For years there has been an evictions crisis in the United States. The pandemic has made it more acute.

On today’s episode, our conversations with a single mother of two from Georgia over several months during the pandemic. After she lost her job in March, the bottom fell out of her finances and eviction papers started coming. The federal safety net only stretched so far.

And we ask, with Congress seeking to pass another stimulus bill, what do the next few months hold for renters in the United States?




Guest: Matthew Desmond, a Professor of Sociology at Princeton University and contributing writer for The Times Magazine.




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Background reading:

• Emergency pandemic funding to help renters must be distributed by Dec. 30. But getting the money to those who need it is no small task.
• Residents of weekly rentals worry they will be kicked out if they can’t pay the rent. It’s unclear if the federal moratorium on evictions applies to them.