New York City renters damaged by the pandemic's economic chaos are accumulating vast amounts of housing debt that promises only to get worse as the $600 unemployment supplement is set to expire, said Bloomberg. The former national epicenter of the pandemic has seen widespread job losses, having consistently placed, until recently, as one of the states with the highest initial unemployment claims in the nation. Therefore, it may not be surprising that a quarter of the city's renters have not paid anything since March, according to Bloomberg.

While a law shielding renters from evictions in a time of social distancing may protect them now, landlords are becoming increasingly insistent on collecting back rent however they can: One renter quoted in the article said her landlord is threatening legal action over $20,000 of debt for her Bedford-Stuyvesant apartment. So while technically these renters won't get kicked out of their homes, their debts can still grow and grow and grow. Once the eviction ban is lifted, these debts will likely be next to impossible to pay off, possibly leading to a wave of homelessness.

Cash-strapped tenants, further, are leading to cash-strapped landlords which, down the road, could lead to a cash-strapped municipality, as the city is expecting to see hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of property tax delinquencies in the coming months. Compounding the situation even more is a scarcity of new renters, especially among college students, who are waiting out the pandemic in other states. Bloomberg said that this shortfall in rent might prompt many owners to sell their properties, with a large proportion turning to the entities most likely to be able to buy: private equity firms.