News

“This is an attempt to make a law-and-order case to an audience that no longer exists. The people who live in the suburbs today are largely going to be embarrassed by these arguments and do not want to be associated with racist housing policies, even when they have reservations about affordable housing.” – David M. Dworkin

“Affordable housing doesn’t hurt home values. It actually strengthens communities and it is a critical component of building our way out of this recession. Housing has led the recovery of every recession since 1960 except for the last one, and that’s an obvious exception to the rule. But if we’re going to get out of this recession, it’s not going to be by having people go back to work at Neiman Marcus or J.Crew. Those companies have filed for bankruptcy, and we’re going to need to put people to work and I think housing construction is a really critical component of how we’re going to do that. ” – David M. Dworkin

“While not a solution, [the executive order] is a valuable step in the right direction for the president to publicly recognize the importance of addressing this issue immediately.” – David M. Dworkin

“The pricing increase is particularly harmful for our nation’s low- and moderate-income homeowners and for the emerging, but unsteady improvements to the national economy,” they concluded. “The undersigned organizations strongly urge the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which had to approve this policy, to withdraw this ill-timed, misguided directive.”

“If mass evictions are bad this month, they are just as bad next month. Ultimately, only comprehensive federal rental assistance can resolve an eviction crisis.” – David M. Dworkin

“The order would do nothing to help Americans pay rent and would place the financial burden on millions of small businesses while making an eviction crisis even more likely later this year. A moratorium alone is a temporary and unfunded mandate that hurts landlords now at the expense of tenants later. If you can’t pay one month’s rent, how on earth can you pay six or 12 months of rent a few months from now?” – David M. Dworkin

“A moratorium alone is a temporary and unfunded mandate that hurts landlords now at the expense of tenants later.” – David M. Dworkin

“Moratoriums that have a hard deadline without rental assistance are a recipe for civil unrest. The prospect of sending thousands of sheriffs’ deputies into low-income neighborhoods to throw people out on the street with all of their belongings in front of their neighbors and children is a dynamic that will make the reaction to the George Floyd murder look tame by comparison.” – David M. Dworkin

“Housing advocates say they are hopeful, arguing it is the only way to avoid a major crisis in the rental market. Either Congress gets ahead of the problem and establishes a rental assistance program now or waits until an emergency emerges, said Dworkin of the National Housing Conference. If Congress waits, he said, the resulting crisis could cause widespread devastation to communities throughout the country.”

“The last thing we want to see is tens of thousands of sheriffs’ deputies making evictions at one time. Where would these people go? Most wouldn’t be able to get new housing with evictions on their credit reports. They will end up homeless, end up costing the government more money, and make it harder to get rid of the virus.”