Evictions Common for Poor Black Women, With Devastating Consequences
Legal Services E-lert
Bibliographic Info:
Author: Erik Eckholm
Source: “A Sight All Too Familiar in Poor Neighborhoods,” The New York Times
Date: February 19, 2010
The New York Times reports: In Milwaukee “and in swaths of many cities, evictions from rental properties are so common that they are part of the texture of life. New research is showing that eviction is a particular burden on low-income black women, often single mothers, who have an easier time renting apartments than their male counterparts, but are vulnerable to losing them because their wages or public benefits have not kept up with the cost of housing. And evictions, in turn, can easily throw families into cascades of turmoil and debt. ‘Just as incarceration has become typical in the lives of poor black men, eviction has become typical in the lives of poor black women,’ said Matthew Desmond, a sociologist at the University of Wisconsin whose research on trends in Milwaukee since 2002 provides a rare portrait of gender patterns in inner-city rentals. . . . Women from largely black neighborhoods in Milwaukee constitute 13 percent of the city’s population, but 40 percent of those evicted. Housing lawyers in Los Angeles and New York described a similar predominance of minority women, including Hispanic women, in eviction cases. . . . Even for working mothers, evictions and the ensuing damage to social ties, schooling and credit ratings can be an ever-hovering threat. . . . The disparate effect on minority women has a host of causes, according to landlords, housing lawyers and Mr. Desmond’s research . . . Irresponsible or destructive tenant behavior is sometimes a factor. . . . But there is also evidence that women more readily complain to city agencies about repairs, potentially angering landlords who then find excuses to evict them. And police reports of domestic violence can backfire on women, leading some landlords to seek evictions out of fear that they will be fined for tolerating disturbances. Sometimes the causes of evictions are hotly disputed. . . . Still, at the root of most evictions is money, which can evaporate with an illness, a job loss or other crisis.”