美国国家公共电台 NPR--Poll: As costs rise, Black and Hispanic renters struggle the most

Poll: As costs rise, Black and Hispanic renters struggle the most

Transcript¹

According to a new poll, a majority of Americans said a lack of affordable² housing is a serious problem where they live, and many fear eviction⁴.

LEILA FADEL, HOST:

A majority of Americans say a lack of affordable housing is a serious problem where they live. And as prices keep rising, Black and Hispanic renters are struggling the most, including with the threat of eviction. Those are some of the findings in a new poll by NPR and Harvard University. NPR's Jennifer Ludden reports.

JENNIFER LUDDEN, BYLINE⁵: Even before she lost her job this past spring, things were tight for Nikki Cox. She works in customer service in North Carolina and had been making $20 an hour. Half her income went to rent.

NIKKI COX: Normally, if I did have something left over, it might be about a hundred, maybe, and that would buy my groceries and my necessities.

LUDDEN: Cox is among a majority of Black and Latino households who say they don't have enough savings⁶ to cover one month of expenses. That's according to the survey by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. It left Cox in trouble when her company lost business and her hours were cut. She switched to a temp job, but that only paid $15 an hour, a huge drop in income. Then in May, she got COVID. She was out of work for three weeks, unpaid⁷. At one point, Cox relied on customer points at convenience stores to get free dinners. Her nephew also helped.

COX: If he knew that I didn't have anything, he would send me, like, $10, $15. But, I mean, $10 or $15 in groceries doesn't last because you really can't get anything.

LUDDEN: Her landlord was understanding but eventually set a deadline.

COX: She said, if you can't get me at least $1,600, I'm going to have to go ahead and start the eviction process.

LUDDEN: The new poll finds eviction rates are basically back to pre-pandemic levels, and many more people say they've faced the threat of eviction. Both rates are highest for Black households, which have lower income and less wealth than white ones. Peter Hepburn of Princeton University's Eviction Lab says, on one hand, it's good that racial disparity didn't get worse, but it's also disappointing it didn't shrink, given all the emergency help.

PETER HEPBURN: A lot has changed in the last two-plus years, right? And there was the real possibility that some of those dynamics⁸ would have shifted. And that, really, you know, time and again, every time we've looked at the numbers, has not been the case.

LUDDEN: He says one reason is that state pandemic policies around evictions were wildly uneven⁹.

HEPBURN: Where you lived had a really profound impact on how well you were protected from eviction. That was true well before the pandemic, and that divide seems to be getting wider.

LUDDEN: Since her eviction threat, Cox has had good news. She found a local nonprofit to help with rent and a new job at her old pay. So she's grateful she can stay put. She had applied¹⁰ for housing subsidies¹¹ a few years ago but never heard back. They are chronically¹² underfunded. Only 1 in 4 who qualify get them. Now skyrocketing rent and home prices are making it even harder to use them. In Lexington, Ky., Davita Gatewood was doing fine paying her share of the rent, but then her landlord said he would not renew the lease.

DAVITA GATEWOOD: He wants to renovate¹³ and sell the property, which is happening to a lot of people right now - just landlords wanting to go on and take advantage of the housing market. But the problem is we have nowhere to go.

LUDDEN: Gatewood is a single mother of six. After the lease wasn't renewed, her section 8 payments stopped. She's been fighting eviction while looking for another place for seven months. Prices are hundreds of dollars a month higher. The market's so tight places are snapped up fast, plus...

GATEWOOD: You think you found something, and then at the bottom of it, it says in bold, no section 8. So that's extremely discouraging.

LUDDEN: The country has a massive shortage of affordable housing. The Biden administration is encouraging communities to build more - and more densely¹⁴ - to help bring down rents. But that's not enough, says Tara Raghuveer, a tenant¹⁵ rights advocate with People's Action.

TARA RAGHUVEER: At best, a supply-side intervention¹⁶ is going to build housing that shows up in our communities in a couple of years. That doesn't do anything for the millions of tenants¹⁷ who can't afford rent next month.

LUDDEN: Wherever there's federal funding for housing, she's pushing the administration to make it harder to evict³ people without cause and harder to raise rents beyond inflation to prices more and more people simply can't pay.

Jennifer Ludden, NPR News.

1 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

2 affordable   

adj.支付得起的，不太昂贵的

参考例句：

• The rent for the four-roomed house is affordable.四居室房屋的房租付得起。
• There are few affordable apartments in big cities.在大城市中没有几所公寓是便宜的。

3 evict   

vt.驱逐，赶出，撵走

参考例句：

• The lessor can evict the lessee for failure to pay rent.出租人可驱逐不付租金的承租人。
• The government always says it's for the greater good when they evict farmers from their land.当政府把农民从他们的土地赶出去的时候，总是号称是为了更大众的利益。

4 eviction   

n.租地等的收回

参考例句：

• The family have won a temporary reprieve from eviction.这个家庭暂时免于被逐出。
• He claimed damages for unlawful eviction.他要求对非法驱逐作出赔偿。

5 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

6 savings   

n.存款，储蓄

参考例句：

• I can't afford the vacation,for it would eat up my savings.我度不起假，那样会把我的积蓄用光的。
• By this time he had used up all his savings.到这时，他的存款已全部用完。

7 unpaid   

adj.未付款的，无报酬的

参考例句：

• Doctors work excessive unpaid overtime.医生过度加班却无报酬。
• He's doing a month's unpaid work experience with an engineering firm.他正在一家工程公司无偿工作一个月以获得工作经验。

8 dynamics   

n.力学，动力学，动力，原动力；动态

参考例句：

• In order to succeed,you must master complicated knowledge of dynamics.要取得胜利，你必须掌握很复杂的动力学知识。
• Dynamics is a discipline that cannot be mastered without extensive practice.动力学是一门不做大量习题就不能掌握的学科。

9 uneven   

adj.不平坦的，不规则的，不均匀的

参考例句：

• The sidewalk is very uneven—be careful where you walk.这人行道凹凸不平—走路时请小心。
• The country was noted for its uneven distribution of land resources.这个国家以土地资源分布不均匀出名。

10 applied   

adj.应用的；v.应用，适用

参考例句：

• She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
• This cream is best applied to the face at night.这种乳霜最好晚上擦脸用。

11 subsidies   

n.补贴，津贴，补助金( subsidy的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• European agriculture ministers failed to break the deadlock over farm subsidies. 欧洲各国农业部长在农业补贴问题上未能打破僵局。
• Agricultural subsidies absorb about half the EU's income. 农业补贴占去了欧盟收入的大约一半。 来自《简明英汉词典》

12 chronically   

ad.长期地

参考例句：

• Similarly, any pigment nevus that is chronically irritated should be excised. 同样，凡是经常受慢性刺激的各种色素痣切勿予以切除。
• People chronically exposed to chlorine develop some degree of tolerance. 人长期接触氯气可以产生某种程度的耐受性。

13 renovate   

vt.更新，革新，刷新

参考例句：

• The couple spent thousands renovating the house.这对夫妇花了几千元来翻新房子。
• They are going to renovate the old furniture.他们准备将旧家具整修一番。

14 densely   

ad.密集地；浓厚地

参考例句：

• A grove of trees shadowed the house densely. 树丛把这幢房子遮蔽得很密实。
• We passed through miles of densely wooded country. 我们穿过好几英里茂密的林地。

15 tenant   

n.承租人；房客；佃户；v.租借，租用

参考例句：

• The tenant was dispossessed for not paying his rent.那名房客因未付房租而被赶走。
• The tenant is responsible for all repairs to the building.租户负责对房屋的所有修理。

16 intervention   

n.介入，干涉，干预

参考例句：

• The government's intervention in this dispute will not help.政府对这场争论的干预不会起作用。
• Many people felt he would be hostile to the idea of foreign intervention.许多人觉得他会反对外来干预。

17 tenants   

n.房客( tenant的名词复数 )；佃户；占用者；占有者

参考例句：

• A number of tenants have been evicted for not paying the rent. 许多房客因不付房租被赶了出来。
• Tenants are jointly and severally liable for payment of the rent. 租金由承租人共同且分别承担。