Sec. 2. Congressional findings
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/bill/118/hr/5038/ih/section-2·A research copy — for the controlling text, always check the official state or federal source. Not legal advice.
The 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 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 coronavirus pandemic, it was estimated that around 3.7 million evictions are filed every year, a rate of about 7 every minute; across the United States, one in 20 renters faces an eviction every year, but for Black renters, the number is one in 11; 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, Black renters had evictions filed against them at nearly twice the rate of White renters and that Black women specifically were filed against for eviction at double the rate of White 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; nationally, it is estimated that more than 81 percent of landlords are represented in housing court proceedings, compared to less than 3 percent of tenants in such proceedings; a Massachusetts COVID–19 legal help project found that when providing full legal representation to low-income tenants, 90 percent of cases closed resulted in positive outcomes, with 70 percent of tenants remaining in their homes and 20 percent of tenants having more time to find a place to live; 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.