Evicted

by Matthew Desmond

  Finally, Arleen looked up to see Sherrena step into the hallway and hold the courtroom door open. “We up,” she said.

  Sherrena had waited two hours for her cases to be called. She had drawn Commissioner Laura Gramling Perez, a white woman with military posture but a broad, open face. Gramling Perez, in a dark pantsuit and pearls, asked Arleen to wait in the front while she and Sherrena settled another matter. Sherrena followed the commissioner back to her office, a stately wood-paneled room lined with law books, framed certificates, and family photographs. The commissioner took her seat at the head of a large hardwood table and asked, “Any luck with that invoice?”

  Sherrena had been in the office just the day before, asking the commissioner to approve a claim of $5,000 brought against another evicted tenant, the one whose building had been condemned. Each eviction case had two parts. The “first cause of action” dealt strictly with whether a tenant would be evicted. Next came “the second and third causes of action,” which dealt with what was owed to a landlord: unpaid rent, court fees, and other damages.12 Most tenants taken to eviction court were sued twice—once for the property and a second time for the debt—and so had two court dates. But even fewer tenants showed up for their second hearing than for their first, which meant landlords’ claims about what was owed them usually went unchallenged. Suing a tenant for back rent and court fees was straightforward. Landlords were allowed to charge for unpaid rent, late fees the court found reasonable, and double rent for each day tenants remained in the home after their tenancy had been terminated. Things got murkier when tallying up property damages. Sometimes Sherrena guessed an amount on the ride over to eviction court. “How much should I put for the back door: One fifty? Two hundred?” Sometimes she added on an extermination fee even though Quentin would take care of it himself. When the charges didn’t give them pause, callers approved landlords’ second and third causes with a quick punch of the stamp. When they did, callers pushed the claim up to a commissioner like Gramling Perez, who was now asking Sherrena to provide evidence that would justify suing an ex-tenant for the maximum amount allowed in small claims court.

  “What I’m trying to get from her doesn’t even scratch the surface of what she did to the property,” Sherrena replied, presenting photos of the trashed unit and the bill she had shown to Arleen.

  Commissioner Gramling Perez looked everything over, then said, “I need something else.”

  Sherrena pushed back but got nowhere. “I’ll never get that anyway,” she finally said with a huff.

  “And that’s probably the case,” the commissioner began. “So—”

  “It’s still not fair! Nobody ever does anything to these tenants. It’s always the landlord. This system is flawed….But whatever. I’ll never see the money. These people are deadbeats.”

  Gramling Perez brought Sherrena’s charges from $5,000 down to $1,285. That money judgment joined those of the eight other eviction cases Sherrena initiated earlier that month, which together totaled over $10,000. Sherrena knew that receiving a money judgment and actually receiving the money were different matters. After withholding tenants’ security deposits, landlords had limited recourse when it came to collecting. Sherrena could try to garnish wages, but this was possible only for former tenants who were employed and living above the poverty line. She could garnish bank accounts. But many of her former tenants did not have bank accounts, and even if they did, state benefits and the first $1,000 were off limits.13

  Even so, Sherrena and many other landlords filed for second and third causes. This carried consequences for tenants, since money judgments were listed on eviction records. An eviction record listing $200 of rental debt left a different impression than one listing $2,000. Money judgments could also suddenly reappear in tenants’ lives several years after the eviction, particularly if landlords docketed them. Docketing a judgment slapped it on a tenant’s credit report. If the tenant came to own any property in Milwaukee County in the next decade, the docketed judgment placed a lien on that property, severely limiting a new homeowner’s ability to refinance or sell.14 To landlords, docketing a judgment was a long-odds bet on a tenant’s future. Who knows, maybe somewhere down the line a tenant would want to get her credit in order and would approach her old landlord, asking to repay the debt. “Debt with interest,” the landlord could respond, since money judgments accrued interest at an annual rate that would be the envy of any financial portfolio: 12 percent. For the chronically and desperately poor whose credit was already wrecked, a docketed judgment was just another shove deeper into the pit. But for the tenant who went on to land a decent job or marry and then take another tentative step forward, applying for student loans or purchasing a first home—for that tenant, it was a real barrier on the already difficult road to self-reliance and security.

  Sherrena had been thinking about hiring a company like Rent Recovery Service to collect on her second and third causes. The self-described “largest and most aggressive landlord collection agency in the country” reported delinquent tenants to three national credit bureaus and placed them on a nationwide tracking system that allowed the company to follow tenants’ financial lives “without their knowledge.” It saw when tenants attempted to get credit, apply for a job, or open a bank account. Like landlords docketing judgments, the company took the long view, waiting for tenants to “get back on their financial feet and begin to earn a living” before collection could begin. Rent Recovery Service “never closed an unpaid file.”15 Some of those files contained debt amounts calculated in a reasonable and well-documented way; others contained bloated second and third causes and unreasonably high interest rates. But since both had the court’s approval, Rent Recovery Service did not distinguish between them.

  —

  When her turn came, Arleen decided to sit right next to Sherrena at the commissioner’s table. The two women looked for a moment like old friends or even sisters, with one reflecting life’s favor. Sherrena was still stewing over being denied her $5,000 claim when the commissioner, without lifting her eyes from Arleen’s file, said, “Your landlady is seeking to evict you for unpaid rent. Are you behind on rent, ma’am?”

  “Yes,” Arleen replied.

  With that, she lost her case.16

  The commissioner looked at Sherrena and asked, “Are you willing to work something out?”

  “No,” Sherrena answered. “Because the thing is, she’s too far behind. See, I let her slide when the sister passed away or whatever. She didn’t pay all her rent that month. And now it’s another whole month has passed, and now she owes a total balance of about $870.”

  “Okay, okay,” the commissioner cut in. She turned to Arleen. “So your landlady at this point wants you to move out.”

  “Okay.”

  “Do you have minor children at home?”

  “Yup.”

  “How many?”

  “Two.”

  Gramling Perez was one of the commissioners who sometimes subscribed to the court custom of giving tenants two extra days in the home for each dependent child.

  “I’ll be out before the first,” Arleen said. “New Year’s at the latest.”

  “But see, that goes into the beginning of rental period again,” Sherrena interjected.

  “So you’re willing to do a stipulation if she’s gone before the first?” the commissioner asked.

  “Well,” Sherrena began, her annoyance no longer even partially concealed. “I have people lined up that want to move in on the first.”

  But the commissioner had spotted an opening. She knew Arleen would have to leave, but she was trying to spare her the blemish of an eviction record. She tried again: “Would you be willing to offer something in return for her agreement to move out by the thirty-first, voluntarily?”

  “What would I be proposing to offer?” Sherrena asked coldly.

  “To dismiss.”

  “But what about the other money that she owes me?” A dismissed eviction judgment meant a dropped money j
udgment as well, and obtaining money judgments, even against single mothers on welfare, was one of the primary reasons Sherrena evicted tenants through the court system.

  “Well, my point is that you maybe give up a couple hundred dollars so you don’t lose these tenants who are coming in January.” The commissioner knew Sherrena could pocket Arleen’s security deposit, leaving an unpaid rent balance of around $320. “In exchange for an agreement that she won’t go after you—”

  Then Arleen interrupted the commissioner. “I’m not trying to be in her money,” she said. She said it forcefully and looked offended. Arleen had gathered who was making the calls, and it wasn’t the white lady with the pearl necklace.

  Sherrena, who had been mulling things over, leaned forward in her chair. “I don’t want to dismiss anything. I really don’t….I mean, I’m tired of losing out on every single—” She began slapping the table with each word.

  Arleen looked at the commissioner. “I mean, I’m not trying to stay. I mean, I understand what she’s saying. That’s her place.”

  “I understand,” said the commissioner.

  “I’m not trying to be there.”

  “I understand.”

  The commissioner shuffled the papers and said nothing more.

  In the pause, Arleen took another tack. She thought of the broken window, the sporadic hot water, the grimy carpet, and said, in a dismissive voice, “I would say something, but I’m not even gonna go there. I’m all right.” That was her defense.17

  The commissioner looked at Arleen and said, “Here’s the deal. Ma’am, you’re getting to move out voluntarily by January first….If you don’t do that, if you don’t move out, then your landlord is entitled to come back here without further notice, and she can get a writ of eviction. And then the sheriff will come.”

  —

  When Sherrena and Arleen walked out of the courthouse, a gentle snow was still falling. Sherrena had agreed to give Arleen a ride home. In the car, Sherrena paused to rub her neck, and Arleen lowered her forehead into the palm of her hand. Both women had splitting headaches. Sherrena attributed hers to how court had gone. She was still fuming that Gramling Perez had reduced her money judgment. Arleen’s was from hunger. She hadn’t eaten all day.

  “I don’t want to be putting you and your babies out in the cold,” Sherrena told Arleen as the car moved slowly through the slushy streets. “I wouldn’t want nobody to do me like that….Some of them landlords, they get away with murder down there. But there’s some like me, who get in front of the commissioner, and she say whatever’s on her mind, and that’s the way it’s gonna go….She knows this system is screwed. It’s all one-sided.”18

  Arleen stared out the window and watched the snow settle noiselessly on the black iron lampposts, the ornate dome of the Public Library, the Church of the Gesu’s Gothic towers.

  “And some of these tenants,” Sherrena was saying, “they nasty as hell. They bring roaches with ’em. They bring mice with ’em. And who gotta pay for it? Oh, what about Doreen Hinkston? With her ray-man noodles down the sink, and they keep calling me about the sink being stopped up….And I gotta call the plumber. Then you pouring grease down the sink from your fried chicken, you pouring the grease down the sink, and I gotta get a plumber out again.”

  The car turned down Center Street, passing a church where Arleen sometimes picked up gift baskets at Thanksgiving and Christmas. She had always aspired to have her own ministry like that, to be the one handing out food and clothing.

  “So, Arleen”—Sherrena pulled in front of Arleen’s place on Thirteenth Street—“if you ever thinking about becoming a landlord, don’t. It’s a bad deal. Get the short end of the stick every time.”

  Arleen stepped out of the car and turned back to Sherrena.

  “Merry Christmas,” she said.

  PART TWO

  OUT

  9.

  ORDER SOME CARRYOUT

  Larraine was up before the sun, dashing cool water on her face. She usually rose before dawn, feeling her best in the morning. The day after her brush with Tobin was different. She had stayed in bed, trying to ignore the situation by burrowing under the covers. She only got up to let Digger out, looking through the cuts in the blinds for Tobin or Lenny before stepping out the door with the leash. Digger was her brother Beaker’s dog, a small black mutt. Larraine had agreed to watch him while Beaker was in the hospital for his heart.

  Larraine’s trailer was spotless and uncluttered. When a visitor would comment on its cleanliness, she would smile and credit her handheld steamer or share tips, like slipping in an aspirin when washing whites. She had lived in her trailer for about a year and had come to like it, especially in the morning, before the gossips began congregating outside. She now had everything just-so. She had found white serving utensils to match the white cupboards in the kitchen and a small desk for her old computer. None of this made paying Tobin 77 percent of her income any easier.

  The sun lifted higher and the trailer park began to stir with the sounds of children and car engines. Larraine studied her phone. She knew that there were two main programs in Milwaukee for people facing eviction. The first was Emergency Assistance for families at risk of “impending homelessness.” You could apply for these funds once every year if you were a US citizen, in possession of an eviction notice, at or below 115 percent of the poverty level, and could prove with divorce papers, a crime report, a pink slip, or some other documentation that you had experienced a sudden loss of income. But to qualify you also had to have dependent children in your home; so Emergency Assistance was out.

  The second program was the Homelessness Prevention Program, offered through Community Advocates and mainly federally funded. But to qualify for that benefit, you not only had to have experienced a loss of income, you also had to demonstrate that your current income could cover future rents. Plus, you needed landlord buy-in, which Larraine didn’t have. Like Emergency Assistance, this service was reserved more for the unlucky—those who had been laid off or mugged—than the chronically rent burdened. Community Advocates was able to offer this benefit to only 950 families each year. It took Milwaukee less than six weeks to evict that many families.1

  Larraine dialed a number by heart. “Yes. I was wondering. I was told that you help people with their rent?…Oh. Oh, no?…Okay.” She hung up. Larraine dialed the Social Development Commission, an antipoverty organization. They couldn’t help. Someone had told her that the YMCA on Twenty-Seventh made emergency loans. She called them. “Yes. I was instructed to call you because I was told you could help me with my rent….My rent….Rent. R-E-N-T.” Nothing. Larraine did not dial the number to a tenants’ union because Milwaukee, like most American cities, didn’t have one.

  By midmorning, Larraine had dialed all the nonprofit, city, and state agencies she could think of. None came through. On a lark, she dialed one more number. She lifted the phone and heard the indifferent throb through the speaker. Larraine shrugged. The line to the Marcia P. Coggs Human Services Center—the “welfare building”—was always busy.

  —

  The movers started the trucks early in the morning, diesel engines grumbling as the men gathered with cigarettes and mugs of black coffee. The city was soggy from the previous night’s rain. Some of the men were young and athletic with pierced ears. Others were barrel-chested and middle-aged, slapping their leather gloves on their jeans. The oldest among them was Tim, lean and sour-faced with reddish-brown skin, stubble, and a fresh pack of Salems in his front pocket. Almost all of the men were black and wore boots and work jackets with the name of their company—Eagle Moving and Storage—and various clever slogans: “Moving’s for the Birds,” “Service with a Grunt,” “Order Some Carryout.”

  The Brittain brothers—Tom, Dave, and Jim—had taken over the company from their father. When he had started it back in 1958, there were only one or two eviction moves a week. He ran a two-truck operation out of his home and would pick up men from the rescue mission wh
en he needed an extra hand. Fifty years later, the company employed thirty-five people, most of them full-time movers; owned a fleet of vans and eighteen-foot trucks; and operated out of a three-story, 108,000-square-foot building that had originally held a furniture factory. Forty percent of their business came from eviction moves.

  Eagle’s moving crew worked with two sheriff deputies. The deputies would knock on the door to announce the eviction; the movers would follow, clearing out the home. Landlords footed the bill. Before a landlord could activate the Sheriff’s Office, he had to contract with a bonded moving company. There were four such companies in Milwaukee, Eagle being the largest. To hire one of Eagle’s five-man crews, a landlord had to put down a $350 deposit, the average cost of an eviction job. Eagle then handed over a Letter of Authority, which the landlord would take to the Sheriff’s Office, along with the necessary court documents and an additional $130 sheriff’s fee. The sheriff had ten days to remove the tenants. A formal eviction that involved sheriffs and movers could run around $600, when you included the court filing charge and process-server fee. Landlords could add these costs to a judgment but often never got them back.

  Dave Brittain, a white man with graying hair and a long stride, gave the men the signal, and they climbed into the trucks. Tim drove the van, and when Dave went out on moves, he sat in the passenger’s seat.

  The daily eviction route began with the northernmost address and pushed south. Eagle’s trucks would lumber through the North Side ghetto in the morning and early afternoon. Then they would cross the Menominee River Valley and course through the predominantly Hispanic streets of the near South Side before ending their day in the trailer parks on the white far South Side.