Households with children experienced a sharp increase in food insufficiency soon after the eviction moratorium ended

March 10, 2026 by Leave a Comment

We live amid (reports of) orchestrated, organized violence against children – bombs dropping on schools in Gaza, Iran, Sudan; children kidnapped by masked agents of the State across the United States; children strip-searched in prisons across the world; and so much more performed in the name of “national security”. These all garner and deserve whatever attention they get … but we must remember, they don’t come out of the blue. They may be atrocities, but they are not anomalies. For decades we have drowned children in daily trauma, all in the name of development, property rights, national security, societal well-being, and the list goes on.

Consider, for example, the situation of children and eviction in the United States. A recent study, “‘The rent eats first’: Did ending the national eviction moratorium increase food insufficiency among renters in the United States?”, found exactly what one would expect. With the end of the moratorium, food insufficiency increased among renters. Black renters suffered the impact more than renters of other racial identities (in particular white renters). Women renters felt the impact most strongly. Lower income renters suffered more widely than other income renters. As the researchers noted, none of this was a surprise. But then they note, “Most strikingly, households with children experienced a sharp increase in food insufficiency soon after the revocation of the eviction moratorium”. Most strikingly … and yet not striking at all. In the United States, as elsewhere, eviction targets and impacts women and children first.

We have known this for a long time. Three years ago, in a widely disseminated study, the Eviction Lab found that, in the United States, those most threatened by eviction are young children. Each year, children under age 18 represent 40% of those threatened with eviction. In a discussion of the study, the authors note, “Across the life-course, the risk of experiencing an eviction—a deeply traumatizing event—is highest during childhood. Evicted children face increased risk of food insecurity, exposure to environmental hazards, academic challenges, and a range of long-term physical and mental health problems. We now know that nearly three million children face these risks every single year …. Our results demonstrate the disparate impact of eviction faced by at least two protected classes [under the Fair Housing Act]: Black renters and renters with children. As eviction filing rates return to pre-pandemic levels, it’s these renters who will pay the price.”

Since then, children have “graduated” from “food insecurity”, meaning “households were, at times, unable to acquire adequate food for one or more household members”  to “food insufficiency”, meaning a household does not have enough to eat. We have “progressed” from hunger to starvation. This is us, a nation whose policies subject children to trauma in the name of property rights, urban development, “progress”. Do not be surprised at the levels and range of atrocity committed upon the lives of “our” children. For they are the future … and the future is starving.

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Image Credit: Käthe Kollwïtz, “Hunger” / MOMA)

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The path to neo-feudalism is written in letters of blood and fire

February 24, 2026 by Leave a Comment

 

A headline in today’s Guardian reads, “Tax expert worried Australia on path to neo-feudal society as housing wealth drives inequality”. The article opens, “One of the country’s leading tax experts says the explosion in housing wealth has put Australia on the path towards a neo-feudal society where your prosperity depends in large part whether your parents own land or property.” The tax expert, Bob Breunig, then explains, “I don’t think we are back to pre-French Revolution times, but I am worried about that”. We should all be worried. But what exactly is neo about neo-feudalism? Absolutely nothing.

Global, national and local economies never stopped measuring jurisdictional wealth by housing wealth, both individual and sectoral. Landlords, banks, home owners never stopped being landlords, banks, homeowners. The capacity of one sector to evict members of another sector in the name of “development”, though often challenged, has never been broken and has always been codified into law. So .. what’s so neo about neo-feudalism? Absolutely nothing.

A couple hundred years ago, someone wrote, “The economic structure of capitalist society has grown out of the economic structure of feudal society. The dissolution of the latter set free the elements of the former. The immediate producer, the labourer, could only dispose of his own person after he had ceased to be attached to the soil and ceased to be the slave, serf, or bondsman of another. To become a free seller of labour power, who carries his commodity wherever he finds a market, he must further have escaped from the regime of the guilds, their rules for apprentices and journeymen, and the impediments of their labour regulations. Hence, the historical movement which changes the producers into wage-workers, appears, on the one hand, as their emancipation from serfdom and from the fetters of the guilds, and this side alone exists for our bourgeois historians. But, on the other hand, these new freedmen became sellers of themselves only after they had been robbed of all their own means of production, and of all the guarantees of existence afforded by the old feudal arrangements. And the history of this, their expropriation, is written in the annals of mankind in letters of blood and fire.”

Expropriation is written in the annals of humanity in letters of blood and fire. What’s so neo-about neo-feudalism? Absolutely nothing. Look around. What do you see?

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Image credit: Thomas Hart Benton, “Casualty” /  State Historical Society of Missouri)

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If we are serious about housing affordability for wage earners

October 29, 2025 by Leave a Comment

“If we are serious about housing affordability for wage earners, we must understand that the market alone will not deliver it.” Patrick Condon

On October 27, England (but not Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) officially enacted the long-awaited Renters’ Rights Act: “Central to the Act is its provision to abolish Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions, under which private landlords have been able to remove tenants even if they have done nothing wrong.” Between July 2024 and June 2025, 11,400 households suffered Section 21 no fault evictions. There is no count of how many people found themselves homeless as a result. As happens so often, the term “households” conceals as much as it reveals, but suffice it so say, tens of thousands of people were given two months to find a place, people who had done nothing wrong and now faced homelessness. Again, “homelessness” covers as much as it conceals. Numbers exist for those in shelters or seeking assistance. No one knows how many moved in with family or friends … “temporarily”.

While the Renters’ Rights Act is a welcome change, and not only because of the abolition of Section 21, some must wonder why it took so much to eliminate no-fault eviction, and why it takes so much to do so in other countries, such as the United States? No fault eviction was always wrong, always a violation of people’s human dignity and human and civil rights, but in a climate in which living on the streets has itself become criminalized, it’s even worse.

The Renters’ Rights Act does more than abolish Section 21. It also bans landlords from refusing tenants that receive benefits or that have children and establishes a new Private Rented Sector Landlord Ombudsman, where renters will be able to register complaints about landlords. Furthermore, landlords will not be able to raise the rent above the “market rate”. Landlords will not be allowed to allegedly respond to “bidding wars” by demanding a rent greater than the advertised one. Finally, landlords will be prohibited from asking for more than one month’s rent upfront from tenants.

This welcome news should have happened long ago. The housing crisis didn’t happen overnight. Renters, housing advocates, homeless service providers and others have long campaigned for these measures and more. Building more, rezoning, controlling landlord behavior, raising wages for low-income workers, regulating the market, controlling land prices and values have to happen together. This has been public knowledge for decades.

Vienna has been investing in and supporting social, aka public, housing for decades, and it’s paid off. While the city’s not paradise, it’s a practical response to unaffordable housing. Or take Melbourne. Until 2021, Melbourne was the second most expensive city in Australia. That’s when the city decided that that was an unacceptable situation. Melbourne built more, and it controlled real estate investing, by taxing real estate investors, taxing platforms like Airbnb, taxing vacant properties and land. Will Melbourne’s success continue? Who knows, the point is that the city recognized the patterns.

At midnight tonight, Vancouver will close public comment on the Vancouver Official Development Plan, a plan described as ambitious, thoughtful and well-crafted in vision and intent, on one hand, and faltering in diagnosis and prescription. In the next week or so, voters in the Netherlands and New York City will make their decisions largely based on candidates’ and parties’ promises, proposal, and plans for affordable housing. Let’s make sure the focus is on the residents, the people, living the crisis, rather than the buildings.

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Image Credit: Blandford Fletcher, “Evicted” (1887) / Queensland National Art Gallery)

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Chronicle of a death foretold: Eviction’s `adverse impact’ on parenting college students

June 27, 2025 by Leave a Comment

New America, in collaboration with Princeton’s Eviction Lab, released a brief this week, “Ousted from Opportunity: Eviction’s Adverse Impact on Parenting College Students”. While the report is dire and grim and much of the findings are tragically predictable, it’s still worth consideration, especially this, the last of the major seven findings: “Parenting Students Threatened with Eviction Die at Higher Rates 10 Years Post-Enrollment: Parenting students who were threatened with eviction were more than twice as likely to die over the 10 years immediately following enrollment than parenting students who were not threatened (see Figure 8). Threatened parenting students’ mortality rates were even significantly higher than those of nonparenting students who were threatened with eviction.” What else is there to say? What more do you need to know? People who are parents and attending college have a difficult time, often and even typically. People who are parents and attending college who receive an eviction notice die relatively soon after. What more do you need to know?

The data concerning mortality rates come from a report published this month, “Consequences of Eviction for Parenting and Non-parenting College Students”. The authors found the following: “The mortality rate 10-years post-grad is 290 (200-380) per 100,000 for threatened parenting students compared to 140 (110-160) for non-threatened parenting students; in other words, an eviction filing is associated with a 107% increase in risk of death over the next ten years.” Where will you be in ten years? Where were you ten years ago?

To be clear, this slow-moving massacre does not concern parenting college students who have actually been evicted. This 107% increase in risk of death over the next ten years involves those who have had eviction filings. Who are they? You already know the answers. Parenting students disproportionately come from historically underserved groups. They are more likely to be women, especially women of color, and tend to be older. They are also more frequently first-generation college goers, low-income, and veterans. Student fathers are more likely to be Black than any other racial group. Parenting students have higher rates of food insecurity and are more likely to be working full time. 20% of undergraduate students care for one or more children while enrolled in college. What else is there to say?

The report had seven major findings. Parenting students threatened with eviction tended to be younger than parenting students not threatened by eviction. Parenting students threatened with eviction tend to come from lower-income backgrounds, compared to parents and non-parents who were not threatened with eviction. Black students, whether parenting or not, were far more likely to be threatened with eviction, but Black parenting students are the most at risk. Parenting students who were threatened are much more likely to identify as female, at 81%, compared to 63% of non-threatened parenting students. These are both extraordinarily high percentages. 37% of parenting students who were never threatened with eviction completed a bachelor’s degree, while only 15% of parenting students who were threatened completed a bachelor’s degree. Parenting students threatened with eviction had significantly reduced family income five years post-enrollment.

Parenting students who were threatened with eviction were more than twice as likely to die over the 10 years immediately following enrollment than parenting students who were not threatened

Twenty-two years ago, Achille Mbembe opened his seminal article “Necropolitics”, with these words, “The ultimate expression of sovereignty resides … in the power and the capacity to dictate who may live and who must die.” Who may live and who must die. A young person receives a notice saying they face eviction. No matter what happens, whether they are evicted or not, within ten years they are dead. What else is there to say? What more do you need to know?

Who may live … and who must die?

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Image Credit 1: Day Gleeson and Dennis Thomas, “Title Deed Second Ave.” / hyperallergic)

(Image Credit 2: New America)

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Eviction Watch: Who builds the city up each time? A (construction) worker reads history

January 9, 2025 by Leave a Comment

 

“And Babylon, so many times destroyed.
Who built the city up each time? In which of Lima’s houses,
That city glittering with gold, lived those who built it?
In the evening when the Chinese wall was finished
Where did the masons go? Imperial Rome
Is full of arcs of triumph. Who reared them up?”
Bertolt Brecht, A Worker Reads History

In 1936, Bertolt Brecht asked, “Who built the city up each time?” A recent report brings this question roaring back. According to Cities Where Construction Workers Would Have To Work the Longest Hours To Afford a Home, conducted by Construction Coverage, nationally, a construction worker would have to work 54 hours a week to afford the mortgage on a median priced home. Needless to say, that picture changes drastically, depending on where one goes. For example, Virginia construction workers have to work 66 hours a week to afford a median priced home in the area in which they work. According to the study, Washington-Arlington-Alexandria is even worse. Construction workers have to work 80 hours a week to afford a median priced home. Virginia is the 13th most unaffordable state for construction workers. Washington – Arlington – Alexandria is the tenth most unaffordable metro area, but only by a hair. The fifth through the eleventh most unaffordable metro areas are pretty much clustered together, from 84 to 80 hours a week.

As the study notes, “The construction industry is facing a major worker shortage. Associated Builders and Contractors—a national construction industry trade association—estimates that the industry will require an additional 454,000 new workers on top of normal hiring to meet the booming demand in 2025. However, despite the substantial need for more construction professionals, elevated home prices and an inadequate homebuilding pace are making it difficult for construction workers to afford to purchase a home in the cities where they work.”

Where did the masons go?

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Image Credit: Terry Gentile, Design for a Textile, Construction Workers / Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum)

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Eviction Watch: In the warehouse of evictions, our “need” for misery and torture

January 7, 2025 by Leave a Comment

 

 “And she had learned from experience that Need was a warehouse that could accommodate a considerable amount of cruelty.”
Arundhati Roy, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

2025 began as 2024 ended, skyrocketing eviction filings, soaring evictions, mounting homelessness amid calls from many quarters to “address homelessness” by evicting the unhoused from their encampments, from their homes, however temporary, all in the name of some purported need. Consider two stories, one from the United Kingdom last year, one from Canada this year, days apart.

Jack is twelve years old and lives in Liverpool. His family was given a Section 21, or “no-fault”, eviction notice. The family was given two months to move, sixty days to find a place they could afford. There was no such place, and so they were moved into a hotel space, one room, two beds, a kettle. That’s it. As Jack explains, “It was just tiny, horrible, it wasn’t very suitable for children and all you could basically do was just watch TV or go to sleep. It’s just misery. … It was just like a game trying to get past a level, it was just day after day after day, a struggle.”

According to the housing organization Shelter, every day, day in day out, around 500 private rental households receive a Section 21 eviction notice. This year the number of so-called no-fault eviction filings broke all records. As one tenant explained, “I paid my rent every month, but I had no rights.” This is what “no fault” eviction means: no rights and misery, especially for children.

Across the ocean, in Hamilton, Canada, the new year began with this account: “Beverly Hoadley never thought she’d have to move out of her Hamilton apartment of over 50 years. But now facing a possible eviction, the 87-year-old says she’s afraid she’ll soon have no choice but to leave her beloved home. `It’s pretty awful,” Hoadley told CBC Hamilton a week before Christmas. `I’m not sleeping at night. It’s torture.’”

Beverly Hoadley and her now deceased husband moved into her apartment in 1970. At the time, the rent was $137 a month, for a one-bedroom apartment. Half a century later, she’s paying $820 a month. Although she’s on a fixed income, as are many residents in the building, she says it’s manageable. Or it was, until new owners, ironically named Endless Property Holdings, bought the building in September and promptly sent eviction notices to everyone, claiming they had to renovate the building. Tenants and allies are organizing to oppose the eviction. As one resident, also on fixed income, explained, “I feel terrible. I have nowhere to go.” The median rent for a one-bedroom in Hamilton is $1650 a month. While that’s a 3% decrease over the previous year, rents are rapidly rising once again. When people say they have nowhere to go, they have nowhere to go.

The landlord, Endless Property Holdings, say they need to renovate. The building has gone through recent renovations, the residents offered to accommodate any further renovations. The landlord rejected all claims and offers. Why is 12-year-old Jack subjected to misery, why is 87-year-old Beverly Hoadley subjected to torture? Landlord “need”. Year’s end, year’s beginning, children, elders, misery, torture. Need is a warehouse the accommodates a considerable amount of cruelty.

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Image Credit: John Bell, The Reward of Cruelty / Metropolitan Museum of Art)

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Eviction Watch: In a land of melting watches, what is time?

December 26, 2024 by Leave a Comment

HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME
HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME
T.S. Eliot, “The Waste Land”

It’s the end of another year, and, for many reasons, many wonder, “Where has the time gone?” What is time? When it comes to housing, affordable housing, eviction, not to mention any sense of justice or humanity, time is crucial, as two concurrent news reports demonstrate. One, “New law could help tenants facing eviction stay in their homes”, describes the situation in California, while the other, “Tenants On the Wrong Side Of Policy”, describes the situation in Oklahoma. To cut to the chase, while conditions for tenants in California may be improving, and it’s important to note the conditional here, in both California and Oklahoma, the situation is dire, and the world is extraordinarily cruel.

In November, 62% of Californians who voted rejected Proposition 33, which would have expanded local jurisdictions’ ability to impose local rent control measures. While this was a major defeat for housing advocates (and a major victory for landlords, realtors, hedge funds and others who had invested heavily in opposing the measure), there is something like a bright spot on the horizon, a new state law, Assembly Bill 2347, extends the time to respond to an eviction filing from five days to ten days. Think of that, five days. As it now stands, a tenant is served an eviction notice and must respond in writing within five days, or else they lose their case, and home, by default. The can, and generally do, incur financial penalties, and, of course, they have the Scarlet E, for eviction, on their record. It makes absolutely no difference if the tenant has a legal defense. Landlord increased your rent over the legal limit? If you didn’t respond, in writing, within five days, you’re guilty and potentially homeless. If your landlord refused maintenance and then filed for eviction, if you didn’t reply in writing, you’re out, out of luck, out of housing, out of a home. Almost half of California tenants lose their homes this way.

So now, starting in January, that time will be extended from five days to ten days, and that is the full extent of hope: “Five days has never been enough for a tenant to find legal assistance and try to decipher the complaint filed against them, find out what kind of defenses they have, fill out the paperwork and make it to court”. Ten days doubles the time, but is that enough? Who decides what is “enough time”?

Across the country, from reliably “blue” California to reliably “red” Oklahoma, the picture is similarly grim, except, perhaps, even more so: “with an estimated 3.6 million evictions filed each year, Oklahoma is among a group of states considered landlord-friendly. Landlord-friendly states have no rent control, cheap and simple eviction processes and low property taxes.”

In Oklahoma, the period between receipt of an eviction filing and a court date is three days. That means a renter has to come up with a defense and take time off from work in a matter of 72 hours. So, many tenants miss their court date because they can’t arrange their work schedule. In 2023, for example, 73% of cases ended in eviction because the tenant didn’t show up. In Oklahoma, you can receive your eviction notice on Monday, have your court hearing on Thursday, and find sheriffs knocking at your door on Friday. Who engages in such cruel practices? “The quick time frame of Oklahoma evictions feeds the practice of serial evictions used by some corporate landlords to make more profit. Corporate landlords file most Oklahoma evictions.”

What is time? A while back, a major Tulsa landlord decided to file evictions on the 11th of the month rather than the 6th. Guess what happened? The apartment complex saw a 50% drop in evictions. That’s not just a drop in eviction filings; that’s a drop in evictions. What is time? Some say time is money, but we all know time is life. Moving from five days to ten days can save a family. Children can stay in school. People can remain in community, with all its formal and informal supports. Life can go on. So, when it comes housing, please, please, don’t hurry up. Slow down. Melt the watch. It’s time.

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Image Credit: Salvador Dali, “The Persistence of Memory” / MoMA)

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On “real suffering”: The heartless cruelty of eviction in India and beyond

October 28, 2024 by Leave a Comment

“… the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering…. the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions.”
Karl Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right

According to a recent report, “Over 17 million people across India live under the constant threat of eviction and displacement. These threats stem from various causes, including slum clearance drives, infrastructure projects, environmental conservation efforts, disaster relief measures, court orders and tourism development, among others. This means that nearly one in every 100 people in India faces the fear of being forcibly evicted or displaced by the government … In recent years, government action targeting people’s homes—particularly those from the most marginalised groups—has only deepened the anxiety these communities are already experiencing.”

That anxiety those communities are already experiencing is also called real suffering, and it’s intensifying and spreading. According to the Housing and Land Rights Network’s most recent report, in 2023, at least 515,752 people living in India suffered eviction. That’s the highest number in the last seven recorded years.  At least 107,449 homes were destroyed. To get a sense of the “movement of history”, in 2022, around 46,371 houses were demolished and at least 222,686 people were forcibly removed. That’s around 129 homes destroyed every single day, and 25 people evicted every single hour, 24 hours a day, day in day out. In 2023, at least 107,449 homes were destroyed, and at least 515,752 people were evicted. That’s 294 homes destroyed daily, and 58 people evicted every single hour. Somewhere someone is contemplating these soulless conditions, looks ups and, with a sigh, calls it progress. Development.

If you doubt that somewhere-someone formulation, remember that “in 2022 and 2023, the highest percentage of people (58.7 per cent) – were evicted under the guise of ‘slum’ clearance/‘encroachment’ removal/‘city beautification’ initiatives.” Beautification. From the corporate – state heights, there is beauty and beautification in the landscapes of real suffering.

Who are those living with real suffering? The “most marginalised groups”: “Forced evictions, displacement, and inadequate resettlement disproportionately affect women and children. In the aftermath of an eviction, challenges faced by women are multifold and include loss of livelihoods and access to food, breakdown of social structures and support systems, debilitating health impacts, and increased vulnerability to gender-based violence. Incidents of home demolition and eviction also adversely impact their economic and social vulnerabilities and exacerbate pre-existing and intersectional challenges faced by them in accessing their rights to housing, land, health, work, water, sanitation, privacy, and security. For children, the immediate and long-term impacts of forced evictions are acute and include psychological trauma, mental illness, fear, insecurity, anxiety, loss of education, loss of health, and increased vulnerability to sexual abuse and violence.”

None of that is surprising, nor is it accidental. The production of precariousness and vulnerability is baked into the politics of eviction. In many countries – the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, for example – advocates and governments, local and national, are discussing restricting or outlawing so-called “no fault” evictions. That would be a good idea. But what exactly is fault? What is fault in a world in which, by conservative estimates, one in every 100 people lives with the terror of being evicted soon, in which that terror is considered a corollary of urban development, even beautification that the poors must simply suffer and live with? Though India’s numbers are impressive, they are not outliers. Eviction filing rates and evictions are skyrocketing and reaching historical heights across the so-called developed and democratic world. What then is democracy, what is development, that drowns out the sigh of the oppressed, crushes the heart, extinguishes the soul, and criminalizes any expression of real suffering or protest against real suffering?

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Image Credit: George Grosz, Eviction (Per Gerichtsbeschluss entlassen) / MoMA)

 

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Oregon: If working people can’t afford to stay in the housing, it’s not affordable housing

September 27, 2024 by Leave a Comment

Martha Rosler, Housing Is a Human Right, short animation produced by The Public Art Fund, “Messages to the Public,” 1989

What exactly is affordable housing? There’s much discussion these days, and finally, concerning an affordable housing crisis, the lack of affordable housing, the vast and growing numbers of households, families, individuals and communities living and struggling with housing insecurity, paying more than 30% of monthly income on household expenses and/or expecting to be evicted or foreclosed on within the next two months. So, what does affordability actually mean? This question came roaring to the surface in a new study, Eviction in Oregon’s Subsidized Affordable Housing, which looked at eviction filings and evictions from January 2019 to December 2023. On one hand, eviction filings against residents of subsidized affordable housing made up a relatively small fraction of all eviction filings in Oregon. However, once the eviction case was filed, subsidized tenants were more likely to get an eviction judgment. The vast majority of these filings were for non-payment. The vast majority of non- or late payment was because, simply, the tenants, the residents of supposedly affordable housing, could no longer afford the affordable housing. As a concept, policy, and lived reality, what then is affordable housing?

As in most areas, the majority of evictions are filed by a small number of entities. In this instance, as in so many other places, third-party corporate management companies were responsible for a disproportionate number of evictions. As noted in the report, “The difference in eviction filing patterns between third-party managers and internal managers … can be attributed to variations in their lease enforcement strategies …. While third-party managers commonly operate under compliance-oriented lease enforcement policies similar to the private sector, internal managers from the housing authority tend to adopt strategies designed to promote housing stability among low-income households.” In other words, internal managers, managers committed to affordable housing rather than profit, create leases, policies and practices that recognize various difficulties residents might encounter and find or create financial and social services to support those residents.

For many, once the filing occurs, the damage is done. Many algorithms used by landlords, and especially corporate landlords, don’t differentiate between eviction filing and eviction, and so, irrespective of the court’s decision, having an eviction filed can have long-lasting catastrophic impact. Securing “affordable housing” shouldn’t condemn a person and family to a lifetime of trauma.

The word “afford” originally meant to promote the well-being of a person or thing. Affordable meant that which enhanced and promote a person’s well-being. At some point, affordable shifted to mean that which one could reasonably purchase. What if affordable housing meant the enhancement and promotion of people’s and individual’s well-being? At the very least, publicly supported and subsidized affordable housing should be based on the value of dignity and well-being. If working people can’t afford to stay in the housing, it’s not affordable housing.

 

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Image Credit: Martha Rosler / Housing Is a Human Right, March 1989)

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The feudalism of eviction records

August 13, 2024 by Leave a Comment

“But without the feudal lord, there would be no land from which we could harvest the grain!”

When is success a failure? When is a victory a loss? In eviction proceedings. Consider this: “Tenants in Massachusetts who struggle to find housing due to a prior eviction may now get the chance to have those records sealed. The Legislature’s newly passed housing bond bill includes a provision that would allow tenants to petition a court to seal their eviction record in cases such as a no-fault eviction, a dismissed case, or a case the tenant won. Currently, there is no eviction sealing in Massachusetts.” Consider this: “Dayton Municipal Court has launched a new process to seal eviction case records …. Tenants can now submit applications to the Dayton Municipal Court to have their eviction cases sealed. Renters can file an application 60 days after their cases were dismissed or after the court made a judgment in their favor.”  People received an eviction notice, went to court, won or had the case dismissed, and the so-called Scarlet E of eviction still attaches to their names. People were evicted through no fault of their own, and the Scarlet E still attaches to their names. What’s the name for the system in which such abusive treatment is considered just, normal and acceptable? Feudalism.

While this situation has existed in the United States, and especially in the metropolitan areas, since the invention of the commodification of housing, in very recent years it has intensified and worsened considerably, thanks in large part to two phenomena: the entry of corporate investors and hedge funds into the rental real estate market and landlords’ increasing reliance on apps to determine a prospective tenant’s credit worthiness. Corporate investor and hedge fund landlords tend to file evictions much more readily than individual landlords, and most apps don’t distinguish between eviction filing and writs of eviction, or actual evictions. But then again, why would they, when the courts haven’t? Again, court records don’t distinguish between judgments against tenants and judgments for tenants. They’re all `evictions’.

Consider this, from a recent study of the collateral consequences of eviction court filings in Pennsylvania, “Eviction filings had far-reaching collateral costs for tenants and their families, often impacting their well-being and stability for years after the filing. Records stemming from eviction filings, even when tenants’ cases were resolved with a neutral or favorable outcome, negatively impacted the quality and trajectory of their lives …. Despite the court not formally evicting tenants, landlords still had the power to displace them. Though participants in this study did not receive eviction orders in court, the majority said they were forced to move after their eviction filing for reasons beyond their control …. Tenants with eviction records encountered punitive rental screening practices that prolonged housing instability and limited their housing options. 8 in 10 participants said that their eviction filing limited their future housing options. 65% of those who moved said a prospective landlord asked about their eviction record, and over half reported that a landlord explicitly denied their application because of their filing. Unsuccessful rental applications amounted to hundreds and, in some cases, thousands of dollars in excess costs to tenants.” Again, an eviction record is not a record of an eviction, it is a record of an eviction filing, irrespective of the outcome.

How does it make sense to turn renters’ success into failure, victory into loss, to brand ever more people with a Scarlet E that leaves them vulnerable to both super-exploitation and homelessness? Consider this, “In the history of primitive accumulation, all revolutions are epoch-making that act as levers for the capital class in course of formation; but, above all, those moments when great masses are suddenly and forcibly torn from their means of subsistence, and hurled as free and `unattached’ proletarians on the labour-market. The expropriation of the agricultural producer, of the peasant, from the soil, is the basis of the whole process.” That’s Karl Marx, in “Primitive Accumulation”, the final section of Capital, Volume One. The surge in eviction filings is no surprise nor is it merely a function of the dislocations of the pandemic nor of the earlier housing crisis. It’s part of the production of the new proletariat, a new proletariat that is disproportionately Black and Latina women.  When corporate investors and hedge funds entered into the rental real estate market, what happened, pretty much overnight? Mass expropriation, dislocation, removal and criminalization. Today as it was hundreds of years ago, it’s the basis of the whole process. Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your records.

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Image Credit: Medium)

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