The nonfiction book “Evicted” by Matthew Desmond features true stories of families struggling to stay housed in Milwaukee. Many of its stories are also realities for residents and families of the Monadnock Region, according to Lisa Rogers of the Monadnock Area Transitional Shelter. The book is set to feature in book club discussions at Peterborough Town Library during National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week.
Toadstool Bookstore owner Willard Williams said that the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Evicted” was the logical choice when Rogers asked for help picking an appropriate book to feature for the awareness week.
“When I read [it], I saw the situations had started to appear in our community,” Rogers said.
Peterborough Public Library’s Adult Book Club will also discuss “Evicted” this month. Library director Corinne Chronopoulous said that the group likes to read a book related to an event going on in the greater community when they can. Participants can expect a “dynamic discussion about what it means to experience homelessness, and some of the main points of the book” in either of the two discussion sessions scheduled for the week, and more copies are available for checkout. “We hope more people will join us … and then read the next book!” she said.
In her work with local families experiencing housing insecurity, Lisa Rogers said she had never focused much on how a person became housing insecure, but the book made her more aware.
“When people live paycheck to paycheck,” MATS program manager Susan Howard said, minor problems like sickness, a tragic event, or car trouble can escalate quickly to housing insecurity.
As an example of this, Howard said, “When a child is sick– even if the kid’s starting to come down with something, day cares don’t want them there. So you’re missing work, then you get sick, or the car breaks down – you’re always missing more work than you should be. This often tends to lead to losing your job. … Right now the job market is good, so people tend to find other jobs, but you’re still missing a paycheck.”
“Most of the people I meet within that situation … never expected something like this to happen,” Howard said. “Over a six month period, they ended up with pneumonia and ended up in the hospital. They missed work, they’re behind on rent and can’t get caught up because they’re also healing.”
The stress causes more illness, she said, “And then you just keep being further behind on your rent, then you lose your housing … there’s just this downward spiral that you can’t seem to get out of no matter what you do.”
Rogers said that, as in “Evicted,” some local people live in buildings that aren’t up to code because the alternative would be homelessness.
“Legally it really is homelessness because it’s not stable, safe housing,” she said.
In “Evicted,” the author discusses why housing insecurity issues are frequently overlooked. He estimates that “informal evictions” occur twice as frequently as formal evictions, but go unreported.
“There are more informal than formal in the area,” Howard said. “A lot of times, people can’t pay their rent so they will just move, and tell the landlord they can’t do it.”
“You can still hurt your references even if you don’t get formally evicted, even if it doesn’t affect your credit report,” she said, if a person owes a previous landlord money. A prospective landlord can find an applicant’s previous addresses through a credit check, and will sometimes reach out to previous landlords even if there are no formal judgments listed against the applicant. Howard said she met a person whose ability to rent was affected by a debt he owed to a landlord from twelve years prior.
“It’s getting harder … because you have so many people applying for one apartment. They’re rented within hours,” Howard said. “There’s people who are having trouble finding apartments now who have impeccable references,” and it’s difficult for anyone with a blemish on their record to compete.
“Evicted” also details how difficult it is for people to regain their independence and well-being after experiencing an eviction.
“If you have an apartment that was like $1,200, for a larger family, and you’re two months behind on your rent [when you’re evicted],” Howard said, “[after] legal fees and everything that goes on top of that, sometimes you can be talking $4 or $5,000 that somebody could owe. They have to pay that.”
“When a person has a [formal] eviction on their record, you’re not able to rent an apartment, basically,” she said, even in Section 8 or lower-income housing. The first thing Howard said she does with clients at MATS is to set up a payment plan to pay off previous debts to landlords.
“If you can get it paid off, you can rent an apartment,” she said.
“It can take a while,” she said, and sometimes people wait until they receive tax refunds to pay off their debts. “You have to get creative and look at other options, like living with family.”
MATS and 211 NH are two organizations that provide resources to individuals experiencing housing insecurity and looking for options. “211 has the most comprehensive information and referrals,” Karrie Eaton of Granite United Way said, “Every single day we get an updated list of what is available.”
The number for MATS is (603) 924-5033.
Copies of “Evicted” are available at the Peterborough Town Library as well as Toadstool Bookstore, where the book is available in paperback at a 25 percent discount.
Book club discussions are scheduled for Wednesday, Nov. 20 at 6:30 p.m. and Friday, Nov. 22 at 11 a.m. at the library. A full listing of Hunger and Homelessness Week events, which run through Nov. 25, can be found at matsnh.org/hhaw/.