The overall financial state of America has been incredibly impacted by the pandemic of the COVID-19 virus. In the beginning of December 2019 the virus has spread rapidly from Asian to the rest of the world. Since then, epicenters for the virus have multiplied and one of those epicenters is the United States of America. This has forced many economic adjustments. The United States government put out a lockdown protocol for most states in the US. This means, only essential workers can continue to work through the lockdown while everyone else’s job security is in jeopardy. The majority of Americans no longer have any consistent income, or they have been let go of their position. This means Americans will not be able to keep up with preexisting essential payments like rent, food, water and power bills, etc.
The nation is broke and very few recovery measures have been made to help lessen the stress on Americans today. Making rent is especially important. Usually what happens if someone cannot make rent is an eviction, and in 30 days they would be kicked out. Because of this, the government is allowing for people to miss rent for the next few months due to the lack of consistent income in America today.
The reason for the country’s lockdown is to stop the spread of the virus. This virus can last up to seven days on common surface areas. Many universities' responses were to evacuate campuses and community living to allow for the students to socially distance, keeping themselves and others safe from the potential exposure of the virus.
Young adults, living in student housing or housing directed towards students, should be offered a termination of their lease following the pandemic of the COVID-19 virus. Student living facilities are, most commonly, shared, tight quarters making it almost impossible to socially distance from whom you live with. I am currently living with seven other people in a small townhouse, when one person gets sick, we all get sick.
Following the news of this pandemic, many of my roommates and friends in community living began to panic because of the potential risks they are taking by staying in their student housing. Many have even gone so far to try and sublease, with very little success. This has felt like a trap for students who have signed leases through the end of the semester, especially since all classes are now only available remotely. On top of that, many students live paycheck to paycheck without being able to save money, for a rainy day fund which is needed to now buy essentials like groceries.
Without being released from their leases, students and young adults living in these community spaces will be exposed to the virus. Even the strictest measures of self isolation for someone tested positive for COVID-19 in community living will still expose all else living in that community to the potentially fatal virus.
The property owners of housing like this have been bombarded with complaints from tenants about potentially sick roommates, liability issues, and preexisting conditions that make some tenants high risk. It would be in the best interest of the owners to release some tenants due to the potential lawsuits that could evolve from these complaints and threats.
It would be in the best interest for the health of America to take a look at these more specific issues, like community living, to flatten the curve of the pandemic thus allowing for Americans to hopefully sooner go back to the way things were before the lockdown.
Interesting read! The overall financial state of America has definitely been incredibly impacted by the pandemic of the COVID-19 virus. Epicenters for the virus have multiplied and one of those epicenters is the United States of America and this has definitely forced many economic adjustments. Due to the fact that the United States government put out a lockdown protocol for most states in the US, many peoples jobs are in jeopardy since only essential workers can continue to work through the lockdown. I definitely see the problem on how this can affect the living situations and rent that many individuals who have jobs in jeopardy.
I agree that this time has brought about so many ambiguities surrounding rent and living situations. During this lockdown time I think landlords must offer some sort of lifeline to tenants. For me, my lease at my apartment goes until August and our landlords have no reached out at all or responded to me emails regarding rent until August. I have no need to live in that apartment now that school is online, yet I would be paying thousands of dollars in rent. I think it would be beneficial for landlords to offer a pro-rated rent, or offer tenants the option to get out of their lease.