Roundtable

When You Can’t Stay Home

People prepare places to sleep in a Las Vegas parking lot, marked with squares for social distancing, after a local shelter was closed due to a positive coronavirus case, March 30th, 2020. Photo: John Locher/AP Photo

THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC has escalated the ongoing housing crisis in the United States, putting countless people at risk of losing their homes, while also creating an opportunity to push for radical housing proposals. We asked writers, organizers, and a politician to weigh in on how the coronavirus is likely to shape the American housing landscape, and how the left can respond to the immediate emergency while building a just housing future.

On Redistributing Vacant Housing

It’s never been more urgent to turn our cities’ vacant living spaces into housing for the homeless.

Jenny Akchin and Lynn Lewis

On Preventing Pandemic Displacement

We must improve the housing that helps illness spread—without displacing the people who live there.

On Avoiding the New Foreclosure Crisis

Avoiding another foreclosure crisis means pressuring lawmakers to put the brakes on speculative behavior.

Oksana Mironova

On Homes for All

In the short term, we need to cancel rent and mortgages. In the longer term, we need to decommodify housing.

Read 1 letter to the editor about “When You Can't Stay Home”

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Also in “Roundtable”

On Homes for All

In the short term, we need to cancel rent and mortgages. In the longer term, we need to decommodify housing.

On Avoiding the New Foreclosure Crisis

Avoiding another foreclosure crisis means pressuring lawmakers to put the brakes on speculative behavior.

Oksana Mironova

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