Displaced in the Sun Belt
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February 2021 Displaced in the Sun Belt Mapping Housing Loss Across the American South Tim Robustelli, Yuliya Panfil, Emily Yelverton, Sabiha Zainulbhai, Mallory Sheff, & Caitlin Augustin Last edited on February 01, 2021 at 4:32 p.m. EST Acknowledgments Contributing Authors: Abbey Chambers, Alberto Rodriguez-Alvarez, Alexandria Drake, Cassandra Robertson, and Jack Portman This research was conducted in partnership with New America's New Practice Lab, with support from Blue Meridian Partners. Thank you to Elizabeth Garlow and Vivian Graubard, especially, for their collaboration and support. Our work was also made possible with funding from Omidyar Network/PlaceFund. In particular, we would like to thank Amy Regas and Peter Rabley for their support. Finally, we would like to thank all of our colleagues at New America that assisted with this report: Alison Yost, Maria Elkin, Joanne Zalatoris, Naomi Morduch Toubman, Joe Wilkes, Brittany VanPutten, and Samantha Webster. Cover image photo credits: Clockwise starting in top left: Miami, Felix Mizioznikov / Shutterstock.com; Orlando, Noah Densmore / Shutterstock.com; Las Vegas, bumpus / Shutterstock.com; Phoenix, jessica.kirsh / Shutterstock.com; Houston, Trong Nguyen / Shutterstock.com; Winston-Salem, Real Window Creative / Shutterstock.com; Houston, Kamil Zelezik / Shutterstock.com; Las Vegas, Tupungato / Shutterstock.com newamerica.org/future-land-housing/reports/displaced-sun-belt/ 2 About the Author(s) About New Practice Lab Tim Robustelli is a policy analyst for the Future of The New Practice Lab works at the intersection of Land and Housing program at New America. ideas and on-the-ground experimentation to improve the design and delivery of policies focused on family economic security and wellbeing. Yuliya Panfil is a senior fellow and director of New America’s Future of Land and Housing program. Emily Yelverton is a data scientist in the education sector involved with the data-for-good movement as a volunteer with DataKind. Sabiha Zainulbhai joined New America's Future of Land and Housing program as a senior policy analyst in January 2021. Zainulbhai's work at New America focuses on ensuring that housing and land use policy in the U.S. advances racial justice. Mallory Sheff is Datakind’s portfolio manager for Economic Resilience, a portfolio of projects leveraging data science to implement sector-wide change. Caitlin Augustin is the Senior Director, Product, at DataKind, a global nonprofit that harnesses the power of data science and AI in the service of humanity. About New America We are dedicated to renewing the promise of America by continuing the quest to realize our nation’s highest ideals, honestly confronting the challenges caused by rapid technological and social change, and seizing the opportunities those changes create. About Future of Land and Housing FLH aims to help solve today’s property rights challenges by shrinking the gulf between technologists and policymakers. We also strive to preempt emerging land challenges by thinking critically about the paradigms that govern new spaces. newamerica.org/future-land-housing/reports/displaced-sun-belt/ 3 Contents Introduction: Why the Sun Belt and Why Now? 7 Methodology and Definitions 9 Housing Loss in the Sun Belt 15 When and Where are People Losing Their Home? 15 Who Is Losing Their Home? 17 Housing Loss and COVID-19 in the Sun Belt 18 Policy Recommendations 19 Clark County, Nevada 21 When and Where Are People Losing Their Homes? 23 Who Is Losing Their Home? 17 Housing Loss and COVID-19 30 Policy Solutions 31 Forsyth County, North Carolina 32 When and Where Are People Losing Their Homes? 23 Who is Losing Their Home? 17 Housing Loss and COVID-19 30 Policy Solutions 31 newamerica.org/future-land-housing/reports/displaced-sun-belt/ 4 Contents Cont'd Harris County, Texas 43 When and Where Are People Losing Their Homes? 23 Who is Losing Their Home? 17 Housing Loss and COVID-19 30 Policy Solutions 31 Maricopa County, Arizona 53 When and Where Are People Losing Their Homes? 23 Who is Losing Their Home? 17 Housing Loss and COVID-19 30 Policy Solutions 31 Miami-Dade County, Florida 64 Who Is Losing Their Home? 17 Housing Loss and COVID-19 30 Policy Solutions 31 Norfolk City, Virginia 74 When and Where Are People Losing Their Homes? 23 Who Is Losing Their Home? 17 Housing Loss and COVID-19 30 Policy Solutions 31 newamerica.org/future-land-housing/reports/displaced-sun-belt/ 5 Contents Cont'd Orange County, Florida 81 When and Where Are People Losing Their Homes? 23 Who Is Losing Their Home? 17 Housing Loss and COVID-19 30 Policy Solutions 31 newamerica.org/future-land-housing/reports/displaced-sun-belt/ 6 Introduction: Why the Sun Belt and Why Now? The U.S. Sun Belt—broadly defined as the Southern swath of the country—is growing rapidly. Researchers at Rice University found that large Sun Belt metro areas accounted for almost half of all population growth in the entire United States between 2010 and 2016. Sun Belt cities are also increasingly diverse compared to the rest of the country, in all senses of the word: race and ethnicity, age of residents, socioeconomic strata, and the types of jobs added to the local economy. Unsurprisingly, these rapid changes are leading to some growing pains. In particular, housing affordability has declined across the Sun Belt, and housing insecurity has increased. The Sun Belt used to be known for its housing affordability. But over the last 20 years, Rice University found that housing prices in the Sun Belt have been rising rapidly. As a consequence, homeownership has been falling at some of the fastest rates in the country, and now, Sun Belt metro areas account for six of the 10 large metros with the highest share of severely cost-burdened households (i.e., owners and renters paying more than 50 percent of their income on housing). In fact, New America found that the Sun Belt has the highest combined eviction and foreclosure rates in the country, driven by Arizona, Nevada, Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina. The economic impacts of COVID-19 have hit the Sun Belt hard, exacerbating existing housing pressures. Sun Belt cities are often vacation destinations, and as travel dried up in 2020, these cities experienced large labor contractions and high unemployment rates. Thanks to a patchwork of federal, state, and local moratoriums, eviction and foreclosure rates in 2020 remained low compared to prior years, even as more than one-third of Americans say they have fallen behind on their rent or mortgage. Once these moratoriums lift, tens of millions of Americans will likely lose their homes without intervention. But if the wave of evictions and foreclosures has not started yet, how do we know who is most at risk? This is where the Displaced in the Sun Belt research may prove most useful. We know that evictions and foreclosures persistently affect the same communities, and that the people and places most vulnerable to housing loss before an economic crisis are often the ones who experience displacement most acutely during harder times. By identifying and examining which places experienced the most acute housing loss just before the pandemic, we can better predict where future housing loss will occur as a result of the COVID-19 crisis and who will be impacted, allowing decision-makers to direct resources and prevent harm before it proliferates. newamerica.org/future-land-housing/reports/displaced-sun-belt/ 7 The Displaced in the Sun Belt report visualizes which neighborhoods across seven locations experienced acute evictions and foreclosures just before the pandemic, from 2017 to 2019, and analyzes the groups most at risk for housing loss. The report pairs these findings with local interviews of front-line housing advocates, conducted in the fall of 2020, to understand how housing loss is changing during the pandemic. We believe that the combination of these analyses provides clues about where housing loss will be most acute once moratoriums lift, and who will be most impacted. We hope this analysis is useful to local policymakers and advocates as they race to distribute housing aid and keep families in their homes. newamerica.org/future-land-housing/reports/displaced-sun-belt/ 8 Methodology and Definitions This report uses mixed methods research to examine housing loss resulting from evictions and mortgage foreclosures across the Sun Belt. In addition to a brief section on findings that are generalizable across the region, we focus on case studies of seven U.S. counties: 1. Clark County, Nevada 2. Forsyth County, North Carolina 3. Harris County, Texas 4. Maricopa County, Arizona 5. Miami-Dade County, Florida 6. Norfolk City, Virginia1 7. Orange County, Florida In each case study location, we analyzed geospatial and case data on evictions and mortgage foreclosures at the census tract level to visualize where housing loss was occurring. We utilized American Community Survey (ACS) data from the U.S. Census Bureau and tested for statistical relationships between housing loss and a number of socioeconomic variables to visualize who was most impacted by housing loss. And, we conducted key informant interviews (KIIs) to better understand the causes of home loss and the consequences of displacement, particularly within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. These KIIs, along with desk research, helped to provide geographic, demographic, economic, social, political, and historical context to our housing-related findings. Housing Loss Rate: Prior studies tend to examine different mechanisms of housing loss in silos. Eviction and mortgage foreclosure are analyzed separately, rather than as components of the same, broader problem. The processes of eviction and foreclosure may be different, yet the underlying causes are often the same, and each results in displacement and trauma—financially, physically, and emotionally. In most U.S.