Evicted_ Poverty and Profit in the American City - Matthew Desmond Page 0,123
become, blowing them up was not only the cheaper option; it was the most humane one, like bulldozing a house in which some unspeakable thing had once transpired.27
Out of this rubble, the voucher program sprung to life. Whatever else vouchers were, they were not Pruitt-Igoe or Robert Taylor or all the other public housing complexes that had come to be synonymous with urban violence, bitter poverty, and policy failure. Today, the federally funded Housing Choice Voucher Program helps families secure decent housing units in the private rental market. Serving over 2.1 million households, this program has become the largest housing subsidy program for low-income families in the United States. An additional 1.2 million families live in public housing.28 Cities such as Philadelphia, Seattle, and Oakland have reimagined public housing, often as low-rise, attractive buildings dispersed over several neighborhoods. By and large, both public housing residents and voucher holders pay only 30 percent of their income on rent, with government funds covering the remaining costs.29
Public initiatives that provide low-income families with decent housing they can afford are among the most meaningful and effective anti-poverty programs in America. Not every public housing resident or voucher holder is poor—many are elderly or disabled; others have modest incomes—but every year rental assistance programs lift roughly 2.8 million people out of poverty. These programs reduce homelessness and allow families to devote more resources to health care, transportation—and food.30 When families finally receive housing vouchers after years on the waiting list, the first place many take their freed-up income is to the grocery store. They stock the refrigerator and cupboards. Their children become stronger, less anemic, better nourished.31
But the majority of poor families aren’t so lucky, and their children—children like Jori, Kendal, and Ruby—are not getting enough food because the rent eats first. In 2013, 1 percent of poor renters lived in rent-controlled units; 15 percent lived in public housing; and 17 percent received a government subsidy, mainly in the form of a rent-reducing voucher. The remaining 67 percent—2 of every 3 poor renting families—received no federal assistance.32 This drastic shortfall in government support, coupled with rising rent and utility costs alongside stagnant incomes, is the reason why most poor renting families today spend most of their income on housing.33
Imagine if we didn’t provide unemployment insurance or Social Security to most families who needed these benefits. Imagine if the vast majority of families who applied for food stamps were turned away hungry. And yet this is exactly how we treat most poor families seeking shelter.
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A problem as big as the affordable-housing crisis calls for a big solution. It should be at the top of America’s domestic-policy agenda—because it is driving poor families to financial ruin and even starting to engulf families with moderate incomes. Today, over 1 in 5 of all renting families in the country spends half of its income on housing.34 America can and should work to make its cities livable again.
Meaningful change comes in various shapes and sizes. Some solutions are slow-going and costly, especially those involving fundamental reform. Other solutions, smaller ones, are more immediately feasible. Consider the courts.
Legal aid to the poor has been steadily diminishing since the Reagan years and was decimated during the Great Recession. The result is that in many housing courts around the country, 90 percent of landlords are represented by attorneys, and 90 percent of tenants are not.35 Low-income families on the edge of eviction have no right to counsel. But when tenants have lawyers, their chances of keeping their homes increase dramatically.36 Establishing publicly funded legal services for low-income families in housing court would be a cost-effective measure that would prevent homelessness, decrease evictions, and give poor families a fair shake.
In the 1963 landmark case Gideon v. Wainwright, the Supreme Court unanimously established the right to counsel for indigent defendants in criminal cases on the grounds that a fair trial was impossible without a lawyer. Eighteen years later, the court heard the case of Abby Gail Lassiter, a poor black North Carolinian, who appeared without counsel at a civil trial that resulted in her parental rights being terminated. This time, a divided court ruled that defendants had a right to counsel only when they risked losing their physical liberty. Incarceration is a misery, but the outcomes of civil cases also can be devastating. Just ask Ms. Lassiter.
Good lawyers would raise defenses tenants often don’t, because they either are unaware of them or, like Arleen, are too nervous and intimidated to mount a strong argument. They