Low-Income Black Single Mothers Suffer from Eviction Epidemic

When the moving van is glimpsed down the street, locals in the poor areas of Milwaukee know that somebody's life is being destroyed today. 1 in 14 renters in these neighborhoods are tossed out of their homes every year due to inability to keep up with the payments, Megan Greenwell reports on Poverty in America. Disproportionately, the evicted renters are single mothers and African-American women.

"Just as incarceration has become typical in the lives of poor black men, eviction has become typical in the lives of poor black women," research Matthew Desmond told the New York Times.

Women and minorities fill up more than their fair share of the ranks of the poor. A network of factors, rooted in sexism and racism, combine to put these women at greater risk for eviction than most of the white males of the world. We can start with the fact that women make less than men, and that women of color make even less than white women. Add in the fact that, on this smaller salary, women are generally expected to be the primary caregiver in the case of a break-up or divorce when there are children in play, stretching their resources further with food, health care, and school needs.

Desmond's research is hardly surprising -- I could have guessed what his results would be -- but it does let us know how serious the extent of the eviction epidemic is today for black single mothers. And when a single mother loses her home, suddenly her children can lose their chance to go to school, trapping them in a cycle of poverty by denying them the one thing that could make the biggest difference in changing their lives.

Photo credit: TheMuuj