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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cLife is short and the world Ron Padgett opens his poem \u201cThe Absolutely Huge and Incredible Injustice in the World<\/a>\u201d with a simple question, \u201cWhy are we so mean?\u201d That question came to mind recently reading the opening to a news report<\/a>, \u201cA housing advocate in central Ohio warns that more kids are being listed on eviction proceedings, as eviction rates increase. Though the problem isn’t widespread, it can have huge consequences on the children’s future access to credit and rental housing.\u201d Children are being listed as defendants in eviction cases. While the number of cases is not great, why is there a number at all? And why must we be `convinced\u2019 that this is a terrible thing? Why must we be `persuaded\u2019 that listing a child on an eviction filing will affect and endanger that child\u2019s well-being, possibly for the rest of their life? Why do we require studies to demonstrate that eviction, in fact housing precarity of any sort, has long term detrimental impacts on children? Why are we so mean?<\/p>\n The article under question focuses on Franklin County, in central Ohio. Franklin County is home to Columbus, Ohio, the state capital and the most populous city in Ohio. It\u2019s also the home to Ohio State University. According to the 2020 Census<\/a>, Franklin County held around 1,280,000 residents, of whom close to 61% are White, and a little close to 23% are Black.<\/p>\n According to Gene Edwards, Franklin County\u2019s Municipal Court Legal Director and magistrate, \u201cFranklin County is experiencing an absolute wave in evictions<\/a>. We are seeing more evictions come in everyday than we have ever felt in our lives. We are on track this year to exceed 24,000 evictions. That would be setting a record. Last year, we set a record.\u201d According to Princeton University\u2019s Eviction Lab, eviction filings in Columbus are up 38% relative to their pre-Covid average<\/a>. In March of this year, eviction filings were 2% above the pre-Covid average; in April, 36%; in May 62%<\/a>. Who\u2019s receiving these eviction filings? 32% of renters in Columbus are Black; 53% are White. 49% of those receiving eviction filings were Black; 38% were White. 58% were female<\/a>. None of this is surprising, but it needs to be said.<\/p>\n In all of this predictable, and predictably dismal, stew, how do children figure, and, more to the point, how do children\u2019s names end up on eviction filings? Study<\/a> after study, article after article, has documented that the epicenter of the national eviction crisis is single Black women heads of households. While, again, it should be obvious, it needs to be said that \u201cheads of households\u201d means accompanied by children. That\u2019s how children figure in this crisis, today and for decades to come. How do their names appear on eviction filings? The landlord\u2019s attorney adds the children\u2019s names to the eviction notice<\/a>. Those names are not on the lease, if there is a lease. In many instances, those children were not yet born when the family moved into the unit. Yet somehow they\u2019re now responsible, and they can be held responsible for the rest of their lives.<\/p>\n Evictions can follow a person for life. In a world in which many credit history apps don\u2019t distinguish between eviction filings and evictions, eviction filings can haunt a person forever, irrespective of how the case was adjudicated. As Carlie Boos, Executive Director of the Affordable Housing Alliance of Central Ohio<\/a>, noted<\/a>, \u201cIt means that you are absolutely going to see children who were, you know, two years old, three years old today. They will grow up, they will get an education. They will go out into the world or they’re going to try and rent their first apartment, and they’re going to be denied, because there’s an eviction record from when they were a baby sitting there\u201d.<\/p>\n Why do we allow, and even encourage, this cruelty? How many studies are needed before we understand that the \u201ceviction crisis\u201d is a war on Black women? How many articles and studies are needed before we address our complicity in the erasure of the futures of a whole generation of Black children, growing up today? Why are we so mean?<\/p>\n (By Dan Moshenberg)<\/p>\n
\nis at least half terrible\u201d
\nMaggie Smith, Good Bones<\/a><\/p>\n