New Haven Register (Sunday) (New Haven, CT)
The rent is due
June 1. Rent is due. This date usually marks the beginning of a month full of gatherings, celebrations, and milestones. This year, however, everything is different. Families are coping with fatigue, anxiety, and uncertainty. This is all the more true for those who have experienced recent job loss or reduction in income. Today, record numbers are grappling with how they are going to pay their rent.
Unemployment levels now rival those at the height of the Great Depression — 10,000 claims were filed in Connecticut on one March day alone — and all job gains since the last recession have long since been lost. Those hit hardest by COVID-19 related job losses are those earning less than $40,000. Many are temporary workers, on-call workers and independent contractors, which now comprise 10 percent of the American workforce. Adding to their struggles in Fairfield County, low-wage earners often carry high rent burden, paying more than half of their income toward rent.
The CARES Act provides important protections for landlords and renters, including a grace period on rent payments and moratoriums on new eviction proceedings. These protections, however, are scheduled to expire at the end of June, leaving many wondering if a wave of evictions, now delayed, is all but inevitable.
For their part, many tenants are not waiting. Person-to-Person, a social service agency serving the Stamford/Norwalk corridor that provides pathways to economic stability for lowincome residents through three food pantries, emergency financial assistance, college and vocational scholarships and summer camperships, has experienced a 300-percent increase in requests for rent assistance due to COVID-19. Renters fear accumulating housing debt they will be unable to repay with no clear path back to employment in the near future and are seeking ways to avoid falling behind. Person-to-Person is one of a handful of private nonprofits providing this type of support.
The arrival of summer brings further instability for many area families. While school has been “virtual” since mid-March, it has, in the best of cases, provided a touchstone for families in need of information about available community services. Teachers often are aware which children are thriving and which are falling through the cracks. Importantly, schools have continued providing critical meals to children under age 18 through the crisis. We applaud the Norwalk Public Schools for continuing summer meals through the end of August. Complementing the availability of school-based meals, Person-to-Person has experienced a 75 percent increase in food provided over 2019 levels and instituted Door2Door, delivering nutritious food to seniors and those home bound due to COVID-19.
Summer camps, including those that partner with Person-to-Person’s Campership program, which sends 400 Stamford Public School students to camp each year, provide uninterrupted access to meals and a safe environment for children of working parents. With many camps not operating or operating at dramatically reduced capacity, this summer threatens to sever these ties.
Denise, a Stamford resident and single mother of three children and three grandchildren who receives food assistance from Person-to-Person recently shared: “You feel helpless, but you have to keep going. You think of your children, and you know there is no choice — you can’t give up right now.”
While the pandemic has laid bare inequities that have long existed, including alarming racial disparities in access to health care, it has also unleashed a wave of philanthropic support, acts of kindness, and pledges to rebuild our society to be more just. Now is the time to plan for that postpandemic just society. We must not fall back into complacency over policies that erode individuals’ ability to attain economic mobility. We must acknowledge the decades of documented success of programs like SNAP in reducing food insecurity and creating healthy citizens. We must forge partnerships between government, the business sector and nonprofits, which have proven once again during this crisis to be nimble and innovative.
Today we must act, together, with sustained urgency to stabilize the lives of our neighbors — students, seniors, immigrants, individuals with disabilities and hard-working families. Today we must begin to plan for the post-pandemic just society. And tomorrow we must emerge from this crisis committed to rebuilding an economy where no family fears the first of the month and the rent coming due.