
Evictionland - kawera
https://www.curbed.com/2018/1/24/16925074/apartment-eviction-process-gentrification
======
cameldrv
To me, this isn't a story about gentrification. It's more of a story about the
modern American job, housing, financial, and social status markets.

1\. The job market, especially in media jobs, has changed into one where you
can be fired at any time. Similarly, forty years ago, someone who had a good
media job would not have felt safe making such inflammatory (right or wrong)
statements.

2\. American housing markets have adjusted higher to essentially consume all
of the practical discretionary income of renters and buyers. A lot of this has
to do with the securitization of these obligations, and the corresponding
loosening of credit requirements. If the rope that the bank or the landlord is
willing to give you increase, it's not just a personal decision about how much
risk you're willing to take, because it affects the loans and leases everyone
else in the market gets. Just because your neighbor is taking out a crazy loan
he can't afford if anything goes wrong doesn't mean he isn't pushing up the
housing prices just as much as if he could do it comfortably.

3\. The financial markets have become much more sophisticated on one hand, but
also much less local and much shorter term focused. If 10% of borrowers
default, that's not necessarily a problem as long as the cost they cause
covers the profit from the others. If the 10% cause major social problems, the
holder of the CDO in Qatar has no idea, and wouldn't care if he did.

4\. The increased availability of credit, and the increased willingness of
markets to give credit to risky borrowers has forced people to extend
themselves to the max in order to compete for social status. If your friend
has a BMW and a big house even though he's practically bankrupt, you are
pushed into doing the same thing. The girls at the next table at the bar have
no idea that he's is being fiscally irresponsible, they just know that he has
a cool car and a nice house.

~~~
discoursism
> The increased availability of credit, and the increased willingness of
> markets to give credit to risky borrowers has forced people to extend
> themselves to the max in order to compete for social status.

This is optional, though. If you opt in to it, that's somewhat on you. Granted
that our social systems could be improved so that natural human tendencies
push people toward right actions. However, I think the injustice is far more
severe in cases where there's no out that's within a person's power to
reasonably grasp.

And "the girls at the next table in the bar," don't know about your friend's
car or house, unless your friend is an insufferable jerk who carries pictures
of his ride in his wallet. And they likely don't care that much either way.

~~~
cameldrv
The kind of girls you want to settle down with can see through that shit, but
it doesn't change the short term problem. The 25 year old with the BMW doesn't
buy it because he has some love affair with German engineering, he buys it
because it's going to get him girls. America is the land of risk takers and
optimists. It's full of people who know how to get in on the next big thing
and are going to work to grab it. This all works great as long as credit isn't
too available, and when the next big thing isn't as big as someone thought, he
can always get a job at the GM plant. The problem we have now is that he gets
overextended on his securitized mortgage and has to take a job for $11 at Wal-
Mart.

------
ilaksh
I live in one of the lowest income sections of my city. But the rent still
isn't really cheap, it's $1200 for a one bedroom. This apartment complex is
month-to-month. One month I didn't save and was waiting to get paid for my
contract (payment promised on the 1st) to be able to make rent. I was short
about $100 and they would not allow me to pay part of it. Three days after it
was due, there was a notice on my door saying they would file for eviction or
something with the court in three days. I didn't get paid for another two days
so theoretically I was a day away from getting served for eviction when I paid
my rent about a week late.

Recently I have been doing a better job of saving so I don't cut it close like
that.

There is no severance or anything for most contracting jobs and if you are
like me and have trouble saving much then the point is that it could be as
little as a few weeks to become homeless. Like I said now I am saving at least
to give myself a 30 day cushion but if I had any significant expense that
would evaporate.

BTW, please no lectures about personal finance or other advice. The point of
this comment is not to solicit that. The point is that it is even easier to
become homeless than is depicted in that article.

~~~
discoursism
That sounds like a harrowing experience.

Leaving aside the particulars of your own situation, I do want to comment on
your assertion about the price of rent. $1,200 is maybe higher than we'd like,
but it's still pretty low. It's manageable as long as you're making $30k per
year or more. It doesn't seem crazy to me.

There's also the more option of getting roommates. In all of NYC there are
just three units on Streeteasy going for less than $1,250. However, there are
more than seven hundred two-bedroom units going for less than $2,500.

~~~
kelnos
$1200/mo on a $30k salary is >60% of post-tax take-home pay. That's... more
than a little crazy.

------
ryanwaggoner
I find this article pretty infuriating.

Poverty and housing insecurity are definite societal problems, but does that
make it the fault or responsibility of each individual landlord?

The author of this article basically stole tens of thousands of dollars in
free housing from some private party and then wrote an article blaming them
for the end result.

There was apparently no attempt to work something out, no attempt to move out
without being forced out, no recognition of their own responsibility in this
situation, and I suspect no ultimate attempt to pay back what they owe.

I have owned several small rental properties for almost 15 years. I’ve had to
evict two tenants, never getting quite to the point of having the Sheriff show
up while we pile their stuff on the curb, but I have that scheduled right now
for Feb 22. This tenant has not paid their rent since Oct. The eviction has
been grinding through the process since Nov. Every week, it’s a different sob
story about the bad luck that is preventing this tenant from paying their
rent.

I’m not a monster. I don’t want to force anyone out. But seriously, what am I
supposed to do? I can’t afford to just let my tenants not pay rent, and
without the threat of eviction, some wouldn’t. So seriously, what am I
supposed to do?

I’ve been at this long enough that I know the answer: give one second chance,
then evict. But it still infuriates me to see people who are happy to steal
from me write articles implying that I’m a racist heartless monster because I
dare provide market-rate housing and hold them to their word when they sign a
lease.

EDIT: think of it like this: someone hires you to work on their website idea.
You work for months, fully fulfilling your end, then they refuse to pay. You
take them to court and “win” (though you still never collect), then they write
an article about how web developers are too greedy and expensive and they
actually have the audacity to demand payment for their work!

~~~
kelnos
> _Poverty and housing insecurity are definite societal problems, but does
> that make it the fault or responsibility of each individual landlord?_

I've been living in the SF bay area for nearly 15 years, and in SF itself for
half of that. I've watched rent prices go up. The only reason those prices
went up was because of higher demand. The higher prices didn't get anyone
anything extra: the properties weren't maintained any better, or renovated or
upgraded faster or better. On the landlord's side, there were no magical new
costs coming into the equation to justify the higher rents.

If a landlord could rent out a place in 2005 for $1500/mo (and cover all costs
and make some profit), there's no _need_ for them to rent it out for $4000/mo
in 2018. They're doing that because they _want to_ and because they know
someone will pay it. I'll absolutely agree that's capitalism in action right
there, and in general that's not a bad thing. But we get gentrification and
displacement as part of that bargain.

So yes, landlords should accept some of the burden of fault and
responsibility. I'm not saying there isn't plenty to spread around, between
existing homeowners, the city government, and incoming renters/homebuyers
themselves, but... nope, sorry, landlords don't get to pretend they're
innocent in all this.

(As an aside: I see you posting a lot on this article, and I want to say that
I don't think you're "irredeemable" or greedy or whatever. I'm happy you've
chosen to engage and have a productive discussion, at the very least. I just
think you might be getting a little caught up in... something... and are
missing the point that we're talking about housing and homelessness here, and
that's a terrible thing for someone to have to fall into, regardless of reason
or fault. Assuming you've been financially responsible on your end, missing
rent payments from a tenant for a few months shouldn't put you out on the
street, but... you as a landlord do have the power to put someone out on the
street, and it'd be nice if you'd be cognizant of the extra power you have.)

~~~
georgeecollins
How is the price of rent going up the fault of landlords, when terrible urban
planning (and NIMBYism) has limited housing in the Bay Area for decades. In
the Bay Area, blaming landlords is shooting the messenger. The truth is that
in a lot of these places existing homeowners are happy to see people priced
out. At the same time, job growth is getting more concentrated in expensive
urban environments. Local governments respond to local (property) tax payers,
who don't mind gentrification. State and national governments do nothing,
because the political pressure is zero. So, yeah blame the landlord.

~~~
kelnos
You might try actually reading my comment. I mentioned exactly those other
things as well as being partly at fault. Landlords don't get a free pass,
though.

------
_nalply
What's missing: The complexity of life. Even in Europe with its stronger
social welfare it doesn't take much to get seriously tumbled. A job loss
coupled with a depression episode is enough to derail one's life.

I being Deaf know many people who struggle in Switzerland. For example they
don't understand the letters social welfare sends them. Hell, even a hearing
woman whose son attends kindergarten with my son, openly admitted that she had
an episode where she stopped opening letters because she was just overwhelmed.

Here at Hacker News there seem to be people who are successful and simply
don't understand that they were lucky. They learnt to navigate and overcome
hurdles. But what about people who grew up under not so ideal circumstances
and will be always somewhat limited in their resiliency?

It's not completely their fault if they stumble.

------
pontifier
I've been close to this issue lately. My family owns many rental properties,
and most of our income comes from rent. Several months ago I left my home at
my wife's request and had a huge dilemma. You see, I had a situation with some
storage units last year that helped me to discover that I HATE paying rent.
Seeing it from the landlord side for many years has shown me how worthless it
is for the tenants... They pay upward of %30 of their income, and next month
do it again. It's truly modern slavery.

I hate paying rent so much that I'd rather be homeless than pay someone else
rent. I slept in my car, and on the side of the road and thought a lot about
this problem. Rent and homelessness are big issues, and I discovered that the
real problem is a major stigma in our society against truly affordable or
alternate housing.

Housing doesn't need to cost $2k per month. Most people don't need huge
houses. Many people could do just fine in MUCH cheaper housing, shared
housing, or even non-housing such as sleeping in a car.

Super cheap housing can be a legal problem. In my town, it's illegal to rent a
house to more than 3 unrelated people. That's totally insane. If people want
to shack up 5 to a room to save money that should be their right. Reducing the
stigma against this would essentially reduce housing demand and lower prices
across the board.

I'm also working on a project to turn the entire real estate market on it's
head... This will also help to solve this housing catastrophy.

I'm confident this housing problem will be seen as one of the most preventable
inhumane practices we currently engage in.

------
jgh
I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to gentrification, so perhaps someone could
help me understand: how it is that we're simultaneously hearing about how poor
millennials apparently are overall compared to their parents generation, and
gentrification and spiraling housing costs in seemingly every city?

~~~
drefanzor
Millenials are probably waiting for their parents to pass away, and then
inherit their property. It's the path with least resistance.

~~~
remarkEon
I qualify as a Millenial and I don’t know a single person who’s planning on
doing this. I rent right now in a major city but am looking to buy, maybe, in
the next few years. For my peer group anyway that’s the norm. What I do find
as one of the major drivers of increased housing costs are actually _Boomers_
(aka my parents generation) engaging in a nasty kind of NIMBYism - a sort of
“I got mine” mentality. My fear is that we’re building in a lot of tail risk
into our cities by behaving this way and not building. There’s all sorts of
absurd zoning rules all over the country. Things won’t change until there’s
another collapse.

------
pdonis
So finding somewhere to live that cost less than $2K a month wasn't an option?

~~~
crystalmeph
This specific case is perhaps not the best example, I personally had to choose
to keep reading after he discussed how his own behavior greatly contributed to
his dilemma.

That said, I'm glad I finished the article, because it seems to clearly
describe the state of the overall affordable housing market in the country,
which is pretty awful, and there were some eye-openers in there for me, such
as one in five renters facing eviction. That's a ridiculous number.

I don't know the answer to this problem, because telling rich people they just
can't buy in certain neighborhoods doesn't seem like a viable option to me,
but we have to at least acknowledge it is a problem.

~~~
ajmurmann
The real solution is building lots and lots of buildings. To make that happen
we need to massively relax regulations. It's not practical to build affordable
housing right now because the fixed legal and planning costs are too high, so
only higher end housing really makes sense to build.

~~~
closeparen
New supply equivalent to the oldest and crappiest apartments on the market
would still not be affordable, because they aren't either.

The positioning of new supply within the basic<->luxury spectrum is vastly
overblown. The entire range of market rates needs to come down by thousands of
dollars.

~~~
ajmurmann
If we don't solve the problem by building more, how is your ideal outcome
going to look?

~~~
closeparen
We must lower the overall market by building a ton more. The level of luxury
that “more” is pitched at is irrelevant - the problem is that whole market is
too high, not that it skews towards luxury.

~~~
ajmurmann
Sounds like we are in violent agreement ;)

Edit: my crazy fantasy is to replace a huge portion of the avenues in SF with
a massive arcology. That would solve the problem for Sf and set a great
example for elsewhere. But of course that isn't going to happen.

------
fanzhang
FYI, here is the original reason for he was fired for the curious:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-
wemple/post/politi...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-
wemple/post/politico-suspends-
reporter/2012/06/22/gJQAvvf8uV_blog.html?utm_term=.4b981f47c6d5)

I know it's not related to the eviction process immediately, but I think given
that we (I) are learning from this as a narrative and a data point, I think
for some the context can be interesting at the very least.

To me it seems like a badly-thought-through comment on his side but not worth
being fired over.

------
itronitron
reading this makes me think that social media is the 21st century's debtors
prison

