The Impact of Monza’s Evictions
Eviction is a major problem facing low-income communities. It harms families, disrupts communities, and impedes economic opportunities. It is also a civil liberties issue, a gender justice and racial justice issue, and an economic justice issue that requires action.
Evicted tenants are often forced to move into shoddier, lower-quality housing in higher-crime neighborhoods that lack access to health services, education, and employment opportunities. This leads to a cycle of poverty that can be hard to break. In addition, evictions make it more difficult to get jobs and credit.
In order to mitigate the harmful consequences of eviction, policymakers should increase the availability of legal representation for renters who are facing eviction. This is a critical public health intervention that can keep people in their homes and reduce the long-term harms of eviction.
The Human Cost of Progress: The Impact of Monza’s Evictions
Providing access to legal representation can reduce the harms of eviction and prevent homelessness and poverty. It can also help ensure that families remain in their homes for the long term, so they have a chance to build strong economic and social foundations.
Tenants are at highest risk for eviction in neighborhoods with high rents and low rental affordability, such as poor, Black-majority, and Latino-majority areas. Research shows that tenants in those neighborhoods are more likely to be evicted, even after controlling for rent, income, and other factors.
Many evictions involve violations of tenant rights and federal law, including the Fair Housing Act. This can result in discrimination and disproportionately impact low-income, Black, and Latino communities. Moreover, tenants who are evicted can suffer severe mental, physical, and economic harms.
The Human Cost of Progress: The Impact of Monza’s Evictions, a new report from the Center on Global Poverty and Inequality at the Brookings Institution, examines the impacts of Monza’s evictions on low-income neighborhoods and communities across the country. It also looks at how progress can be derailed by evictions and how policymakers can avoid this crisis.
Evictions are a big problem for low-income neighborhoods, but they also affect more middle- and upper-class areas as well. For instance, evictions in transit-rich communities can impact those who rely on public transportation.
In addition, evictions in low-income and poor neighborhoods can increase emergency room usage, lead poisoning, food insecurity, depression, and suicide. Children are particularly at risk, as evictions can negatively impact their development and learning.
The disproportionate impact of evictions on low-income communities suggests that policymakers should prioritize targeting solutions to address this problem in those communities. For example, policymakers can consider requiring landlords to provide tenants with adequate notice before they file for eviction, as well as increasing the minimum wage to allow workers to afford a place to live.
To address these challenges, researchers need to collect eviction data in a way that allows them to analyze disparities between evicted and non-evicted renters and between tenants who receive and do not receive housing assistance from the federal government. This requires a national database of evictions that is accessible to tenants, landlords, and researchers.