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New Haven Independent
$10M rental assistance program launched; Tenant advocates wary
The rental assistance program comes at a time when the country’s patchwork of eviction moratoriums, pre-existing affordable housing crisis, and soon-to-expire federal unemployment boost could lead to upwards of 20 million to 28 million Americans evicted by the end of September, according to American Bar Association Task Force Committee on Eviction Chair Emily Benfer, a law professor at Wake Forest. A recent survey by the site Apartment List found that a third of Americans did not make their full rent payment on time in July.
July 15, 2020
Popular Science
How eviction is feeding – and being fed by – the pandemic
Even in the absence of a pandemic, eviction is the beginning of a downward socio-economic slide that results in worse health outcomes, said Emily Benfer, a law professor at Wake Forest. “We can expect to see a second-wave public health crisis in the form of the comorbidities related to eviction,” Benfer said. Research has demonstrated that people who experience eviction are likely to experience chronic disease, die younger, face ongoing instability that worsens these conditions, and even experience what is known as a “death of despair”: a drug or alcohol overdose or suicide is more likely to be their cause of death.
July 15, 2020
Bloomberg Law
INSIGHT: Plastic pollution Is an environmental justice issue
Black people and other individuals of color are disproportionately affected by environmental harms like plastic pollution. Sarah J. Morath, an associate professor at Wake Forest School of Law, argues Congress can address these inequities by enacting the Break Free from Plastic Pollution Act.
July 14, 2020
CNN
The psychology behind to-do lists and how they can make you feel less anxious
“When a goal is unfinished it might be a weight on your mind in terms of anxiety or worry and it colors how you see the world, because it’s sort of tugging at the sleeve of your conscious attention,” said Wake Forest psychology professor E.J. Masicampo. “It can be omnipresent whether you’re aware of it or not.” Masicampo and co-author Roy Baumeister, reported their findings from a study that showed people with unfinished short-term goals performed poorly on unrelated reading and comprehension tasks.
July 14, 2020
Plant Based News
Penny defenders’ strongest argument was that eliminating it would hurt consumers by inflating costs with a “rounding tax.” But Wake Forest economist Robert Whaples conducted a study of convenience stores and found that the final digit of purchases, which usually involve multiple products and a sales tax, was pretty much random. “And so if you round it to the nearest nickel, the customer wouldn’t get gouged.” Sometimes you’d round up; other times you’d round down. In the end, it would basically be a wash.
July 14, 2020
Society Of Women Engineers
Empathy: The first step towards inclusion
“Many intentional efforts are being made to incorporate empathy into engineering curricula and prepare future engineers to be more empathic,” said Adetoun Yeaman, an engineering education post-doctoral fellow at Wake Forest. Yeaman co-authored this article on empathy’s role in inclusive engineering.
July 14, 2020
Statesville Record & Landmark
Governor holds off on Phase Three reopening for another three weeks
The decision on bowling alleys “deserves significant attention,” said politics professor John Dinan, a national expert on state legislatures. “In a way, it suggests the governor is likely to continue to exercise sole discretion about the pace and timing of any reopening. The legislature has been unable to pass any meaningful laws limiting the governor’s authority. The state Supreme Court is signaling by today’s action that it is unlikely to support lower-court judgments that limit the governor’s decision-making.”
July 14, 2020
Teen Vogue
The pandemic and recession will get worse, but we can fight to make things better.
Consider housing, one of the basic material needs for human survival. The pandemic’s onset sparked mass calls for rent cancellation or rent strikes, and the necessity of measures to protect the roofs over people’s heads hasn’t lessened even as businesses have shifted to virtual operations or even begun to reopen. As Emily Benfer, a law professor at Wake Forest School of Law and chair of the American Bar Association’s Task Force Committee on Eviction, told New York magazine’s Eric Levitz, over 20 million people across the country could be facing eviction between now and September — roughly double the number of people who had their homes foreclosed upon from 2006 to 2014, due at least in part to a mortgage crisis.
July 14, 2020
Housingwire
More than 20 million renters could soon be evicted
Emily Benfer, a law professor at Wake Forest School of Law and chair of the American Bar Association’s Task Force Committee on Eviction, said in a recent interview with CNBC that the possibility of so many people getting evicted is unprecedented. Benfer is also co-creator of the COVID-19 Housing Policy Scorecard with the Eviction Lab at Princeton University. “We can expect this to increase dramatically in the coming weeks and months, especially as the limited support and intervention measures that are in place start to expire. About 10 million people, over a period of years, were displaced from their homes following the foreclosure crisis in 2008. We’re looking at 20 million to 28 million people in this moment, between now and September, facing eviction.”
July 13, 2020
Houston Chronicle
How to stay honest when filing taxes in a pandemic year
“While people often want to cheat in certain cases if it would benefit them, they also want to think of themselves as honest,” said Christian Miller, professor of philosophy at Wake Forest. Miller explained that even small moral reminders can deter cheating.
July 13, 2020
KERA (Dallas)
Why science is so easy to dismiss
“Motivated reasoning” is deciding what evidence to believe based on a conclusion that one prefers. Is that why some people wear masks and others don’t? Philosophy professor Adrian Bardon, appeared on KERA’s “Think” podcast to talk about how identity, political affiliation, culture and rationalization have led to science denial.
July 13, 2020
New York Magazine
This recession is a bigger housing crisis than 2008
Between 2006 and 2014, about 10 million Americans lost their homes to the foreclosure crisis. Today, upwards of 20 million U.S. renters are poised to be evicted between now and September, according to Emily Benfer, a law professor at Wake Forest School of Law and chair of the American Bar Association’s Task Force Committee on Eviction.
July 13, 2020