extraordinary, it lands Boston near the middle of the pack for large U.S. cities. This figure includes legal evictions only; the study points to an unknowable number of illegal actions that landlords use to threaten, lock out or otherwise displace tenants — the invisible dark matter that makes up most evictions. According to Matthew Desmond’s Evicted, informal evictions in Milwaukee outnumber legal evictions two to one.

The detailed picture of displacement in Boston also revealed trends and patterns that are likely to apply in cities beyond Beantown. MIT’s David Robinson, Justin Steil, and Patricia Cafferky surveyed Boston Housing Court eviction records from 2014 to 2016 for patterns. They found that small property owners who live in their buildings are less likely to evict their tenants, and eviction filings are more common in older neighborhoods with lower property values. Within a single census tract, market-rate evictions are more common still in newer or recently remodeled buildings than in older buildings, the study finds. This is a clue for policymakers looking to stop evictions before they reach the courthouse.

“Are property owners with higher-value and newer properties more likely to evict because they can lease the property to higher-income tenants, or convert their rental units to higher value condominiums?” the study asks. “Are low-income renters in higher-value and newer buildings more rent-burdened and therefore more likely to face eviction than tenants in the same neighborhood who pay less in rent?”

With six weeks to go until the eviction moratorium ends, lawmakers in Massachusetts still have time to craft policies to save renters in Black and immigrant neighborhoods in Boston from displacement and homelessness. Federal leaders could step in as well. (Senator Elizabeth Warren is already on the case.) Six weeks might not seem to be a lot of time to head off a catastrophe. But it’s more notice than renters in most states will get.

To contact the author of this story:
Kriston Capps in Washington at kcapps3@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
David Dudley at ddudley23@bloomberg.net

Nicole Flatow

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