A recent report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation shows COVID-19’s sweeping effects on children’s health in all 50 states. The pandemic has exacerbated a multitude of crises, including housing instability. 

In Maryland, the report says 18% of adults with children are worried that they cannot pay their rent or mortgages.

Nonso Umunna is the research director at Advocates For Children and Youth, a Maryland nonprofit that contributed to the Casey report. He said that evictions can be disruptive to children’s long term mental health. 

“Just the uncertainty that it creates in a child's life can create a certain kind of stress, and as I like to call it, unseen scars,” he said. 

The majority of residents evicted are people of color.  

“You find that African Americans and Latinos are impacted significantly,” Umunna said. 

The report says that one-third of adults with children across the country are likely to lose their homes.