Jubilee
By Albert B. Kelly
I read scripture, though I
don’t pretend to understand most of it. So I’m a lifelong student, trying to
learn, trying to see things in a new light. Sometimes I’ll hold up a problem or
challenge facing our community against something I read and I’ll begin to
wonder.
That happened recently
after a meeting that covered a number of topics including poverty, housing
homelessness, rent, and whatever else is floating around these issues. One
participant mentioned a new book by a Harvard professor (Matthew Desmond)
entitled, “Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City”.
The book peels back the
curtain on housing insecurity- specifically in the rental market- and the urban
poor. He basically “imbeds” in Milwaukee’s Ghetto following inner city
landlords and tenants; observing what it’s like to be among the poorest of the
poor in an American city.
At one point he wrote “If
incarceration had come to define the lives of men from impoverished black
neighborhoods, eviction was shaping the lives of women. Poor black men were
locked up. Poor black women were locked out”.
I’d never thought about it
in that way because we don’t consider the role evictions play in that
mind-numbing cycle of poverty (Cumberland County had approximately 95 court
evictions in 2015). Desmond shares the lives of several families (of all races)
and their stories give us what the data can’t.
His research shows the
majority of poor renting families spend over 50% of their income on rent and 1
in 4 spends over 70% on rent and electric. Welfare benefits have not moved since
1997, but everything else goes up. Three
in four poor families qualify for public housing, but receive nothing.
What to pay? If you pay
the rent, is there enough to keep the lights on or heat the place? Do you let
one of those bills go because the car needs fixing and that’s how you get to
work? Get behind on rent and you get evicted. Get behind on electric or gas, you
get cut off- and evicted. Without a car, you can’t get to work and with no
money…it goes on and on.
Past evictions, poor
credit- few will to rent to you. A previous conviction or drug addiction and
you are a leper. If your stuff is in storage, will you have enough to pay the ransom?
Will Child Protective Services take your kids? Will you be evicted because of
an abusive ex-boyfriend and one too many calls to the cops?
Will the landlord file for
eviction if you complain about the broken window, the busted door, the clogged toilet?
You can’t call the building inspector- all you got is a space heater and that
makes the unit “unfit for habitation” so they’ll put you out anyway.
There’s a thousand ways to
hate and despise the poor- how they live. True, some tenants are flat out
rotten and who wants to deal with that? But there are many others who, while
not faultless, find that their lives unraveling with shocking speed.
The thing in scripture,
the thing that gave me pause came from Leviticus. It’s a proclamation of a
fiftieth "liberty" year- a year of “Jubilee”- a time of freedom and
celebration when everyone would receive back their property, slaves returned home
to their families, debts forgiven.
It was basically a fresh
start, a moment in time to hit the reset button- people were commanded not to
take advantage of or exploit one another; even the land got a Sabbath rest. I’m
not naïve; a “year of jubilee” would never be tolerated today.
But people, especially the
poor, sometimes need to have the slate wiped clean. Maybe the closest we ever
come to that, at least on housing, is the Cumberland County “Housing First”
Collaborative. The model sets the bar low by placing housing first; no
preconditions of sobriety and/or abstinence, completing treatment, clean
criminal or credit history- no income requirements.
Let’s provide a stable
place to be first, and then we can start to work on plugging in community-based
medical care; behavioral/ mental health care; case management; independent
living skills training; employment services; financial literacy; benefits
coordination; and permanent housing. It’s not “jubilee”, but it’s not nothing
either.
But that’s why “Housing
First” matters and you’ll be hearing more about it going forward. It takes
time- but then again the “Year of Jubilee” happened every forty-nine years; so
I guess we’re in it for the long haul. And somehow I’m okay with that.