Police evict a young girl. Photo: Jon Imanol Reino/El Pais.
Recent research from The Eviction Lab and the United States Census Bureau reveals that infants and young children are disproportionately affected by evictions in the United States. The study, whose purpose was to count the number of people threatened with being expelled from their homes, shows that every year, 2.9 million children and minors under 18 years of age are subject to processes that force them from their homes.
“What we realized is that children are the population most impacted by evictions,” said Juan Pablo Garnham, head of Eviction Lab communications, to Noticias Telemundo. “If you have children in your home, the chances that you will be a victim of an eviction are much greater.”
Eviction Lab accessed official data and concluded that, on average, 7.6 million people in the US are threatened with evictions each year.
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Other data offered by the study:
• There is racial disparity: Black women are more threatened. Of the total, 28% have children. Between 2007 and 2016, approximately one in five Black adult renters lived in a household against which an eviction lawsuit had been filed, and approximately one in 10 were evicted each year.
• Undocumented Afro-Latinos are the most likely to be evicted. According to Eviction Lab researchers, many Latinos do not go through formal judicial processes and end up being evicted informally, without complying with all legal processes.
• Eviction in children creates lifelong trauma. Researchers have shown that adverse childhood experiences can have consequences for future health, education, and employment.
• Housing instability before age 5 can lead to delays in preparing for kindergarten. In adolescence, these children are more likely to suffer from depression, anxiety, and difficulty processing information.
• Evictions in the United States continue to increase and exceed the historical average.
• High rents cause evictions.
• A full-time worker would need to earn, on average, $28.58 an hour to rent a two-bedroom apartment, which is well above the national minimum wage of $7.25.
• The average rent in the United States is now $2,050, up 3.3% from last year.
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/JRE/SL
