Today's lefty news broadcast (I listen to mainstream financial ones, too; it makes for a striking contrast) has tough stats in relation to the ending US childcare credit program, & general state of US savings, which is worse than pre-pandemic for 40%:
"New study out of the Fed found that only the top 20% of the country has extra savings left from those pandemic programs. [From Bloomberg] ... the total amount of excess savings will likely vanish in this current quarter."
I have a couple of friends who have been evicted because of COVID protections ending. Their landlords are not working with them at all, and one was given a week to vacate... They're artists in Los Angeles. Finding another apartment in a few days, that they can afford? Just not happening. So they're putting their stuff in storage and sleeping at a friend's.
It made me think that there must be many thousands in similar circumstances right now. Many of them families with children.
Early in pandemic I was helping a family with a mother with kidney cancer and a daughter who lost her job in pandemic. Their landlord screamed in the face of the sick mother the moment COVID rent protections were lifted, threatening to turn them out the next day. I started paying their very humble barrio's rent alongside my own, but things only got worse when they both got covid, intubated for months.
Sad story. But the tricky part? (1/2)
@tyghebright
When I'd tell folks in North America about it, they'd treat it as a Colombian issue. When I pointed to the huge uptick in evictions & houseless in the US during COVID for similar reasons, they fell silent. Why? Because they didn't want to acknowledge that the real problem was much bigger, and much more entrenched.
Everyone deserves shelter - but not everyone is ready to defend that right. A lot of people worry they'll lose what little they have if they fight for change. (2/2)