Lessons From Eviction Court
How We Can End Our Housing Crisis
I am happy to announce that my new book, Lessons From Eviction Court: How We Can End Our Housing Crisis, will be published soon.
As the title suggests, this book arises from the experience of being in eviction court each week. There, my students and I learn about the horrible injustices in our housing system. But we also see how these injustices can be stopped.
On one hand, seeing our housing crisis from the eviction-day perspective can make it tempting to despair. It is hard to be optimistic standing alongside Felicia in court as she describes how her children have been sickened by mold, rodent droppings, and sewage backups in their home.
Or Ashley explaining how she will be sleeping in her car after her landlord increased her rent by 30%. Or Robert tearing up when he discovers that his disability check is no longer enough to keep him in the apartment where he has lived for two decades.
But accompanying Felicia, Ashley, Robert (not their real names) and hundreds of others during some of their worst days also provides a rough sort of privilege. The experience has taught me and my students a lot about how our nation can respond to the crises that our clients and millions of others are living through.
We can fix this with more and better public and social housing, pumping the brakes on our runaway eviction processes, empowering tenants, and meaningfully addressing our shameful legacy of housing racism. And we can fund those fixes by directing to the benefit of the poor just a fraction of the generous housing subsidies we now lavish on wealthy corporations and individuals.
The bottom-line lesson: homelessness does not need to happen, nor do widespread evictions. The current housing crisis in our communities is unheard of in other nations like in ours. We never saw anything like this in past generations here in the U.S., either.
So, despite the grim scenes in court, I am convinced that one day the U.S. will join the many other nations where housing is a fully realized and enforceable human right for all. For the sake of Felicia, Ashley, Robert, and millions of others, the hope is that Lessons from Eviction Court can help that day come a little bit earlier.
The book is available for pre-order now on the Cornell University Press website, and also available for order on Amazon and Bookshop.org, etc. Copies should be shipping out in June.
All author proceeds will go to the Tenant Union Federation, founded by the amazing tenant unions in Louisville, Kansas City, Connecticut, Chicago, etc.
