CFPB Reports on Impact of Pandemic on Low Income and Minority Households

This month, the CFPB released an analysis of the impacts of the pandemic on housing, titled “Housing insecurity and the COVID-19 pandemic.”  The report states that “11 million renter and homeowner households were significantly overdue on their regular housing payments as of December 2020, placing them at heightened risk of losing their homes to foreclosure or eviction over the coming months.”  Additional statistics include the following:

• Six percent of mortgages were delinquent, which has doubled since the start of the pandemic.  
• About 2.1 million borrowers are 90 days behind on payments and an estimated 8.8 million tenant households are behind on their rental payments.
• Blacks and Hispanics are more than twice as likely to report being behind on their housing payments in comparison to white families. 
• Black and Hispanic households comprise the highest rates of the nearly 10 percent of renters that reported that they are likely to be evicted in the next two months. 

The Acting Director of the CFPB, Dave Uejio, released a blog post the same day, calling for the agency to “consider all of the CFPB’s available tools to preserve people’s homes and protect them from unnecessary foreclosure” including working with federal agency partners, such as HUD, VA, and FHFA.