An Emerging Coronavirus Concern: Eviction
Neil Hutchinson, a 52-year-old stagehand based in Oakland, usually has a busy spring: The Game Developer’s Conference comes to San Francisco in March, Google’s Cloud Next conference comes in April, and Facebook’s big F8 conference comes to San Jose in May. In between, he gets calls to come help with smaller shows and events. As the conferences got canceled or postponed one by one on account of coronavirus concerns, Hutchinson got increasingly worried about paying rent on his apartment. In-person concerts dried up, too. By the end of the season, he expects to lose $10,000 in income.
“If this goes on longer than June, the outlook is pretty bleak,” he said.
For many people like Hutchinson, the low-grade fear of getting the Covid-19 virus has been compounded with an urgent sense of economic anxiety. Under the states of emergency being declared in an increasing number of localities, large events have been canceled, public transit has been less crowded, bar and restaurant workers are losing out on tips and entertainers have had shows closed. In expensive coastal cities, where people can pay more than 30% of their income on housing, missing even one paycheck can mean falling behind on rent. And falling behind can mean getting evicted.
To protect low-wage workers from these ripple effects, two California cities, San Francisco and San Jose, are advancing legislation that would put a moratorium on evictions for people whose wages have been affected by coronavirus-related closures and work stoppages. Other city measures are geared at providing housing for those who are already homeless in the event of a virus outbreak. Already, Singapore and Italy instituted policies to prevent new homelessness during their coronavirus outbreaks.
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