CLS's "COVID-19’s Impact on Race and Housing Security Across Philadelphia: Philadelphia Renters Report" shows that pre-existing housing insecurity and failures to address structural housing inequities left Black and brown communities more exposed to the virus.

In observation of MLK Day of Service, Habitat for Humanity Philadelphia hosted a virtual conversation between Corinne O'Connell and James Crowder on the ongoing fair housing crisis —part of the org’s series, "Race, Housing, and Health in Philadelphia."

The CARES Rent Relief Program administered by the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency has a process so cumbersome that in August almost 17,000 tenants applied for relief but only 1,800 tenants were approved.

The majority of COVID-19 rental relief funding has come from the federal government’s $2.2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (CARES), not grantmakers.

On Monday the City gave notice it would evict the residents of two encampments the next day. After a flurry of actions on Tuesday, the residents find themselves with a reprieve until Thursday morning, when a federal judge is slated to hear their testimony.

The City announced this morning it will disband the autonomous tent city by next Friday. But Brandon Dorfman takes us inside, to meet organizers and the people experiencing homelessness who called it home.

"Are we trying to eradicate homelessness without providing adequate, affordable housing? Are we innovating rather than investing?" asks columnist Andrew Huff.

The pandemic is raising what has always been an important question, but which has now become an urgent question: Is shelter obsolete?

"If we care about health, education, crime reduction, economic growth, and the growth of our city as a whole then we need to care about the housing that makes these things possible," says guest columnist Corrine O’Connell of Habitat for Humanity Philadelphia.