Hariri Institute Junior Faculty Fellow Studies COVID-19 and It’s Effect on Housing
Recently an article in BU Today featured the ongoing crisis of housing in this time of COVID-19. Twenty percent of Americans are out of work, but the rent and mortgage are still due at the first of the month. Moreover, only 26 percent of American cities are providing funds to help families stay in their homes. In response to this, two political science professors at the Boston University College of Art & Sciences are studying the growing situation. Katherine Levine Epstein, an Associate Professor and Maxwell Palmer, an Assistant Professor of Political Science and Junior Faculty Fellow at the Hariri Institute for Computing, is researching how local governments are supporting renters and homeowners in the wake of COVID-19.
About the Project
The biggest problem is an eviction for people renting properties. The good news is that 62 percent of cities have temporarily banned these evictions. This group includes the City of Boston. For homeowners paying a mortgage, Epstein and Palmer found that just 4 percent of cities are providing funds to help with payments. Locally, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh announced a $3 million fund to assist the renters, and they have already distributed money to 800 out of 5,500 applicants. Ideally, in the future, the 2 BU researchers would like to have enough data to be able to tell which cities will take the step to provide support and which ones will provide protection during a crisis. There is the CARES Act (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security), but that focuses on mortgage payors and not on renters.
“When the economy is theoretically back to some sort of normal stage, people are still going to owe banks for their mortgage payments, they’re still going to owe landlords for rent, and they’re not going to have that income to pay it, and that’s going to create sort of the second wave crisis.” says Palmer
About Assistant Professor Maxwell Palmer
Maxwell Palmer is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and a Junior Faculty Fellow at the Hariri Institute for Computing. He joined the department and Boston University in 2014, after receiving his Ph.D. in Political Science at Harvard University. His research and teaching interests include American political institutions, Congress, redistricting and election law, and local politics. His research was published in journals including the American Political Science Review, the Journal of Politics, Perspectives on Politics, and the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies.