COVID STRATEGY GUIDE: Emerging Crises
The coronavirus is putting Americans under severe stress, challenging them to cope with uncertainty, protecting families, and putting food on the table. At such a troubling time forced by this pandemic, there is hardly any worse circumstance than being evicted. Yet, we know that is precisely likely to happen to millions of renters — particularly people of color — unless Congress finds a solution.
More than 100 million people live in rental housing in the U.S. A disproportionate share of that population consists of Black and Latino families. Even before the outbreak, these renters faced economic hardships. Before this March, half of all households were spending more than 30% of their income on rent, the government’s threshold for excessive cost. Federal subsidies, designed to keep housing expenses below that threshold, covered only a small percentage of qualifying families. Rather than sincerely and fundamentally addressing the issue, the Trump administration has pursued efforts to reduce affordable housing since 2017.
The CARES Act passed by Congress in March, offered homeowners as much as six months of forbearance on mortgage payments, but gave renters no similar relief — only scant emergency funding and a temporary moratorium on evictions from federally-financed properties. Other moratoriums imposed by cities and states are starting to expire. Meanwhile, more than 21 million people have little-or-no confidence that they will be able to make next month’s rent payment according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That includes about 36% of people in Black households and 44% of Hispanic or Latino households.
Economists and even advocates for the disadvantaged say extending or deferring several more months of rent payments through legal moratoriums will not improve renters’ finances. Unpaid bills will continue to accumulate, creating a snowballing problem. Beyond that, most inexpensive rental units nationwide belong to smaller individual investors, who often lack other sources of income. Driving them into default on their mortgages, or leaving them without the means to maintain properties, will hurt everyone by shrinking an already inadequate supply of affordable housing.
Extending enhanced unemployment benefits, which supply an added $600 per week through July 31, can help keep the problem from getting worse. But it will not reach many in financial distress now, including those who cannot access unemployment insurance for several reasons.
We believe the solution is to supply direct federal housing aid. In context to the vast support Congress has already provided, the actual price tag is not out of line: about $12 billion a month if combined with enhanced unemployment benefits, or $16 billion a month without them. This money should go primarily toward expanding the existing Housing Choice Voucher Program, which is designed to automatically compensate for renters’ income loss while supplying direct payments to property owners. Unfortunately, the money will take time to reach people, partly because many local housing authorities are ill-equipped to handle a surge in cases.
In the meantime, Congress should give states the flexibility to distribute relief funds through whatever channels, including private nonprofits and NGOs, which can get aid quickly to the people who need it most. It should also protect those who nonetheless face eviction by requiring municipalities receiving federal funds to supply services such as mediation and legal advice.
The eviction crisis is the severest looming economic issue. It portends an America with a dispossessed populace equal to or higher than that of the Great Depression. With the COVID pandemic threatening to worsen as summer cools into autumn, there is every worry we are facing an economic nightmare of unprecedented proportion — unless we act fast.
EVICTIONS TO SURPASS GREAT DEPRESSION
About 10 million people were displaced from their homes following the foreclosure crisis in 2008. Between 20-and-28 million people in this pandemic, between now and September, will be facing eviction.
Eviction negatively affects the trajectory of an individual’s life permanently. Studies prove eviction causes increased mortality and respiratory distress, which in the COVID pandemic puts patients in even greater peril. It results in depression, suicides, and other poor health outcomes. The primary response to the pandemic is to shelter-in-place. An increase in homelessness [one economist estimates homelessness could rise over 40% this year] would spread COVID.
Some of the moratoriums are limited to different segments of the population, and in their duration. They were also not coupled with financial aid to prevent renters gaining back-debts and are stable enough to stay in their unit. Another issue is that in some states, property owners could continue with a hearing on eviction, and even receive an order of eviction, and it was only forestalled at the execution stage. That means that there are many evictions that are just waiting for the sheriffs to execute. The moment the moratoriums lift, all those families will be forced out. Right now, 29 states lack any state level moratorium against evictions.
As an immediate measure, every housing and homelessness expert is calling for a nationwide uniform moratorium on eviction, and it must be coupled with financial aid to ensure that the renter can stay housed without shifting the debt burden onto the property owner. The owners that are the most likely to be affected by the eviction crisis right now are those who have small properties and do not have the financial cushion to make ends meet over a period of months when they are not receiving that rent.
“We have never seen this extent of eviction in such a short amount of time in our history. We can expect this to increase dramatically in the coming weeks and months, especially as the limited support and intervention measures that are in place start to expire. This dire situation threatens to force hundreds of thousands of people onto the streets that will only magnify the already increasing population of the permanent homeless in this country.”
— Pat Morgan, former HUD official and best-selling author on homelessness.
WATER & FOOD SECURITY
FIGURE: STRUCTURAL VULNERABILITY AND KNOWN FOOD INSECURITY HOTSPOTS.
According to the United Nations, 820 million people were already identified as chronically food insecure before the coronavirus hit. We could see a global food emergency unless immediate action is taken. The crisis will jeopardize an added 120 million or more people.
“In the longer term, the combined effects of COVID-19 itself and corresponding mitigation measures and the emerging global recession could, without large-scale coordinated action, disrupt the functioning of food systems. Such disruption can result in consequences for health and nutrition of severity and scale unseen for more than half a century.”
Measures to control or mitigate COVID outbreaks are already affecting global food supply chains. Border restrictions and lockdowns slow harvests, leaving millions of seasonal workers without livelihoods, while also constraining the ability to transport food to market. Outbreaks in meat processing plants also cause supply disruptions.
Prices are increasing when fewer people have the money to pay for it. The pandemic is expected to push vulnerable people into extreme poverty. As of late May, 368 million schoolchildren were missing daily school meals.
WAYS TO HELP YOUR NEIGHBORS
Supply food and cash aid to fragile communities.
Protect breastfeeding, ensure prompt access to foods for infants and young children, and micronutrient supplements.
Leverage and scale-up social safety nets like school meals programs.
Secure domestic and global shipping networks and facilities.
Ensure humanitarian access to basic services, including aviation, shipping, storage, transport, and engineering services in affected areas.
Expand food and water security monitoring
Maintain liquidity and promote financial inclusion, particularly in rural areas.
Crisis investment response should prioritize actions that solve short-term problems and protect against shifting the burden of economic adjustment onto populations unable to bear it.
HEALTH CARE SECURITY & LONG-TERM FAMILY HEALTH IMPACTS
Government regulations required many health care facilities to defer elective surgeries and outpatient procedures – often for an undefined length. In addition to the toll it takes on folks burdened with treatable health conditions, this is causing financial strain on many urban and rural health systems that depend on elective surgeries to balance their budgets.
Due to lockdowns and fear, many patients have been unable or unwilling to visit hospitals, deferring critical health care. Others have lost their employee-sponsored health insurance altogether when they lost their jobs. It is unknown yet what the long-term impacts will be, but such a large population deferring medical care will have lasting health impacts.
All of this comes at a time when hospitals are spending more money on personal protective equipment (PPE), isolation ability, and supplies for treating respiratory illnesses, increasing their costs. There is also a risk that the decline we have seen in medical use will lead rural hospitals to close or primary care practices to merge, which in turn restricts access and drives up costs.
All those canceled surgeries, delayed doctor appointments, and the rest during a pandemic like this one, will also have a lasting effect on people’s health.
“One of the key concerns that practitioners in particular are having is related to the backlog that is piling up, and the impacts this will have on medium- and long-term outcomes, in particular for people with chronic conditions.”
-Ellen Nolte, Prof. of Health Services & Systems Research at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
And if people do delay care — whether because their surgery was canceled, their doctor’s office was closed, or they chose on their own to skip treatment to avoid potential exposure to COVID— their health outcomes are going to be worse.
WAYS TO HELP YOUR NEIGHBORS
Workers who supply essential services, including 3 million migrant and seasonal farmworkers, require added public health protections.
Many families in poverty find social distancing impossible.
Urgent need for education and enhanced sanitation measures and plans for health services.
Federal, state, and local governments should engage in forward-looking planning to alleviate the severe and long-lasting burden on low-income and marginalized communities.
Raise salaries and enhance worker protections:
Choosing between paying for food, health care, utilities, or other necessities and keeping up with rent usually results in eviction, and eviction always results in a downward move to worse conditions, including homelessness.
Invest in high-quality public housing
Low-income people are more likely to live in homes with poor air quality, mold, asbestos, lead, pest infestations, and inadequate space to separate the sick from the well.
Tenants in rental housing disproportionately suffer the negative health effects--including asthma, respiratory distress, carbon monoxide poisoning, high blood pressure, heart disease, lead poisoning, mental health impairment, and cancer, among others—that result from environmental hazards in substandard housing.
BACK TO SCHOOL: UNMITIGATED SPREAD
Allowing school-age children to return to the classroom is a prerequisite for any permanent economic reopening. However, due to massive national and subnational failures to achieve necessary testing ability and trace contacts makes returning to school at any level too dangerous. Not only for the students, but for their vulnerable family members and adult employees at the institutions. Choirs, P.E., and classrooms where teachers use lecture formats are particularly at-risk to increased transmission of the virus. It is impossible to enforce social distancing in most K-12 schools, and higher education presents more risk factors.
Any return to school at this point will increase the rate of viral transmission within scattered communities and recklessly risk the lives of underpaid educators and support staff.
Many school systems have adopted digital strategies to ease learning. Unfortunately, many children do not live in positive environments conducive to learning. Other negligent parents are not taking part in the education process, causing truancy, and slipping skills. Even more children lack access to a digital device or (affordable) broadband internet.
WAYS TO HELP YOUR NEIGHBORS
Minimize the number of students in buildings by prioritizing students with special needs and children who cannot do home learning for economic reasons.
All students and staff use mobile app to report temperature and symptoms daily.
Prioritize distribution of devices to students at title 1 schools and other low-income neighborhoods.
Upgrade communications infrastructure
Students need expensive devices, in addition to accommodating home environments to learn effectively.
Capitalize on opportunities to make technological leaps
HYPERINFLATION & CREDIT CRUNCH
As governments print more currency to buy corporate bonds and take other financial emergency actions, the currency will necessarily devalue. Unlimited quantitative easing has led to hyperinflation in every other historical scenario. However, this is the first case where the fiat currency is not pegged to the price of gold.
Whether the U.S. will descend into a state of hyperinflation is an open question. However, the currency devaluation is already affecting American households by reducing their purchasing power and making the costs of household goods rise on top of other pressures in supply chains.
In addition to reduced purchasing power, 42.6 million Americans have become unemployed since mid-March and expectations that economic hardships will persist for many workers and small business owners. Our citizens will soon run severely short on lines of credit. This could set American’s back on their debts first by weeks, then months, and years, leading to waves of bankruptcies and fiscal instability.
WEAPONIZED CORONAVIRUS
One of the more terrifying and realistic possibilities, weaponizing the coronavirus is a choice for a floundering campaign that can only win by depressing turnout on Election Day.
Weaponizing the coronavirus could take the form of deliberate inaction in certain communities, especially in low income, Democratic communities in Red states like Georgia. It could also take the form of deliberate misinformation and spreading of targeted propaganda within certain communities to maximize the impact of the virus.
We also expect that certain pro-government supporters of President Trump will deliberately spread Coronavirus as acts of political terror. Toxic attitudes pervade among his remaining supporters, and extremism often leads to political violence.
OTHER NATURAL DISASTERS LOOM
Hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, fires and other seasonal or occasional natural disasters are still lurking, promising to put its own deadly twist on the pandemic wherever they strike.
Record rainfall in Africa caused flooding, mudslides, flashfloods, and river overflows causing casualties, population displacement, infrastructure damage, and crop damage in parts of Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, and Yemen.
The rains have also promoted the breeding and development of locusts, and protracted the outbreak across the region, which poses a significant threat to main season crops. Locusts specifically are ravenous eaters that consume their own weight daily. A single square-mile of swarm can hold up to 80 million adults, with the ability to eat as much food in one day as 35,000 people.
WAYS TO HELP YOUR NEIGHBOR
Prepare for natural disasters in advance.
Local officials should implement plans to stockpile materials and provisions so physical distancing can happen on evacuation to shelters.
INCREASED MORTALITY FROM OTHER DISEASES & PANDEMICS
Due to Americans being forced to forego routine health maintenance, many are susceptible to bouts of treatable diseases if there is an outbreak within a community. Hospital admissions for things like heart attacks are down, despite it being likely that instances of heart attacks are most certainly continuing as usual.
China is warning that another unknown pneumonia Is sweeping Kazakhstan. According to the Chinese Embassy, the death rate of this disease is much higher than the novel coronavirus and they have yet to identify it.
WAYS TO HELP YOUR NEIGHBOR
Sponsor PSAs about symptoms of heart attacks in women, which manifest different from symptoms in men.
Health awareness campaigns and investments in telemedicine
MENTAL ILLNESS: SUICIDE & BEHAVIORAL HEALTH CRISES EXPLODE
The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic downturn have negatively affected many people’s mental health and created new barriers for people already suffering from mental illness and substance use disorders. Half of U.S. adults reported a negative impact to their mental health because of the virus.
Though necessary to prevent deaths, these public health measures expose many people to experiencing situations that are linked to poor mental health outcomes, such as isolation and job loss. Additionally, feelings of anxiety are increasingly common, as people are fearful of themselves or loved ones falling ill and are uncertain of the repercussions of the pandemic.
There are bound to be second- and third-order effects from such mass social anxiety. In addition to civil unrest, the untreated mental health disorders cause failures to abide by necessary health measures and spark more instances of domestic violence and suicides.
The calamitous trend in the United States suggests that some behavioral health crises will be public acts of mass violence.
OVERFLOWING HOSPITALS: AT-HOME DEATHS & BODIES LITTERING STREETS
The coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. is widespread and risks overwhelming even the largest hospitals around the country. Many Texas hospitals are struggling to add ability to treat both covid-19 patients and others. In Georgia, Gov. Brian Kemp’s office announced the convention center in Atlanta will reopen as a temporary hospital
Unfortunately, we know from watching the situation that unfolded in New York City, Italy, Spain and Wuhan, China that when the hospitals are over capacity, people will die in the streets, or at home alone—dying where nobody can check on them. Tragic scenes with body bags overflowing from freezer semi-trucks will be a reality for far too much of America in the coming weeks.
Other predicted medical items in short supply include oxygen, blood thinners, and the steroid Remdisivir, which decreases mortality of the disease.
CLOSURES OF UNWORKABLE BUSINESSES
As states return to quarantine lockdowns, the protracted length of time it will take to combat the virus is becoming clear. With repeated waves of infections, it is unrealistic that the American economy can meaningfully reopen before there is a vaccine or effacaable treatment.
When this reality dawns on business owners, many will opt to shutter their stores forever. Commercial property, restaurants, retail, and lodging are the obvious losers in the economic shift. Other business that will struggle include sports and entertainment venues, airlines, private prisons, and education.
Many of the businesses lost will be low-wage retail and service employees that cut corners and did not invest in employees.
WAYS TO HELP YOUR NEIGHBOR
Advocate for indefinite household stimulus checks, recurring monthly at least $2000 per individual and another $500 per child.
DOMESTIC ABUSE & DIVORCES
More children are reaching out to the Rape Abuse and Incest National Network's National Sexual Assault Hotline, which said this week it is experiencing its highest demand for services in its 26-year history.
After the lockdowns were lifted in Wuhan, China, divorce rates and domestic abuse calls skyrocketed.
Unfortunately, humans are the same worldwide, and millions of at-risk women and children now must live in consistently close quarters with their abusers.
Resolute expects that the global pattern will hold in the United States, as more women will look to escape from abusive marriages. Sexual violence experts and state agency officials say they are concerned by the declining safety net, which may be the result of teachers, who are mandated to report abuse, having less access to students.
WAYS TO HELP YOUR NEIGHBOR
Guidance counselors should check-in with students regularly, especially at-risk students and households (special needs, past complaints, etc.).
MEDICAL WORKER BURNOUT & DEATHS
According to Insecurity Insight, a research group that documents violence against aid workers, there have been more than 400 reported global incidents of COVID-19-related violence affecting health care workers and facilities from January to May 2020. The increased violence follows over 1200 instances of violence against healthcare workers globally in 2019, mostly isolated to conflict zones.
For example, In India, a mob in West Bengal beat up an ambulance driver with rods and sticks causing severe injuries when he returned home after transporting COVID-19 patients. The mob feared that the driver would bring COVID-19 into their village. The mob also assaulted his parents when they tried to protect him
In several countries where lockdowns have been violently enforced, health workers were hurt on their way to or from work after being accused of disrespecting the lockdown. In some countries, health workers faced repercussions for either speaking out about the numbers of COVID-19 patients that did not tally with official figures or for demanding that they be provided with better personal protective equipment (PPE).
Violence is only one factor why research shows that burnout in hospitals is particularly high for young registered nurses and nurses in hospitals with lower nurse-to-patient densities. Physicians are also prone to experiencing burnout and can so suffer from mental health issues, including depression and substance use. The risk of suicide is also high among physicians.
DEATHS OF KEY OFFICIALS & STAKEHOLDERS
As nobody is immune to the novel coronavirus, eventually elected officials, bureaucrats, and key policymakers will fall ill, which risks hollowing out institutional memory and policymakers.
Members of the Mississippi state legislature have been meeting without masks or social distancing. Now, at least 26 members and 10 others who work in the building have tested positive for the coronavirus. Mississippi may be the first, but it will not have the last legislature to face a coronavirus outbreak.
A constitutional crisis sparked by the deaths of elected officials or key individuals like Joe Biden, is a predictable eventual crisis. The most vulnerable states are those with the oldest elected officials and bureaucrats—and therefore the most experienced. This crisis could work for or against liberal policy goals, depending on who succumbs to the virus.
U.S. REFUGEES CAN’T ESCAPE
Americans may be forced to seek refuge internationally for affordable treatment, political asylum or to escape from the virus or political turmoil.
Unfortunately for those who try, many will face immediate 14-day quarantines at the point-of-entry upon arrival in their host country. Other countries, like the entire EU, prohibited American travelers into the bloc entirely. In an ironic twist, Mexico is now warning that its border towns may have to close to Americans fleeing the rapidly-degenerating crisis.
SANITATION WORKERS EXPOSED
There is no system to safely discard household Covid-19 waste. Trash collectors have complained that people are mixing used gloves and masks with other waste, and it is putting the waste collectors' lives at risk.
Workers need training and safety gear to properly handle hazardous waste. Additionally, households need education on safe disposal of used PPE.
Outbreaks among sanitation workers, who are overlooked but integral to a functioning modern society, threaten to disrupt waste collection activities and landfill sites. They also threaten to disrupt recycling and waste management industries that make reselling America’s trash into big business.
CONSTRUCTION SHUTDOWNS
Despite the ongoing efforts to make jobsites safe, construction sites are high-risk for spreading the virus. The reason has to do with the nature of the work. For starters, it is not possible to social distance at a jobsite. The strenuous labor involved causes heavy breathing which increase the amount of viral shedding. With over 40% of COVID cases being asymptomatic, chances are high that the virus will spread on the jobsite.
Many of the construction workers the virus will infect are black and Latinx. Latinx populations are especially vulnerable due to the population living in multi-generational households. Spreading COVID to large families at home increases the Rt number and makes it more likely that multiple family members living in one house will succumb to the virus.
Skilled labor was already in short supply before the pandemic. A hollowing out of the blue-collar labor force to the pandemic will cause construction delays that ripple across this decade.
WAYS TO HELP YOUR NEIGHBOR
Regular groups work together and self-isolate
No contact with people outside the group.
FED, STATE, & LOCAL GOVERNMENT INFIGHTING
State governors have already undermined the efforts of some localities to control the coronavirus. Similarly, states that implement successful strategies face undermining from the federal government.
While turf wars usually occur due to entrenched institutional reflex, turf wars in the Trump-era have taken on an insidious twist, in which the government seems to deliberately want to destabilize the situation.
ONE MORE THING: NEW ZEALAND CRUSHED THE CURVE
More Americans are looking to move to New Zealand amidst the coronavirus. The country reported less than 1,500 COVID-19 cases and 22 deaths.
As of July 13, there are no new cases of COVID-19 to report in managed isolation facilities in New Zealand. It has been 73 days since the last case of COVID-19 was acquired locally from an unknown source.
And as of last week, New Zealand has removed all COVID-19 restrictions for its population. Given the impressive feat of effectively eradicating the pandemic, many Americans are expressing interest in emigrating.
The Guardian reported that the South Pacific country saw a huge surge in traffic to its New Zealand Now website, with 80,000 Americans seeking information on how to move there in May alone. Immigration New Zealand revealed that the number was a 65% jump compared to the same time last year.
Citizens in the United Kingdom have also expressed interest in moving to New Zealand, with a 18.5% increase in traffic — or 31,000 people. Other top nationalities visiting the immigration site included Australians, South Africans, and Indians.
Despite the increased interest and absence of the virus, New Zealand borders are still closed to all foreign nationals, except for essential workers. There is currently no sign on when the borders will re-open. This is certainly not the first time New Zealand is gaining attention from those looking to move abroad: Similar surges of interest appeared after the election of Donald Trump and the Brexit vote in 2016.
In the 24 hours following the 2016 election of President Donald Trump, Immigration New Zealand received over 56,000 visits from Americans — a large jump from its average daily traffic of 2,300 visits. Within the same time, over 7,000 Americans registered their interest in immigrating to the country, which was more than double the monthly average.
