Hitting Home: Help Us Report on the Covid-19 Eviction Crisis
Are you or someone you know at risk of eviction because of the coronavirus pandemic? Or a landlord facing hardship due to loss of rental income? We want to hear your story.
A Spanish-language version is available here.
During this pandemic, home is the safest place to be. But what if you can’t afford to pay your rent?
Millions of people risk losing their homes when back rent becomes due at the end of the year. And many landlords whose tenants have been protected from eviction during the pandemic face financial losses from months of nonpayment of rent.
Retro Report’s “Hitting Home” is a multicity, multiplatform reporting project that examines the process and impact of evictions, providing historical context for the nation’s growing lack of affordable, safe housing. Our series of short documentaries, developed with support from the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, the Pulitzer Center, the James Irvine Foundation, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, will showcase insights from journalists reporting from three cities: New York City; Fresno, Calif.; and Richmond, Va. To cover New York City, we’re partnering with the nonprofit newsroom THE CITY. In Fresno, we are working with the Fresnoland Lab, a reporting and engagement lab with the Fresno Bee.
The coronavirus pandemic has brought new urgency to the nation’s housing crisis, but the problems didn’t occur overnight. In this series, Retro Report will examine the history of America’s housing policies and show how today’s problems can be traced back to crises in New York, California, and Virginia.
Why are we focusing on New York City?
Housing activists turned out in the wake of the Great Depression demanding greater tenant protections, helping to lay the foundation for activists today who are calling for rent relief and other housing reforms. For example, in the Bronx, neighbors got together, picked up the items, and returned them to the apartment in question — and saw their efforts lead to changes to the city’s rent regulations. Retro Report’s reporters are following developments closely and interviewing historians and housing experts, while our partner THE CITY uncovers the stories from New Yorkers currently affected by the pandemic.
Why Fresno, Calif.?
In California’s Central Valley, undocumented migrants have long been targeted by landlords operating outside the law. Even as a moratorium on evictions shielded most California renters, undocumented people were being evicted as Covid-19 spread. Dan Casarez is a bilingual reporter in Fresno with deep ties to its Latinx community. He has covered the region for 18 years as a reporter for The Fresno Bee and for Vida en el Valle, a bilingual newspaper owned by McClatchy. Our publishing partner is Fresnoland Lab, who’s been covering how communities of color have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic in Fresno.
Why Richmond, Va.?
Cities across the South have some of the nation’s highest eviction rates. Virginia’s legacy of laws that protect landowners, along with a practice of redlining are two systemic issues that affect rental housing. Brian Palmer, an award-winning print and broadcast journalist based in Richmond, has served as Beijing bureau chief for US News & World Report, an on-air correspondent for CNN, and his articles and photos have appeared in The New York Times, Fortune, The Nation, and Smithsonian Magazine.
“Hitting Home” will also include an hour-long documentary. Want to stay up to date on this reporting project? Follow Retro Report on Medium, subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on Twitter @RetroReport.
