The Covid relief cliff is real, and it’s here

Residents of the Greater Washington region are struggling to catch up and keep up financially. New data gives us a window into the lives of our region’s residents, and the precarity they face at a time we all hoped would be more prosperous.

While nearly a third of the region’s residents worried about being able to pay their rent or mortgage in early 2020, that number has now increased to 52%. This comes at a time when the Covid relief programs and policies that helped many weather the worst of the pandemic are being significantly scaled back or eliminated entirely. The erosion of these relief programs combined with other factors such as inflation have led us to a Covid relief cliff — a point in time where individuals are standing at a precipice without the ability to rely on supports that helped many survive these last few years.

Launched in 2017, Voices of the Community (VoicesDMV) is a community listening initiative that helps nonprofits, policymakers, and leaders understand the diverse experiences of Greater Washington residents. Every three years, the Greater Washington Community Foundation partners with Gallup to survey key quality of life indicators, including economic opportunity, wellbeing, and safety indicators in the DC region. What we found in the 2024 report was a startling level of financial precarity for the region’s residents.

Click here to read the full opinion piece.

Source: Greater Greater Washington, written by Darius Graham MPN member and Managing Director of Community Investment at the Greater Washington Community Foundation