Evicted

Larraine wakes up early as usual. Her trailer is pristinely neat and tidy with matching interiors. She knows that there are two options for people facing eviction in Milwaukee: Emergency Assistance, which was meant to help people avoid homelessness but was only an option of if one had dependent children, and the Homelessness Prevention Program, which is offered through Community Advocates. The program is designed more for people who face sudden problems, rather than those chronically unable to pay rent. Larraine calls the number, which she knows from memory, and is immediately turned away.

The movers’ trucks have witty slogans like “Service with a Grunt” or “Order Some Carryout.” One service is run by three brothers, Tom, Dave, and Jim Brittain. Almost half of their business is evictions, which are paid for by landlords. Sometimes the families are there when the movers show up, sometimes they aren’t at home, and sometimes they have already moved out. Tenants often seems shocked when the movers show up. Living in poverty and precarity can make it difficult to plan for the future.

The movers pull up at a neat, elegant house where the television is still on. The young black men who live there insist that they have paid the rent, which is true, but the house is still being foreclosed. The sheriff deputies inform the sheriff that it is a drug house, and they go ahead with the eviction.

Larraine grew up in a public housing complex in South Milwaukee. Her mother was physically disabled and her father was a window washer. She has fond memories of childhood, when she didn’t realize that her family were poor. After dropping out of school, she worked as a seamstress and then a machinist. She got married at 22, quit her job and had children. She and her husband divorced eight years later and she began dancing on tables, a job she enjoyed, while raising her kids as a single mother.

Larraine and her next husband, Glen, had a “consuming, brutal kind of love.” Glen was an alcoholic and drug user who spent time in and out of prison, and they would have frequent fights in which Larraine sometimes was violent with him. Once, Glen came home high and beaten up. He reached for a bottle of prescription pills and Larraine grabbed them, worried he was going to take all of them. In the scuffle, Glen slipped and badly injured his head. Larraine called 911, and after Glen’s injury was treated he was arrested for violating his parole by taking drugs. He died of an overdose after being sent back to prison, and Larraine says that ever since, “it’s like my whole life fell into a hole.” 

The movers often evict people they know personally; Tom has evicted his own daughter. One day they pull up to a house where a mother died of an overdose and her children carried on living by themselves for months after. The previous week, a man had shot himself in the house after the moving truck showed up. Yet the movers are most traumatized by the “squalor” they encounter, which is difficult to forget.

Of Larraine’s four siblings, only her youngest brother, Ruben, owns his own home. She knows it is not an option to ask him for money. Instead, she goes to the Arby’s branch where her youngest daughter Jayme works. Jayme is nervous and embarrassed about her mother being there, reminding Larraine that she is not allowed to visit. When Larraine explains about her 24 hour eviction notice, Jayme replies that she can’t lend her any money now, but will send her money once she gets her paycheck. Larraine’s other daughter Megan no longer speaks to her mother after Larraine borrowed money and failed to pay it back.

Before 2008, African American and Hispanic families were especially targeted by the subprime lending industry, and lost far more wealth (31% and 44%) than the average white family (11%) between 2007 and 2011. At church, Larraine’s pastor, Pastor Daryl, preaches about the problem of people only following Christianity halfway. Daryl strongly believes that it is the church’s duty to look after those in poverty. He has given Larraine money before, but this time when she asks, he says he can’t help.

A young woman walks into the office of the trailer park and promises to pay her overdue rent. Sometimes tenants are able to persuade their landlord that they will pay, sometimes they aren’t. Many tenants deal with overdue rent and the threat of eviction by ignoring their landlords, as Larraine is doing now. Men tend to be more confrontational, which leads to more success in negotiations. Men are also generally more able to offer handiwork in exchange for rent reductions. Women, who tend to be more occupied with care work in addition to wage labor, do not have time to make such offers. Some women instead trade sex for rent.

Finally, Ruben reluctantly agrees to pay Larraine’s rent, coming to the trailer park to give Tobin the money himself. However, Tobin refuses to take it. The sheriffs show up within a few hours, and Larraine asks the movers to put her things in storage. She will now have to find a way to pay for the storage, or else her belongings will be confiscated, never to be seen again. Once the movers have finished, Larraine gathers her last remaining items and moves into her brother Beaker’s trailer. Beaker is in the hospital, so can’t refuse her. She screams into the couch and punches the cushions in anguish.