with both Arleen and Crystal. The conversation with the Milwaukee PD had spooked her; she decided to have the sheriffs remove Arleen and deliver Crystal an eviction notice. “I’m not gonna be arrested because of those people over there,” Sherrena said. “I’m not gonna have them take my property because of them. I’m tired of this shit….Arleen is being real selfish. She doesn’t care about anybody else but her and her kids. She doesn’t care about me.” Sherrena faxed a copy of Crystal’s eviction notice to the Milwaukee PD. A few days later, she received a letter back: “Your written course of action is accepted.”
Arleen had made an appointment with a landlord and was waiting outside her apartment complex when the woman pulled up in a Subaru, thirty minutes late. Tall and white in a North Face fleece and new tennis shoes, she rushed through an apology and introduced herself as Carol.
Carol’s apartment was a small and plain one-bedroom unit renting at $525 on the northern edge of the North Side. It took Arleen all of thirty seconds to scan the place and say that she’d take it. She didn’t like the apartment or the neighborhood or the fact that the boys would have to switch schools again if they moved there. But all that was secondary. “It don’t matter,” she thought. “A house is a house for now.”
Carol decided to screen Arleen on the spot. She sat down on the floor in the empty living room and asked Arleen to spell her name and provide her date of birth and Social Security number. Carol’s first substantive question was, “Have you been evicted in the last three years?…I’m going to check CCAP, so you might as well get it out in the open.” Arleen had given Carol her real name and wasn’t sure which evictions were attached to it. So she decided to tell Carol what she had been through since being forced to move from the condemned house with no water. She told her about the drug dealers on Atkinson and her sister dying. This took a while. There were so many moves and so many details, and soon Carol’s confusion turned to annoyance. She cut Arleen off and asked about her income: “How long have you been on W-2, and what’s the reason?”
“They actually had me on W-2 T because, um, I go to counseling for depression….I go see my therapist once a week. And they have me doing a job search. They’re trying to get me job-ready, but they’re also trying to get me to apply for SSI.”
“Better to not live on either,” Carol said, telling Arleen to get a job.
“I know,” Arleen said.
Arleen fudged her income, telling Carol she actually received child support. And after Carol said, “We don’t have any kids in this building,” Arleen lied about her kids too, mentioning only Jafaris. “I need to come see where you live now,” Carol told Arleen. She said she’d stop by Thirteenth Street in a couple of hours.
Back in her apartment, Arleen took out the trash and swept the carpet and hid all of Jori’s clothes. There was little she could do about the bathroom—there was standing water in the clogged tub, and the sink didn’t work—but the light was also out, so maybe Carol wouldn’t notice. In the kitchen, Arleen stood over the sink, staring at a pile of dishes. Little rubbed himself against her legs and meowed for food. They were out of dish soap, so Crystal’s laundry detergent would have to do. As the water ran, Arleen placed both hands on either side of the sink. She scrubbed the pots. Her phone rang. “It’s nothing,” she said to the person on the other line. “Nothing. Nothing.” Then she allowed herself a hard cry.
Crystal, who had stayed on the couch and watched Arleen frantically scurry around, got up and embraced Arleen. Arleen cried into Crystal’s shoulder, and Crystal did not pull away. When Arleen stepped back, Crystal said, “I promise you, if you believe, you will have a house.”
The apartment looked decent when Carol showed up. Arleen had even sprayed Febreze. After a brisk walk-through, Carol sat down at the glass dining table. “This just, honestly, does not look good,” she began. “And, yeah, I understand your sister died and everything, but how is that your landlord’s problem?”
“I understand what you’re saying.” Arleen thought that white people liked it when she said “I understand what you’re saying,” and “I’m trying to get my stuff
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