'Cancel the rent!' Housing is a basic, urgent need, where is the public outcry? | Opinion
During this pandemic, my friend like so many others fell on hard times and couldn't pay her rent. She's not only a Black woman, she is a single mama of two children. She fell behind in her rent during the moratorium and was evicted illegally. The landlord threw all her things, and her children's, outside. There was a law in place that was supposed to protect families from such violence, and it didn't help.
Someone couldn't help but ask why a landlord would seem so comfortable to break a law, and I'll tell you why. As a displaced housing mama, I've experienced some things, and it boils down to this: landlords are so used to having priority over the tenant, they are comfortable acting like this. As a housing tenant, it's a known fact that the landlord is heard over the tenant. When you move somewhere they may give you a handbook with rights and responsibilities, it even states Tenants’ rights, but the truth is there is no such thing as tenants' rights because as a housing tenant you have none.
Things must change. A way must be found to get and keep families housed.
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This issue is not getting enough concern. Here’s a comparison. In 1969 a Louisville child Bobby Ellis died in his home of starvation. The next day Stephen Ford wrote for the Courier-Journal, “On the Eve of Thanksgiving — America’s traditional day of feast — a nine-year-old boy was carried into General Hospital last night, dead of malnutrition. He weighed only about 30 pounds.”
The public responded to this horrifying story with Dare to Care Food Bank. Last year alone, Dare to Care (with partner agencies, and public and private funding) served people 21.7 million meals in thirteen counties.
Where are the stories about my friend, about Louisville people evicted during a global pandemic? And where is the public outcry? Housing is a basic, urgent need. We must fund more resources and pathways to stabilize people in homes in our city.
In this global pandemic that is so far from over, rent obligations need to be forgiven — not to be paid later but forgiven. Evictions are potential death sentences for families. The threat of eviction forces medically vulnerable people, their caregivers and family members into the workplace. Throwing families out and leaving families on the street is violence and should be called as such.
To take a family and evict them from their home for any reason, due to an inability to pay rent anytime, but especially during a global pandemic, is nothing less than heinous violence. Not only is eviction a heartless violent act, it subjects families who are homeless to an even greater chance of being a victim of violence.
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While 1-3% of the general youth population report sexual assault, 21-42% of youth homeless report sexual assault. How can we as humans love each other and be with our families with that on our conscience, to know that families, including children, are being thrown out with no shield, left naked and vulnerable, put in horrible situations trying to survive, just for a place to lay their head? According to The National Sexual Violence Resource Center, 1 in 3 homeless youths have sex just to survive.
Eviction is violence and it must stop. We need a moratorium on evictions for nonpayment of rent. It’s unconscionable to throw families to the streets always but especially in such a volatile economy. We need to prepare to see this pandemic through and to get and keep people housed.
The Courier Journal reports that more than 1,300 eviction cases were filed in Jefferson District Court in both September and October, which almost matches eviction numbers before the pandemic. Some landlords took COVID-19 rent relief money and then as soon as they legally could, they evicted the very people whose rents were covered by that relief money. It seems our acute affordable housing shortage is not a Metro or developer priority. Landlords abusing the system and causing violence to families must be held accountable. They must be called out, brought to justice, shamed and fined. In the longer term, housing security must include basic incomes, living wages and career development paths for all.
Housing Is Essential! Cancel the rent!
Katrice Gill is the founder and core organizer of Mama Bears of Beecher, a grassroots organization providing support, housing advocacy, and healing resources for displaced mothers.
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This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: 'Cancel the rent!' Housing is a basic, urgent need| Opinion
