Goldman Sachs: Evictions are coming

Some 750,000 US households could be evicted across the United States before the end of the year, global investment firm Goldman Sachs estimates.

As Hurricane Ida barrelled towards the southeast coast of the United States in late August, 23-year-old Vashante Gray, her two children aged two and six, and her mother, Kristi Brown, 45, found themselves with no place to live.

After their building was sold to a new landlord who wanted everyone out to renovate, Gray and dozens of other renters were told they had to get out of their Starkville, Mississippi apartment complex. Some were given just days to do so.

Thanks to funding from a local community group, Gray and her two children have been in a hotel since. Her mother is being housed in a hotel as well, but in a different one across town, leaving Gray without childcare and struggling to get herself to work and her children to school as a result.

“They’re putting multiple families on the street,” said Gray. “A lot of them have disabled babies and don’t have the funds to move and they’re not getting money back from rent that was paid.”

With the US Supreme Court blocking the Biden administration’s order extending the federal eviction moratorium to a large swath of the country, an end to the country’s national moratorium on evictions on August 26, could soon put hundreds of thousands of renters in the same position as Gray and her family – with nowhere to live.

While Congress could still revive the national eviction ban legislatively and a handful of states still have individual eviction moratoria in place, the global investment firm Goldman Sachs estimates that roughly 750,000 households could be evicted across the country before the end of the year.

According to Jasmine Rangel, a research specialist at Princeton University’s Eviction Lab that studies the affordable housing crisis, the ban has been an effective means of keeping people housed during the COVID-19 public health crisis.

“Throughout the pandemic, states that have been abiding by the law and following the guidelines saw a significant drop in evictions, or at least a smaller proportion of eviction filings compared to any other normal year in that state,” said Rangel.