US homelessness could shoot up 45% by the end of the year — but these organizations are helping families find relief

• The coronavirus pandemic could cause US homelessness to rise 45% by the end of the year, according to one estimate.
• Record waves of unemployment and evictions are forcing hundreds of thousands of Americans to the streets.
• We spoke with homeless families in Oakland and Atlanta, as well as local nonprofits that are helping them land on their feet.

There is a new wave of homelessness growing in the United States.

Amid record waves of unemployment and evictions spurred by the coronavirus, hundreds of thousands of Americans who were already living paycheck to paycheck are being pushed to the streets.

An estimated 560,000 Americans are homeless on any given night, and experts predict the pandemic could increase homelessness by 45% by the end of the year, according to Columbia University researchers.

Business Insider Today interviewed people in Oakland and Atlanta who recently became homeless, as well as members and beneficiaries of programs providing them relief.

For Oakland residents Tanara Green and her 3-year-old son, a truck is home.

"I wasn't always living out of my truck, of course," Green said. "I had a nice, stable job and I was paying money faithfully to the landlord."

Green left her last home because the shared apartment she was living in felt unsafe. But the landlord refused to give her deposit back, so she couldn't afford a new house.

To make matters worse, Green also lost her job during the pandemic when she couldn't find childcare.

"We've been motel room to motel room, somebody's house to somebody's house," she said. "I'm filling out these applications. I'm paying these deposits. I'm doing everything I'm supposed to do on my half. And I'm getting nothing but 'Oh, you have bad credit.'"

After six weeks in her truck, Green found the East Oakland Collective, a grassroots volunteer organization that provides services to homeless residents. The group set her up in a motel for a week while helping her find more permanent housing.

Candice Elder, founder of the East Oakland Collective, visits homeless encampments on a regular basis with her team, where they distribute food and also COVID-19 kits, including masks and hand sanitizer.

She said the group's mission has been made even more difficult because of the pandemic.

"We're having to provide resources for people who are on the street and who are visibly homeless, but also trying to provide resources for the folks that you don't see — the people who are living in their cars, their vans, people who are living in their RVs," Elder said. "And because we're in this COVID-19 crisis right now, we're really worried about the rate of homelessness even increasing even more in Oakland."

California is home to the biggest homeless population in the United States. And like in the rest of the country, it is a problem disproportionately affecting Black Americans, who make up 13% of the national population but 40% of people who are homeless.

"We're seeing the explosion of, you know, decades-long and deep racial disparities, health disparities, disparities as far as access to resources and economic means. And we've seeing it displayed on the streets," Elder said.

One East Oakland Collective volunteer is homeless herself. Markaya Sparks was living in a donated tiny house, but had to leave it in mid-March because it wasn't fitted for electricity or running water. She usually needed about 40 gallons a day, but during the lockdown, it became harder to find.

"I literally had to go across town in order to collect the amount of water I needed in order for me, my dogs, my daughter, you know, everything. It was ridiculous," Sparks said.

Through a program run by the EOC, Markaya was eventually placed in a motel, where she has continuous access to water and electricity.

Sparks believes the only way out of homelessness is for housing requirements to change.

"I'm not unhoused because of my own doing," she said. "I'm unhoused because my landlord lost his property. And I can't get housing because now another landlord wants me to have three times the rent."

"It has to be humanity over profit, period. You have to have humanity over profit."

In Atlanta, one formerly homeless family is trying to hold on to their "miracle" apartment.

In Atlanta, a week before lockdown, Jennifer Neidig's husband Christopher lost his latest temp job, forcing them to move with their two disabled children into an extended-stay motel. They used the money from Christopher's tax returns and the stimulus for all their living expenses.

But when it ran out, the motel gave them a notice of eviction.

"It's the most frightening thing to be faced with, knowing that you don't know what's going to happen with your kids. You don't know what's going to happen one day to the next," Jennifer Neidig said.

Many other Americans will likely face the same fate in coming months, with eviction moratoriums expiring across the US. Recent research has estimated that 30 million to 40 million renters are at risk of being evicted by the end of the year.

Once evicted, families face an uphill battle securing a new place to live, said Emily Benfer, a law professor at Wake Forest University and cocreator of the COVID-19 Housing Policy Scorecard.

"It is a trauma that families and individuals are experiencing that takes an extremely long amount of time to recover from," Benfer said. "One of the reasons for this is that once an eviction is filed, that is on the tenant's permanent record. And so future property owners might screen to look for that. And they might be kept out of housing opportunities that would be of equal or positive experience for them."

"At the same time, it also affects credit scores, the ability to apply for a mortgage, and other areas that one might want to access in order to increase opportunity and participation."

Luckily, Neidig's family found help in the form of Crossroads Community Ministries, a nonprofit that provides services to the homeless. The organization arranged for the Neidigs to temporarily stay in a two-bedroom apartment, an act Jennifer Neidig called "a miracle."

"You would be surprised that the number of individuals experiencing homelessness who have income, they're working or they have benefits," Crossroads executive director Tony Johns said. "But it's that hurdle, that barrier of moving costs, those security deposits, those application fees."

They now rely on food stamps for groceries, and still must decide which bills to prioritize. Their goal is to make enough money to keep the apartment, although so far, Christopher Neidig has been unable to secure a job at a supermarket or call center.

"We've made it this far," Jennifer Neidig said. "We will do anything possible to keep it, you know, and we know that first things first, we pay the rent. That's a given. So we're not going to be without a roof over our heads."

But without government assistance, there are no guarantees the Neidigs will be able to stay in this apartment. They are among the 30 million Americans who currently rely on unemployment benefits to survive. That's up from 6.7 million in February this year.

"I really wish that it wasn't so that the homeless were subjectified to cliches," Jennifer Neidig said. "And it's not the kind of demographic that you would expect — it's normal families just trying to make it."

Meanwhile, back in Oakland, Tanara Green is hoping people can see beyond her status as a homeless woman.

"Right now I need somebody to look at me as a mom, and not somebody who's just messed up their credit," she said. "This is a time where somebody should open up their heart and understand the fact that I have a kid out here sleeping on a street, that anything can happen to us."

"What people should know and understand is anybody could become unhoused and anybody unhoused is people," Markaya Sparks said. "We're all human beings. We all have a story."