Ellen Davidson, a staff attorney at The Legal Aid Society, appeared on WBAI’s Driving Forces podcast to call attention to the growing threat of a widespread eviction crisis landing in the middle of a resurgence of the deadly COVID-19 virus.

Despite an extension of Gov. Cuomo’s eviction moratorium to October 1st and passage of the Safe Harbor Act, no long-term solution ensuring vulnerable New Yorkers has been put in place. In New York City alone, approximately 400,000 renters are no longer able to afford their rent due to the economic fallout of the state-mandated shutdown.

The Legal Aid Society has called for both state and federal funds to ameliorate the crisis by keeping people in their homes – and preventing the type of outbreak that is sure to occur in homeless shelters.

“One of the things we learned from the coronavirus was that people who lived in homeless shelters [got COVID] and died at much a higher rate than people who are housed,” Davidson said. “And so the idea that we would be heading into a resurgence of the virus and have hundreds of thousands of people possibly losing their homes at the same time is a terrifying idea.”

Listen to the full episode below.