Evicted

Evicted reveals the awful situation of those living in the poorest cities in the United States by identifying how this situation came to be, the horrendous effect it has on the individuals and families that deal with it, and what we might do to stop it.

Evictions are common in the US these days, but it wasn’t always this way. Even in the Great Depression communities resisted enough that removal of tenants was rare. In one case, people protested when a landlord tried to eject three families in the Bronx!

So what happened to make them so common?

One of the biggest causes is that rent is going up while incomes are falling. Research by Harvard University confirms this.

According to the census, most of those with lower income have to pay 50% of their earnings on rent. For one in four of these, that number is 70% or more. But comfortable living standards necessitate that rent shouldn’t make up more than 30% of your total income.

Many people that struggle to make ends meet have to steal electricity, sell food stamps, or merely hope that someone will give them a roof over their heads.

Another reason for this growing problem is unemployment rates. Manufacturing jobs, for example, used to be abundant in the US. Recently, however, they’ve been outsourced to other countries, leaving many without an income.

In Milwaukee, for instance, half of all working-age black men don’t have work. What’s worse is that the average person can barely live off of welfare benefits, so it’s easy for emergencies to get them behind on rent and risking eviction.

Right now it might be difficult for you to imagine the thought of being thrown out of your current living space. You don’t realize that people that go through this have to try to find housing and keep their kids clothed and fed all at the same time. These experiences put burdens like mental illness on families and can even lead to suicide. Half of the moms who get evicted experience symptoms of depression which can drain their happiness and energy for years. And from 2005 to 2010 housing-related suicides doubled as the cost of rent spiked. It’s grown so bad that psychiatrists refer to eviction as a “significant precursor to suicide.” Having an insecure housing situation also poses a significant threat to people’s employment, making it even harder to make ends meet. You’re 15% more likely to lose your job if you get evicted because of how the stress it brings affects your performance. As if all of these troubles surrounding the event of losing your living space are bad enough, the aftershock is also horrible. Hunger and sickness are…