Housing crisis in New York's borough gets worse due to pandemic: NYT

NEW YORK -- The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a surge of unemployment in Bronx, a borough of New York City, with tens of thousands of renters struggling to afford their houses, the New York Times has reported.

The borough is a typical place that illustrates the housing crisis brought on by the pandemic, as its 12.4 percent unemployment rate is almost triple the national figure, and a growing number of renters are threatened with eviction, the paper reported on Tuesday.

It now has the highest concentration of eviction cases in New York State and more than many large cities including Cincinnati, Philadelphia and St. Louis, it said, citing figures from the Eviction Lab at Princeton University.

"More than 26,000 renters in the Bronx have been sued by their landlords since the pandemic began -- a third of the eviction cases filed in the city in that time," it added.