Reading Matthew Desmond’s “Evicted”
has exposed me to realities I previously thought inconceivable. The statistics
he provides are staggering: New York served 80 nonpayment evictions a day in
2012, 1 in 2 recently evicted mothers suffers from symptoms of clinical
depression, 1 in 5 black women reports being evicted in their adult life as
compared to 1 in 15 white women (Desmond 299). The list goes on.
This is
certainly a huge issue—the entirety of this work elucidates the widespread housing
epidemic plaguing America—and all of it is terrible. However, one facet of this
larger issue particularly struck me, most likely because of how much it
surprised me. Poverty has an obvious correlation to eviction and, as unjust as
it is, systematic racism is a known problem that can be clearly connected to inability
to pay rent. What I did not consider, however, was the relationship between
domestic violence and evictions.
The case discussed in the book describes
how domestic violence got a woman named Trisha evicted from her home. Trisha was
being beaten by her boyfriend, Chris, and her downstairs neighbor, Crystal,
first called the landlady and then 911, three times. The police did come and
take Chris away, but the conflict did not end there. The police contacted Sherrena,
the landlady, to inform her that the police responded to “nuisance activity” on
her property, which referred to three or more 911 calls placed regarding that property
within thirty days. The police threatened to charge Sherrena for any law
enforcement costs for any future violations that occur at that property. These
letters of nuisance activity require the landlord to submit a plan to abate the
issue, which apparently almost always means eviction of the tenants living on
the property. Penalties for failing to abate issues with nuisance properties can
go so far as to result in incarceration of the landlord. Apparently, Trisha's abuser also made her vacate her home again, when he visited her apartment once he was released and she left for fear of her safety.
Instead of expressing any concern
for the well-being of her abused tenant, Sherrena expressed feeling embarrassed about
the call, and was exasperated since she was already “‘…trying to work with
these low quality people’” (Desmond 189). As a solution, Sherrena evicted Trisha.
In this—and many other cases—a woman who was being abused by her boyfriend got
evicted from her place because her neighbor called the police on her abuser. Talk
about victim blaming!
The ordinances that allowed the
police to punish landlords for tenants’ behavior were put in place to save money
and conserve police resources. While described as furthering the war on drugs, only
4% of nuisance property citations involve drug-related crimes (Desmond 375). Fearing
the repercussions should they fail to abate problems of the nuisance properties,
landlords took to discouraging tenants from contacting the police. Many
landlords went so far as to tell tenants they would fine them for each 911 call
they placed. Desmond cites domestic violence as the third most common nuisance activity
and the total number of domestic violence incidents exceeds the total number of
all other kinds of assaults, disorderly conduct, and drug-related crimes combined. The issue is exacerbated by
racial discrimination; in white neighborhoods, only 1 in 41 properties that
could have received a nuisance citation actually did, whereas 1 in 16 eligible properties
in black neighborhoods received citations. Furthermore, 83% of landlords who received
a nuisance citation responded by evicting or threatening to evict the tenants,
even though most of the time women were abused by men who did not live with
them (Desmond 191).
While I can understand why these ordinances
were put in place, it is shocking to me that the police are accepting evicting
victims as a solution. At the time of this case, there was more than one victim
per week who was murdered by a partner or relative in Milwaukee. The police chief
was confused as to why most of these victims had never contacted the police for
help. I cannot fathom how the police can justify punishing a landlord because their
tenants reported domestic violence. Police should be punishing landlords for not reporting domestic violence when
they know about it. Desmond aptly sums up these women’s struggles by saying “keep
quiet and face abuse or call the police and face eviction” (Desmond 192). This
text makes it abundantly clear that a single eviction sets tenants on a cyclical
path that leads to more evictions and perpetuated poverty, even in cases like
Trisha in which she was evicted for being a victim. While the situation has purportedly
improved today, there is no way this problem no longer exists. It is yet
another instance of systems and authorities discouraging (whether intentionally
or not) the reporting of domestic violence and sexual assault. Changing the nuances
of the nuisance property ordinances is an important step. However, there must
be many more steps taken, both to encourage reporting and to discourage
domestic violence in the first place.
-Katya Stassen