Eviction Watch: Who builds the city up each time? A (construction) worker reads history

January 9, 2025 by Leave a Comment

 

“And Babylon, so many times destroyed.
Who built the city up each time? In which of Lima’s houses,
That city glittering with gold, lived those who built it?
In the evening when the Chinese wall was finished
Where did the masons go? Imperial Rome
Is full of arcs of triumph. Who reared them up?”
Bertolt Brecht, A Worker Reads History

In 1936, Bertolt Brecht asked, “Who built the city up each time?” A recent report brings this question roaring back. According to Cities Where Construction Workers Would Have To Work the Longest Hours To Afford a Home, conducted by Construction Coverage, nationally, a construction worker would have to work 54 hours a week to afford the mortgage on a median priced home. Needless to say, that picture changes drastically, depending on where one goes. For example, Virginia construction workers have to work 66 hours a week to afford a median priced home in the area in which they work. According to the study, Washington-Arlington-Alexandria is even worse. Construction workers have to work 80 hours a week to afford a median priced home. Virginia is the 13th most unaffordable state for construction workers. Washington – Arlington – Alexandria is the tenth most unaffordable metro area, but only by a hair. The fifth through the eleventh most unaffordable metro areas are pretty much clustered together, from 84 to 80 hours a week.

As the study notes, “The construction industry is facing a major worker shortage. Associated Builders and Contractors—a national construction industry trade association—estimates that the industry will require an additional 454,000 new workers on top of normal hiring to meet the booming demand in 2025. However, despite the substantial need for more construction professionals, elevated home prices and an inadequate homebuilding pace are making it difficult for construction workers to afford to purchase a home in the cities where they work.”

Where did the masons go?

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Image Credit: Terry Gentile, Design for a Textile, Construction Workers / Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum)

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Eviction Watch: In the warehouse of evictions, our “need” for misery and torture

January 7, 2025 by Leave a Comment

 

 “And she had learned from experience that Need was a warehouse that could accommodate a considerable amount of cruelty.”
Arundhati Roy, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

2025 began as 2024 ended, skyrocketing eviction filings, soaring evictions, mounting homelessness amid calls from many quarters to “address homelessness” by evicting the unhoused from their encampments, from their homes, however temporary, all in the name of some purported need. Consider two stories, one from the United Kingdom last year, one from Canada this year, days apart.

Jack is twelve years old and lives in Liverpool. His family was given a Section 21, or “no-fault”, eviction notice. The family was given two months to move, sixty days to find a place they could afford. There was no such place, and so they were moved into a hotel space, one room, two beds, a kettle. That’s it. As Jack explains, “It was just tiny, horrible, it wasn’t very suitable for children and all you could basically do was just watch TV or go to sleep. It’s just misery. … It was just like a game trying to get past a level, it was just day after day after day, a struggle.”

According to the housing organization Shelter, every day, day in day out, around 500 private rental households receive a Section 21 eviction notice. This year the number of so-called no-fault eviction filings broke all records. As one tenant explained, “I paid my rent every month, but I had no rights.” This is what “no fault” eviction means: no rights and misery, especially for children.

Across the ocean, in Hamilton, Canada, the new year began with this account: “Beverly Hoadley never thought she’d have to move out of her Hamilton apartment of over 50 years. But now facing a possible eviction, the 87-year-old says she’s afraid she’ll soon have no choice but to leave her beloved home. `It’s pretty awful,” Hoadley told CBC Hamilton a week before Christmas. `I’m not sleeping at night. It’s torture.’”

Beverly Hoadley and her now deceased husband moved into her apartment in 1970. At the time, the rent was $137 a month, for a one-bedroom apartment. Half a century later, she’s paying $820 a month. Although she’s on a fixed income, as are many residents in the building, she says it’s manageable. Or it was, until new owners, ironically named Endless Property Holdings, bought the building in September and promptly sent eviction notices to everyone, claiming they had to renovate the building. Tenants and allies are organizing to oppose the eviction. As one resident, also on fixed income, explained, “I feel terrible. I have nowhere to go.” The median rent for a one-bedroom in Hamilton is $1650 a month. While that’s a 3% decrease over the previous year, rents are rapidly rising once again. When people say they have nowhere to go, they have nowhere to go.

The landlord, Endless Property Holdings, say they need to renovate. The building has gone through recent renovations, the residents offered to accommodate any further renovations. The landlord rejected all claims and offers. Why is 12-year-old Jack subjected to misery, why is 87-year-old Beverly Hoadley subjected to torture? Landlord “need”. Year’s end, year’s beginning, children, elders, misery, torture. Need is a warehouse the accommodates a considerable amount of cruelty.

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Image Credit: John Bell, The Reward of Cruelty / Metropolitan Museum of Art)

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Eviction Watch: In a land of melting watches, what is time?

December 26, 2024 by Leave a Comment

HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME
HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME
T.S. Eliot, “The Waste Land”

It’s the end of another year, and, for many reasons, many wonder, “Where has the time gone?” What is time? When it comes to housing, affordable housing, eviction, not to mention any sense of justice or humanity, time is crucial, as two concurrent news reports demonstrate. One, “New law could help tenants facing eviction stay in their homes”, describes the situation in California, while the other, “Tenants On the Wrong Side Of Policy”, describes the situation in Oklahoma. To cut to the chase, while conditions for tenants in California may be improving, and it’s important to note the conditional here, in both California and Oklahoma, the situation is dire, and the world is extraordinarily cruel.

In November, 62% of Californians who voted rejected Proposition 33, which would have expanded local jurisdictions’ ability to impose local rent control measures. While this was a major defeat for housing advocates (and a major victory for landlords, realtors, hedge funds and others who had invested heavily in opposing the measure), there is something like a bright spot on the horizon, a new state law, Assembly Bill 2347, extends the time to respond to an eviction filing from five days to ten days. Think of that, five days. As it now stands, a tenant is served an eviction notice and must respond in writing within five days, or else they lose their case, and home, by default. The can, and generally do, incur financial penalties, and, of course, they have the Scarlet E, for eviction, on their record. It makes absolutely no difference if the tenant has a legal defense. Landlord increased your rent over the legal limit? If you didn’t respond, in writing, within five days, you’re guilty and potentially homeless. If your landlord refused maintenance and then filed for eviction, if you didn’t reply in writing, you’re out, out of luck, out of housing, out of a home. Almost half of California tenants lose their homes this way.

So now, starting in January, that time will be extended from five days to ten days, and that is the full extent of hope: “Five days has never been enough for a tenant to find legal assistance and try to decipher the complaint filed against them, find out what kind of defenses they have, fill out the paperwork and make it to court”. Ten days doubles the time, but is that enough? Who decides what is “enough time”?

Across the country, from reliably “blue” California to reliably “red” Oklahoma, the picture is similarly grim, except, perhaps, even more so: “with an estimated 3.6 million evictions filed each year, Oklahoma is among a group of states considered landlord-friendly. Landlord-friendly states have no rent control, cheap and simple eviction processes and low property taxes.”

In Oklahoma, the period between receipt of an eviction filing and a court date is three days. That means a renter has to come up with a defense and take time off from work in a matter of 72 hours. So, many tenants miss their court date because they can’t arrange their work schedule. In 2023, for example, 73% of cases ended in eviction because the tenant didn’t show up. In Oklahoma, you can receive your eviction notice on Monday, have your court hearing on Thursday, and find sheriffs knocking at your door on Friday. Who engages in such cruel practices? “The quick time frame of Oklahoma evictions feeds the practice of serial evictions used by some corporate landlords to make more profit. Corporate landlords file most Oklahoma evictions.”

What is time? A while back, a major Tulsa landlord decided to file evictions on the 11th of the month rather than the 6th. Guess what happened? The apartment complex saw a 50% drop in evictions. That’s not just a drop in eviction filings; that’s a drop in evictions. What is time? Some say time is money, but we all know time is life. Moving from five days to ten days can save a family. Children can stay in school. People can remain in community, with all its formal and informal supports. Life can go on. So, when it comes housing, please, please, don’t hurry up. Slow down. Melt the watch. It’s time.

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Image Credit: Salvador Dali, “The Persistence of Memory” / MoMA)

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On “real suffering”: The heartless cruelty of eviction in India and beyond

October 28, 2024 by Leave a Comment

“… the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering…. the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions.”
Karl Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right

According to a recent report, “Over 17 million people across India live under the constant threat of eviction and displacement. These threats stem from various causes, including slum clearance drives, infrastructure projects, environmental conservation efforts, disaster relief measures, court orders and tourism development, among others. This means that nearly one in every 100 people in India faces the fear of being forcibly evicted or displaced by the government … In recent years, government action targeting people’s homes—particularly those from the most marginalised groups—has only deepened the anxiety these communities are already experiencing.”

That anxiety those communities are already experiencing is also called real suffering, and it’s intensifying and spreading. According to the Housing and Land Rights Network’s most recent report, in 2023, at least 515,752 people living in India suffered eviction. That’s the highest number in the last seven recorded years.  At least 107,449 homes were destroyed. To get a sense of the “movement of history”, in 2022, around 46,371 houses were demolished and at least 222,686 people were forcibly removed. That’s around 129 homes destroyed every single day, and 25 people evicted every single hour, 24 hours a day, day in day out. In 2023, at least 107,449 homes were destroyed, and at least 515,752 people were evicted. That’s 294 homes destroyed daily, and 58 people evicted every single hour. Somewhere someone is contemplating these soulless conditions, looks ups and, with a sigh, calls it progress. Development.

If you doubt that somewhere-someone formulation, remember that “in 2022 and 2023, the highest percentage of people (58.7 per cent) – were evicted under the guise of ‘slum’ clearance/‘encroachment’ removal/‘city beautification’ initiatives.” Beautification. From the corporate – state heights, there is beauty and beautification in the landscapes of real suffering.

Who are those living with real suffering? The “most marginalised groups”: “Forced evictions, displacement, and inadequate resettlement disproportionately affect women and children. In the aftermath of an eviction, challenges faced by women are multifold and include loss of livelihoods and access to food, breakdown of social structures and support systems, debilitating health impacts, and increased vulnerability to gender-based violence. Incidents of home demolition and eviction also adversely impact their economic and social vulnerabilities and exacerbate pre-existing and intersectional challenges faced by them in accessing their rights to housing, land, health, work, water, sanitation, privacy, and security. For children, the immediate and long-term impacts of forced evictions are acute and include psychological trauma, mental illness, fear, insecurity, anxiety, loss of education, loss of health, and increased vulnerability to sexual abuse and violence.”

None of that is surprising, nor is it accidental. The production of precariousness and vulnerability is baked into the politics of eviction. In many countries – the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, for example – advocates and governments, local and national, are discussing restricting or outlawing so-called “no fault” evictions. That would be a good idea. But what exactly is fault? What is fault in a world in which, by conservative estimates, one in every 100 people lives with the terror of being evicted soon, in which that terror is considered a corollary of urban development, even beautification that the poors must simply suffer and live with? Though India’s numbers are impressive, they are not outliers. Eviction filing rates and evictions are skyrocketing and reaching historical heights across the so-called developed and democratic world. What then is democracy, what is development, that drowns out the sigh of the oppressed, crushes the heart, extinguishes the soul, and criminalizes any expression of real suffering or protest against real suffering?

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Image Credit: George Grosz, Eviction (Per Gerichtsbeschluss entlassen) / MoMA)

 

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Oregon: If working people can’t afford to stay in the housing, it’s not affordable housing

September 27, 2024 by Leave a Comment

Martha Rosler, Housing Is a Human Right, short animation produced by The Public Art Fund, “Messages to the Public,” 1989

What exactly is affordable housing? There’s much discussion these days, and finally, concerning an affordable housing crisis, the lack of affordable housing, the vast and growing numbers of households, families, individuals and communities living and struggling with housing insecurity, paying more than 30% of monthly income on household expenses and/or expecting to be evicted or foreclosed on within the next two months. So, what does affordability actually mean? This question came roaring to the surface in a new study, Eviction in Oregon’s Subsidized Affordable Housing, which looked at eviction filings and evictions from January 2019 to December 2023. On one hand, eviction filings against residents of subsidized affordable housing made up a relatively small fraction of all eviction filings in Oregon. However, once the eviction case was filed, subsidized tenants were more likely to get an eviction judgment. The vast majority of these filings were for non-payment. The vast majority of non- or late payment was because, simply, the tenants, the residents of supposedly affordable housing, could no longer afford the affordable housing. As a concept, policy, and lived reality, what then is affordable housing?

As in most areas, the majority of evictions are filed by a small number of entities. In this instance, as in so many other places, third-party corporate management companies were responsible for a disproportionate number of evictions. As noted in the report, “The difference in eviction filing patterns between third-party managers and internal managers … can be attributed to variations in their lease enforcement strategies …. While third-party managers commonly operate under compliance-oriented lease enforcement policies similar to the private sector, internal managers from the housing authority tend to adopt strategies designed to promote housing stability among low-income households.” In other words, internal managers, managers committed to affordable housing rather than profit, create leases, policies and practices that recognize various difficulties residents might encounter and find or create financial and social services to support those residents.

For many, once the filing occurs, the damage is done. Many algorithms used by landlords, and especially corporate landlords, don’t differentiate between eviction filing and eviction, and so, irrespective of the court’s decision, having an eviction filed can have long-lasting catastrophic impact. Securing “affordable housing” shouldn’t condemn a person and family to a lifetime of trauma.

The word “afford” originally meant to promote the well-being of a person or thing. Affordable meant that which enhanced and promote a person’s well-being. At some point, affordable shifted to mean that which one could reasonably purchase. What if affordable housing meant the enhancement and promotion of people’s and individual’s well-being? At the very least, publicly supported and subsidized affordable housing should be based on the value of dignity and well-being. If working people can’t afford to stay in the housing, it’s not affordable housing.

 

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Image Credit: Martha Rosler / Housing Is a Human Right, March 1989)

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The feudalism of eviction records

August 13, 2024 by Leave a Comment

“But without the feudal lord, there would be no land from which we could harvest the grain!”

When is success a failure? When is a victory a loss? In eviction proceedings. Consider this: “Tenants in Massachusetts who struggle to find housing due to a prior eviction may now get the chance to have those records sealed. The Legislature’s newly passed housing bond bill includes a provision that would allow tenants to petition a court to seal their eviction record in cases such as a no-fault eviction, a dismissed case, or a case the tenant won. Currently, there is no eviction sealing in Massachusetts.” Consider this: “Dayton Municipal Court has launched a new process to seal eviction case records …. Tenants can now submit applications to the Dayton Municipal Court to have their eviction cases sealed. Renters can file an application 60 days after their cases were dismissed or after the court made a judgment in their favor.”  People received an eviction notice, went to court, won or had the case dismissed, and the so-called Scarlet E of eviction still attaches to their names. People were evicted through no fault of their own, and the Scarlet E still attaches to their names. What’s the name for the system in which such abusive treatment is considered just, normal and acceptable? Feudalism.

While this situation has existed in the United States, and especially in the metropolitan areas, since the invention of the commodification of housing, in very recent years it has intensified and worsened considerably, thanks in large part to two phenomena: the entry of corporate investors and hedge funds into the rental real estate market and landlords’ increasing reliance on apps to determine a prospective tenant’s credit worthiness. Corporate investor and hedge fund landlords tend to file evictions much more readily than individual landlords, and most apps don’t distinguish between eviction filing and writs of eviction, or actual evictions. But then again, why would they, when the courts haven’t? Again, court records don’t distinguish between judgments against tenants and judgments for tenants. They’re all `evictions’.

Consider this, from a recent study of the collateral consequences of eviction court filings in Pennsylvania, “Eviction filings had far-reaching collateral costs for tenants and their families, often impacting their well-being and stability for years after the filing. Records stemming from eviction filings, even when tenants’ cases were resolved with a neutral or favorable outcome, negatively impacted the quality and trajectory of their lives …. Despite the court not formally evicting tenants, landlords still had the power to displace them. Though participants in this study did not receive eviction orders in court, the majority said they were forced to move after their eviction filing for reasons beyond their control …. Tenants with eviction records encountered punitive rental screening practices that prolonged housing instability and limited their housing options. 8 in 10 participants said that their eviction filing limited their future housing options. 65% of those who moved said a prospective landlord asked about their eviction record, and over half reported that a landlord explicitly denied their application because of their filing. Unsuccessful rental applications amounted to hundreds and, in some cases, thousands of dollars in excess costs to tenants.” Again, an eviction record is not a record of an eviction, it is a record of an eviction filing, irrespective of the outcome.

How does it make sense to turn renters’ success into failure, victory into loss, to brand ever more people with a Scarlet E that leaves them vulnerable to both super-exploitation and homelessness? Consider this, “In the history of primitive accumulation, all revolutions are epoch-making that act as levers for the capital class in course of formation; but, above all, those moments when great masses are suddenly and forcibly torn from their means of subsistence, and hurled as free and `unattached’ proletarians on the labour-market. The expropriation of the agricultural producer, of the peasant, from the soil, is the basis of the whole process.” That’s Karl Marx, in “Primitive Accumulation”, the final section of Capital, Volume One. The surge in eviction filings is no surprise nor is it merely a function of the dislocations of the pandemic nor of the earlier housing crisis. It’s part of the production of the new proletariat, a new proletariat that is disproportionately Black and Latina women.  When corporate investors and hedge funds entered into the rental real estate market, what happened, pretty much overnight? Mass expropriation, dislocation, removal and criminalization. Today as it was hundreds of years ago, it’s the basis of the whole process. Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your records.

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Image Credit: Medium)

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Cruelty: As eviction rates rise, more children are being listed on eviction proceedings

July 9, 2024 by Leave a Comment

 

             “Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible”
Maggie Smith, Good Bones

Ron Padgett opens his poem “The Absolutely Huge and Incredible Injustice in the World” with a simple question, “Why are we so mean?” That question came to mind recently reading the opening to a news report, “A housing advocate in central Ohio warns that more kids are being listed on eviction proceedings, as eviction rates increase. Though the problem isn’t widespread, it can have huge consequences on the children’s future access to credit and rental housing.” Children are being listed as defendants in eviction cases. While the number of cases is not great, why is there a number at all? And why must we be `convinced’ that this is a terrible thing? Why must we be `persuaded’ that listing a child on an eviction filing will affect and endanger that child’s well-being, possibly for the rest of their life? Why do we require studies to demonstrate that eviction, in fact housing precarity of any sort, has long term detrimental impacts on children? Why are we so mean?

The article under question focuses on Franklin County, in central Ohio. Franklin County is home to Columbus, Ohio, the state capital and the most populous city in Ohio. It’s also the home to Ohio State University. According to the 2020 Census, Franklin County held around 1,280,000 residents, of whom close to 61% are White, and a little close to 23% are Black.

According to Gene Edwards, Franklin County’s Municipal Court Legal Director and magistrate, “Franklin County is experiencing an absolute wave in evictions. We are seeing more evictions come in everyday than we have ever felt in our lives. We are on track this year to exceed 24,000 evictions. That would be setting a record. Last year, we set a record.” According to Princeton University’s Eviction Lab, eviction filings in Columbus are up 38% relative to their pre-Covid average. In March of this year, eviction filings were 2% above the pre-Covid average; in April, 36%; in May 62%. Who’s receiving these eviction filings? 32% of renters in Columbus are Black; 53% are White. 49% of those receiving eviction filings were Black; 38% were White. 58% were female. None of this is surprising, but it needs to be said.

In all of this predictable, and predictably dismal, stew, how do children figure, and, more to the point, how do children’s names end up on eviction filings? Study after study, article after article, has documented that the epicenter of the national eviction crisis is single Black women heads of households. While, again, it should be obvious, it needs to be said that “heads of households” means accompanied by children. That’s how children figure in this crisis, today and for decades to come. How do their names appear on eviction filings? The landlord’s attorney adds the children’s names to the eviction notice. Those names are not on the lease, if there is a lease. In many instances, those children were not yet born when the family moved into the unit. Yet somehow they’re now responsible, and they can be held responsible for the rest of their lives.

Evictions can follow a person for life. In a world in which many credit history apps don’t distinguish between eviction filings and evictions, eviction filings can haunt a person forever, irrespective of how the case was adjudicated. As Carlie Boos, Executive Director of the Affordable Housing Alliance of Central Ohio, noted, “It means that you are absolutely going to see children who were, you know, two years old, three years old today. They will grow up, they will get an education. They will go out into the world or they’re going to try and rent their first apartment, and they’re going to be denied, because there’s an eviction record from when they were a baby sitting there”.

Why do we allow, and even encourage, this cruelty? How many studies are needed before we understand that the “eviction crisis” is a war on Black women? How many articles and studies are needed before we address our complicity in the erasure of the futures of a whole generation of Black children, growing up today? Why are we so mean?

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Infographic Source: The New York Times)

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Tenants who were threatened with eviction experienced excess mortality that was ten times higher than that of the general population

February 21, 2024 by Leave a Comment

A new study came out this week that demonstrated that “tenants who were threatened with eviction experienced excess mortality that was ten times higher than that of the general population … People who faced an eviction filing during the pandemic died at over twice the rate that was normal prior to the pandemic.” While the majority of those facing eviction predictably lived in low-income communities, and more often than not communities of color, those who were threatened with eviction had a much higher mortality rate than their immediate neighbors who did not face eviction. We know, or we think we know, that eviction is an existential crisis. This study demonstrates that eviction filing, facing eviction, whether or not one is ultimately thrown to the streets, is itself an existential crisis. For many, an eviction filing like an eviction is a death sentence.

Where are the women in this toxic scenario? Everywhere, women are the very fiber of the story, of the situation. “The median age of the threatened renters was 36 years, 62.5% were women, 57.6% were Black, and their median annual household income was $38,000, with 25.9% living below the poverty line.” For Black women the arithmetic is particularly telling and lethal. While Black women make up 11.5% of renters considered, they comprised 38.7% of those who faced eviction filings, the highest proportion of any group. The study considered the first two years of the pandemic. During that period, according to the study’s authors, “if we had eliminated eviction filings altogether, more than 8,000 lives could have been saved.” What exactly is the value of a human life in the current housing market?

While, at some level, none of this is surprising, given the intersection of gender, race/ethne, class in the general eviction story, it bears emphasizing that the “mere act” of being threatened with eviction is tantamount to a death sentence. When you hear or read of the “eviction epidemic”, remember that that’s not a figure of speech. Evictions kill, eviction filings kill.  Across the country, we see spikes in both eviction filings and evictions. Those are part of a national, and global, war on women, and in particular on low- to moderate-income women of color. Decent and secure housing is, or should be, a right. Safe and stable housing is life itself.

 

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Images credit: Ariana Torrey / USA Today)

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No-fault evictions and the persistence of feudalism in housing

February 11, 2024 by Leave a Comment

Sunday morning, February 11, the United Kingdom’s so-called housing minister Michael Gove appeared on BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg’s Sunday morning politics show, and he did not fail to politick. When asked about the housing situation and in particular the Tory government’s four-year failure to pass its Renters (Reform) Bill which would ban no-fault evictions, the minister “promised” to end no-fault evictions by the time the next general elections roll around, sometime at the end of this year or the beginning of next. Whether these are hollow promises or not, and they are, is an issue many are discussing. Why it is so difficult to end no-fault evictions, and not only in the United Kingdom, is another, equally sordid issue. The reason, to cut to the chase, no-fault evictions persist is that renters today just as renters two hundred years ago find themselves firmly embedded in contemporary feudalism.

But first, a quick summary of the sad history of not addressing no-fault evictions. In 2019, the Conservative Party’s manifesto promised to end Section 21 of the Housing Act 1988, which codified the right, and power, of landlords to evict tenants “without having to establish fault on the part of the tenant”. In April 2019, the government announced “plans to consult on new legislation to abolish Section 21 evictions – so called ‘no-fault’ evictions”.  That consultation went from April 2019 to October 2019. The resulting consultation paper proposed abolishing Section 21. That was over four years ago. What happened? A great deal and absolutely nothing.

Formally, nothing happened until June 2022, when the government issued a White Paper, “A fairer private rented sector”, which offered a 12-point action plan. The third action, in its entirety, reads: “We will deliver our manifesto commitment to abolish Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions and deliver a simpler, more secure tenancy structure. A tenancy will only end if the tenant ends it or if the landlord has a valid ground for possession, empowering tenants to challenge poor practice and reducing costs associated with unexpected moves.” That was June 2022. The Queens Speech 2022 stated that a Renters Reform Bill would be introduced in the 2022 – 2023 session of Parliament. It wasn’t. So where is Section 21 today?

On one hand, a bill was finally introduced. The discussion of the bill has been delayed, again, until at least March. On the other, more dire hand, 2023 saw a 50% increase over 2022 in no-fault evictions, the highest number of no-fault evictions since 2016. Since the government first announced it would ban no-fault evictions, 26,000 households, 26,000 families, have suffered no-fault evictions. Landlords can smell something going on and are acting “accordingly”.

While one in five Conservative MPs are landlords, even if that were not the case, the Renters (Reform) Bill would have a tough road. Landlords have argued, apparently persuasively, that giving tenants “just cause” protection would harm the rental market. While there’s no evidence of that, and while this bill doesn’t go nearly far enough, one can see in the formulation an image of what that market actually is. A place where only the landlord exists. Paid your rent, month in month out, for years, maybe even decades? If you had the temerity to complain about maintenance, you’re out. If you had the gall to complain about exorbitant rent hikes or management harassment, you’re out. If something has changed the general broader neighborhood and people with more money are beginning to consider renting there, you’re out. Period. The years you’ve invested in maintaining the property count for less than nothing, less than nothing because now you have the Scarlet Letter E. Good luck finding a place to live.

This scenario is playing out around the world. 4% of evictions in Canada are no-fault evictions. In British Columbia, the epicenter of evictions in Canada, 85% of evictions were no-fault evictions, compared to 65% nationally. How do landlords explain this “epidemic” of no-fault evictions? They say the rules are too strict. Tenant advocates point out that the rules and punishments are actually among the easiest in Canada. Similarly, Australia is suffering a rise in no-fault evictions.

Across the United States, no-fault evictions are on the rise as well. In Connecticut, where evictions have risen steadily, no-fault evictions used to make up 9% of evictions annually. Now they comprise 11%. In April, California will once again ban no-fault evictions. In 2019, California passed “a landmark law” which prohibited no-fault evictions, with three exceptions: the landlord moving into the units, making repairs, or taking the units off the rental market. Guess what happened? In Santa Clara County a landlord evicted tenants, claiming relatives had to move. Magically, soon after, the apartments were re-listed at nearly double the price. Under the new law, landlords moving into their units or renting to family will have to identify the people moving in. They will have to move in within three months of eviction, and they will have to live in the unit for at least a year. Those who evict tenants to renovate properties, so called renovictions, will have to provide copies of permits or contracts when serving eviction notices. If landlords do not comply, they will have to allow evicted tenants to return under the original lease terms. Finally, the new law authorizes the attorney general, local government and renters to sue landlords for wrongful evictions and illegal rent increases.

From the United Kingdom to Canada to Australia to the United States and beyond, the elimination of no-fault evictions is an ongoing struggle. Powerful landlord groups are fierce in their opposition. Even when laws are passed, as happened in California, landlords find ways of exploiting what seemed like reasonable exceptions. Tenants often are uninformed about their rights and their power. And finally, often, as the new California law suggests, even when the eviction is wrongful, illegal, the tenant is left to pursue justice in civil court. Even though the landlord has actually broken the law, the State does not prosecute. Why does the State not pursue landlords who engage in wrongful eviction? Because in feudalism the bond between land and lord is sacred, and the tenants are not even shadows.

 

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Image Credit: The Guardian / Bill Bragg)

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Johannesburg: “Just because they are already living on the margins of society does not make them invisible social outcasts or nuisances”

September 2, 2023 by Leave a Comment

On August 29, the Pretoria High Court declared that “the recent series of evictions undertaken by the City of Johannesburg (COJ) and the MMC for Human Settlements in Gauteng, on Farm Allandale, have been declared unlawful and unconstitutional.” Lawyers for Human Rights, the attorneys representing Farm Allendale residents, described this as “a pivotal court decision …. This ruling is not just a win for the residents of Farm Allandale but a clarion call to all entities, reminding them of the human touch essential in the dispensation of justice. This victory serves as a testament to the resilience of communities and the critical role that organizations like LHR play in ensuring that justice is meted out fairly.” A community of 836 people, identified as Rabie Ridge Community, have lived for years on land known as Farm Allendale. The City of Johannesburg has evicted them, destroying their homes as well as their belongings, numerous times. The residents sued the City … and won. Acting Judge Elmien Du Plessis said, “These people have human rights as contained in the Bill of Rights and protected in the Constitution. Just because they are already living on the margins of society does not make them invisible social outcasts or nuisances, however much their presence may frustrate the respondents – the City and the MMC.” The Judge declared the actions of the City unlawful and ruled the City had to either rebuild the shacks within 72 hours or pay each family R1500 to buy materials to rebuild their own homes. This was a landmark victory, a beacon in the very dark and too long night. Had I written in response on Wednesday, this would be a celebration. But then the fires broke out the next day, in the central business district of Johannesburg, the fires this time, the fires next time, and the whole world suddenly invoked the “tragedy waiting to happen”. And so today, the question is not “What is there to celebrate”, although that is a good question, but rather “What is there to say? What is the point of saying anything, when everything has already been said, and so many times before?”

In June 2017, we wrote, “Last Thursday, the Constitutional Court of South Africa ruled that judges cannot authorize an eviction order that will leave people homeless. Over the past 25 years, South Africa’s highest courts have ruled consistently that the rights of residents, including occupiers, matter. Even with those protections in place, this decision is viewed as groundbreaking and welcome. The case involves 184 people – 47 women, 114 men, 23 children – who have occupied an apartment building in the Berea neighborhood of Johannesburg’s inner city. Hlengiwe Mhlambo is one of the 184. She is forty years old, a mother of two, and an informal trader. For the past 14 years, Hlengiwe Mhlambo has lived in her apartment, eking out a meager living, raising her children, hoping to find, or better create, the once promised green pasture.” This was a “momentous decision for millions of poor people across South Africa who live with insecure tenure and inadequate housing”. Remember? That was “only” six years ago.

In October 2022, just last year, the Johannesburg High Court rejected the `natural’ inevitability of eviction. As we wrote then, “In the case of Rycloff-Beleggings (Pty) Ltd v Ntombekhaya Bonkolo and Others, the Johannesburg High Court ruled that a group of working people’s access to work and right to dignity had to be considered when adjudicating an eviction notice. The case involves waste reclaimers who have been living on an `undeveloped’ stretch of farmland that lies between a residential complex and a business park in the Midrand section of Johannesburg. In 2018, the owners of the land, Rycloff-Beleggings, decided they wanted to `develop’ the land, and so issued eviction notices. The city offered a site with no possibility of developing waste reclamation economies, and so, in May 2019, the residents sued, demanding to either stay put or be placed somewhere where they could continue to work. On October 4, Judge Greg Wright agreed and gave the city until March 2023 to find appropriate site for the community. Anything else `would leave them at risk of not being able to maintain their dignity and care for their children.  It would be unfair and therefore unconstitutional to uphold the other parties’ rights while the reclaimers go hungry. Furthermore, the rights of children are paramount in cases involving children such as the present one.’ If people are on the land, it is not `undeveloped’. If people live in a neighborhood, it too is not undeveloped.” Remember? It was less than a year ago … and yet here we are.

The people living on Farm Allendale first moved in in 2017, but most moved in last year and this, having lost their jobs during the Covid pandemic. Many families had previously rented but could no longer pay the bills. Others had squatted elsewhere but could no longer afford to stay in those areas. And so they moved, adults and many children, to Farm Allendale. The City declared that too many people were moving in and so they started evicting everyone, although the City claimed they only destroyed `abandoned’ shacks. The residents had photos and videos showing that not to be the case. While the incidents that sparked the court case occurred mid July of this year, the City has performed mass evictions every three weeks for the past three years. For three years, the City of Johannesburg engaged in illegal evictions, and you want to know how the fires this week started and spread, how so many people could end up living in a five-story building? Everybody knew already.

If people are on land, the land is not `undeveloped’. If people live in a neighborhood, it is not `undeveloped’. And if people live in a building, whether it is called derelict or hijacked or blighted or whatever, it is not vacant nor is it `undeveloped’. It’s home. Living on the margins of society does not make people invisible social outcasts or nuisances, however much their presence may frustrate others or `development’ programs. At the same time, writing insightfully always already after the event, after the tragedy waiting to happen, is not insight. It’s alibi. No next time. Now. Mutual respect is already encoded in law as well as ethical behavior. Now make it so.

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Image Credit: Philiswa Lila – Entsizwa II / Art Times)

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