After a lull during the pandemic, eviction filings by landlords have come roaring back, driven by rising rents and a long-running shortage of affordable housing.
Most low-income tenants can no longer count on pandemic resources that had kept them housed, and many are finding it hard to recover because they haven’t found steady work or their wages haven’t kept pace with the rising cost of rent, food and other necessities.
“Protections have ended, the federal moratorium is obviously over, and emergency rental assistance money has dried up in most places,” said Daniel Grubbs-Donovan, a research specialist at Princeton University’s Eviction Lab.