John Oliver Examines How the Pandemic Is about to Increase Evictions Across America

Hey, guess what: the pandemic is still ruining everything—no matter how much some people want to act like it’s over with. One of the biggest problems it’s caused is a housing crisis that’s about to erupt, as John Oliver points out in this segment from last night’s episode of Last Week Tonight. Millions of Americans are struggling to make rent, and with relief measures on both the national and local level not even measuring up to the status of “woefully inadequate,” the result could be a massive upswing in evictions. Because what goes better with a pandemic and the highest unemployment rate since the Depression? Rampant homelessness, of course.

Once again Oliver puts forth a persuasive, well-researched overview of the issue, the problems it’s poised to present, and different ways it could be mollified, or perhaps even resolved. Hint: it’s all stuff our current government would probably never do. One proposal from Ithaca, N.Y., would cancel all rent and see the state pay property owners to keep them afloat. It’s the kind of thing America could easily afford to do, but that would require the richest (and thus most politically powerful) among us to increase what they pay in to the government.

For more concrete details on the crisis, along with other ideas of how to fix it, and, of course, lots of legitimately good jokes, check out the full segment below.