Coronavirus ironies for hearth and home
Great and sad ironies haunt the stay-athome movement to help stave off the coronavirus.
The comforts of home are hard to maintain if you're out of work and broke. Keeping your home is hard if you're out of work and broke. Even buying a new house, for some, seems impossible if the pandemic has you hunkered down, out of work and broke or not.
Here is some help for the first two and some numbers on the last one.
Help with utilities
Buy a burger, help pay a bill. The Salvation Army Central Oklahoma Area Command's annual Home Energy Aid fundraiser with Oklahoma Gas and Electric Co. Oklahoma Natural Gas and Public Service Co. of Oklahoma will be by drive-thru Tuesday at its 1001 N Pennsylvania Ave. location from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tickets are $8 in advance and the day of the event for a fresh-grilled hamburger, chips, cookie and drink. Proceeds will be matched up to $6,000, thanks to OG&E, ONG, and PSO.
“We are witnessing many individuals seeking utility assistance through The Salvation Army who have not needed assistance before,” said Maj. Susan Ellis, area commander. “Just within the last three weeks, 90% of those calling in to set up appointments with us are new clients. We want to help as many as we possibly can with the resources we have been provided.”
For information about assistance, call 246-1100. To buy a ticket online or to donate, go to www.salvation armyokcac.org or call 246-1109.
This is one of those we're all-in-this-thing-together things. “This event allows us to raise much needed funds to meet the ongoing need for assistance,” said Traci
Jinkens, director of development for The Salvation Army. “Donations and sponsorships of this event will be directed right back into the utility assistance programs. We wish to thank Frontier State Bank for their event sponsorship and for Crest Foods of Edmond for their donation of food and beverages.”
Help holding on
Public housing authorities and landlords, this is for you, and for your renters, and for you, and for your renters — y'all are in your thing together.
Get an “Eviction Prevention and Stability Toolkit” from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. It's meant to help guide housing authorities and housing choice voucher landlords with strategies to keep people housed and lessen economic hardships due to the coronavirus. It's online at www.hud. gov/pro-gram_offices/public_indian_housing/covid_19_resources.
The toolkit includes a best practices guide, tenant brochure with tips to avoid eviction, and rent repayment agreement guidance and sample documents.
HUD sent notice of this out on July 8 and again this week. It must be for those who, for whatever reason, haven't already started working with their renters. The 120-day eviction moratorium from federally backed housing — public housing, vouchers, Federal Housing Administration-insured apartments, and HUD-assisted multifamily properties — ends July 25.
Hold your houses
About 22 million people, 9% of those surveyed, delayed buying a home as a direct result of the coronavirus, according to Bankrate.com. That sounds right, but maybe a little high for here, based on what I've heard from real estate agents.
Of those who put things on pause, 62% postponed for six months or longer, and that includes 20% who delayed indefinitely. Click here for more details: www.bankrate.com/personal-finance/surveys-financialmilestones/. Here are some highlights:
• “Generation Z (ages 18-23) and millennials (ages 24-39) were twice as likely as their elders (ages 40+) to delay purchasing a home (14% of those ages 18-39 vs. 5% elders).”
Maybe that's because the older you are, the more likely you already own a home, the more likely you have equity in it for trading up, or over — and, while none of us had ever dealt with a pandemic, at a certain age you know a thing or two because you've seen a thing or two (nod to Farmers Insurance), and this, too, even this, shall pass.
• “Buying a home was delayed more often than things like furthering one's education (7%), getting married (5%), having children (5%) and retiring (5%).”
Makes sense. Education takes just a few years. The average U.S. marriage lasts around eight years. Children grow up. For most of us, a mortgage seems like forever.
“Among those often adversely affected by the economic downturn are younger Americans, many of whom are just starting out in their careers,” said Bankrate. com's senior economic analyst, Mark Hamrick. “As result of these setbacks, they'll spend years trying to make up lost income and career opportunity.”
As for older folks, Hamrick said, “Of those putting off retirement in the wake of the pandemic, nearly two in five Americans say the delay is indefinite This adds further insult to financial injury for those struggling to meet their retirement savings goals, opting to remain employed longer than hoped.”