On Evictions
Abolish evictions.
Evictions catapult families into immense poverty, making it harder for someone to secure a job, for children to pay attention in school, and it brings on serious chronic health concerns or makes health conditions worse.
Before the pandemic, over 2 million evictions were happening in America every year. Or as of 2018, 4 evictions were filed every 1 minute. Now that we are living through a pandemic, which literally requires people to stay inside and isolate when necessary, evictions have worsened.
How do you follow a stay-at-home order when you don’t have a home to stay in? This problem hits mothers the worst. Having children is the single greatest predictor of facing eviction.
In a nation as rich as ours, how we have skyrocketing numbers of houseless Americans is just as confusing to me, as to why so many people in our country go hungry, or why so many people can’t afford health care. It just doesn’t make sense. We have the resources.
Vacant homes and government-owned buildings outnumber the amount of houseless people in our country. Many of those homes are owned by banks that take them over once a home has been foreclosed, and aren’t privy to letting them go. Sounds like profit over people.
Article 17 “Article 17 1. Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others. 2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.”
Article 25 1. Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing, and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.”
Riddle me this: The U.S is a signatory of the UDHR. So if housing is a human right, a basic recognition, and an affirmation of someone’s dignity….then why do we allow a market to exist that prohibits people from securing that right? Why aren’t there nationwide conversations about ending the carceral relationship between the landlord and tenant?
It could be because we have normalized evictions, in the same way, that we have normalized prisons, maternal mortality, and mass shootings. We see them as normal occurrences that are unfortunate, but just the way that it is in America.
I refuse to live in a world that is so apathetic.
And it wasn’t always this way.
Evictions used to be so uncommon that they would gather crowds. Communities would rally together and force furniture back into homes. Now, you can watch YouTube videos of landlords placing eviction notices on people’s doors.
To be clear, the fault can’t entirely be placed on landlords. Many landlords aren't emotionless people who find joy in displacing and exploiting American families. Some, are living paycheck to paycheck as well, just doing what they have to do, even if it hurts. But most landlords are supported by the government.
“Exploitation within the housing market relies on government support. It is the government that legitimizes and defends landlords’ right to charge as much as they want; that subsidizes the construction of high-end apartments, bidding up rents and leaving the poor with even fewer options; pays landlords when a family cannot, through one time or ongoing housing assistance; that forcibly removes a family at landlords’ request by dispatching armed law enforcement officers; and that records and publicizes evictions, as a service to landlords and debt collection agencies” (Evicted, Desmond, 307).
I have talked about public housing, gentrification, and evictions, at length on my blog (see: There Could Be Children Here, a response paper to There Are No Children Here by Alex Kotlowitz, Mapping Inequality, and Rent During COVID-19).
But I will include further reading and ideas that could be helpful.
I will end here: I have heard the reforms, but I don’t think they are enough. Scrubbing off eviction records, ensuring that tenants have legal counsel at tenant court, expanding housing vouchers, and increasing the opportunities for low-income families to live in middle or lower-upper-income neighborhoods. And maybe all of these things are good.
But I don’t think they are enough. I think we could do three things. One of them (#1) could be enforced tomorrow:
Abolish evictions. For the love of God, we can live in a world without them.
We need robust affordable housing programs- where the government fronts the costs and the supply (the likes of which have been successful in countries such as Singapore and Finland). Housing First.
The stigma and privilege around housing and property ownership needs to be reevaluated. Housing should be a given. In the same way we would never dream of criminalizing water*, why should we make a basic necessity so inaccessible to millions of Americans?
Keep Reading (and let me know your thoughts on housing solutions)
CityLab University: Understanding Homelessness in America (Bloomberg)
Why Singapore Has One of the Highest Home Ownership Rates (Bloomberg)
Why Landlords Target Mothers for Eviction (The New Republic)
First-Ever Evictions Database Shows: 'We're In the Middle Of A Housing Crisis' (NPR)
'It’s a miracle': Helsinki's radical solution to homelessness (The Guardian)
Rep. Marcia Fudge calls for a ‘Poverty Bill of Rights’ (Cleveland)
Conducting an Unsheltered Point-in-Time Count During the COVID-19 Pandemic (National Alliance to End Homelessness)
The Case for Social Housing (The Appeal)
Bernie Sanders and AOC Unveil a Green New Deal for Public Housing (Bloomberg)
cover photo by me
*spoke too soon: “Georgia bans giving water to voters in line under sweeping restrictions”