(post written by Alma Bradley)
In this class we have discussed the lack of access to affordable housing, but we did not discuss one crucial consequence and cause: eviction. Eviction occurs for a variety of reasons, but mainly because tenants cannot afford their rent. Sociologist and author Matthew Desmond estimates that 2.3 million evictions were filed in the U.S. in 2016, which equates to a rate of four every minute. Desmond chronicled this widespread issue in his seminal book Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City.
Desmond focuses on those living in the private rental market, who qualify but do not receive government housing assistance. Only approximately 1 in 4 families who qualify receive housing assistance. Desmond follows the lives of eight families living below the poverty line, some black and some white, who spend more than half (and sometimes even 60, 70, 80%) of their income on rent, and are constantly struggling with eviction in Milwaukee.
Lamar, a single-father and double-amputee, rents a two bedroom apartment for $550, despite his income being only $628- leaving $2.19 a day for the family’s other needs. For many poor families like Lamar’s, it is sometimes impossible to pay for rent each month. Desmond also profiles Crystal, a manic depressive young black woman, who in despiration turns to prostitution after her eviction.
Observing Milwaukee’s eviction court, where the majority of the tenants are black women, Desmond notes: “If incarceration had come to define the lives of men from impoverished black neighborhoods, eviction was shaping the lives of women. Poor black men were locked up. Poor black women were locked out.”
Like incarceration, prior evictions serve as a stigma; they make tennents undesirable and condemn them to even more filthy, dilapidated housing. Moreover, eviction can prevent one from ever living in public housing. Desmond ends his description of Arlene, a mother of two, with her making her 89th call to find a new home.I’ve included a long, but poignant, except from the New York Review of Books :
“The mother, Arleen, finds a house she likes, and it consumes only 84 percent of her cash income. But the city condemns it. So she moves the teen, Jori, and his brother, Jafiris, to a place she calls “Crackhead City” and then to a duplex where the rent, $550 a month, requires 88 percent of her income. She falls behind and gets evicted two days before Christmas, but the new tenant lets her stay until she finds a place. Living with a stranger causes friction, and Arleen calls ninety landlords before finding a place, from which she is again evicted. The situation worsens. She and the boys double up with a neighbor who is turning tricks. They rent a place where they are robbed at gunpoint. When Arleen’s next apartment takes 96 percent of her welfare check, she can’t keep the lights on. Her worst fear comes to pass: child welfare takes the kids”
Black women suffer the most. They make less money and are unable to work off part of their rent through manual labour, like some men do. Moreover, they have children, a greater expense, and many landlords dislike renting to families with young children. Black women experience the worst housing discrimination and end up with the worst housing.
Yet, Desmond notes that while tenants face eviction, landlords make over 400,000 dollars a year. Desmond emphasizes that this mistreatment continues because poverty is profitable. These incomes are made possible by a. keeping these properties in dire conditions, most have no appliances and are infested with cockroaches and maggots, and b. the extreme poverty of the tenants, who lack the power to complain. Desmond deems this exploitation. Since its a landlord’s market, landlords keep rents at a higher level than tenants can afford; if they have to evict them, they can keep the security deposit and find someone else desperate for housing. One should also note that government law allows landlords to rent units that violate property code if they inform tenants, and in most states they can deny tenants basic appliances. The solution cannot be to find a better suited apartment – no one better will rent to tenants with so many evictions.
Sadly, without stable housing, it is hard to maintain jobs and attend school, furthering the cycle of poverty, and eventually eviction. Just as we studied in class, social relations shape space, and space establishes social relations: evictions are not only a consequence of poverty, they are a cause.
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