Eviction and Poverty

Study highlights effect of evictions on poor, By Georgia Pabst, January 1, 2010, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Yolanda Luckett had just finished mopping the stairs leading to the three-bedroom upper duplex flat she and her four children moved into last month. ‘I’m in the ghetto, but this is a nice place and I hope I can stay here,’ she said. But the rent is $675 a month, and it will be hard to stretch her Wisconsin Works check of $673 plus the child support she gets to pay for rent, utilities and other necessities, she said. After years of working as a certified nursing assistant and living in one place, Luckett, 36, said she started running into troubles about four years ago. The troubles included getting laid off from her job and a series of evictions from apartments that went from bad to worse. She was able to move into her new place with an emergency assistance grant from Community Advocates. According to a new study, considered the first of its kind on evictions, Luckett finds herself in an all-too-common situation among Milwaukee’s urban poor. The study found that one renter-occupied household in 20 is evicted each year in Milwaukee. In neighborhoods where blacks are the majority, the study found that number jumps to one in 10 renter-occupied households evicted every year…”