Sec. 2. Findings
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Congress finds that— housing is fundamentally an issue of economic and racial justice and a critical determinant of health; the 2008 financial crisis was a Great Depression-level event for Black Americans, wiping out decades of gains in Black homeownership, which has now fallen to its lowest rate since the passage of the Fair Housing Act ( 42 U.S.C. 3601 et seq.) in 1968; Black borrowers were 76 percent more likely to have lost their home to foreclosure than White borrowers during the foreclosure crisis;
Black and Hispanic households continue to be about twice as likely as White households to rent their homes; in 2016, 58 percent of Black household heads and 54 percent of Hispanic household heads were renting their homes, compared with 28 percent of White household heads; while cost burdens affect households of all races and ethnicities, Black and Brown renters are much more likely to be burdened, with 55 percent of Black renters considered to be rent burdened compared to only 43 percent of White renters;
Black households account for 12 percent of all households in the United States, but 19 percent of all renters and 26 of all renter households with extremely low incomes; prior to the COVID–19 pandemic, it was estimated that around 3,700,000 evictions are filed every year, a rate of about 7 every minute; across the United States, 1 in 20 renters faces an eviction every year, but for Black renters, the number is 1 in 11; every day families are displaced by the eviction crisis, a reality that is only further exacerbated by the COVID–19 pandemic and that falls disproportionately on Black renters, in particular Black women renters; the Department of Housing and Urban Development does not require the reporting or collection of eviction data, including among households in federally assisted housing, and should be required to do so; the American Civil Liberties Union’s analysis of Eviction Lab data found that, on average, [B]lack renters had evictions filed against them at nearly twice the rate of [W]hite renters and that Black women specifically were filed against for eviction at double the rate of [W]hite renters or higher in 17 of 36 [S]tates ; right to counsel is a matter of racial justice, equity, and ensuring equal protection under the law; in the United States, it is estimated that more than 90 percent of landlords are represented in housing court proceedings, compared to less than 10 percent of tenants in those proceedings; a Massachusetts study found that tenants who were provided full representation were twice as likely to remain in their homes, saved 4 times as much rent, and paid $0 to their landlord as compared to those receiving limited or no legal assistance; and a California study of the Shriver Civil Counsel Program found that 91 percent of Shriver cases ended with the eviction record sealed, 81 percent with the eviction not reported to a credit agency, and 71 percent with a neutral reference provided by the landlord, tenants in such cases saved nearly $800 more in reduced rent and other fees while paying holdover damages or attorney’s fees only half as often, and 71 percent of represented clients that had been required to move had obtained a new rental unit, compared to 43 percent of unrepresented tenants.
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U.S. Code