A Morning in Court
One of the necessarily evils of property management is evicting tenants. Necessary because tenants are required to pay for the space they are living in. Evil because tenants are required to pay for the space they are living in.
Today, I went to court for one of the properties that I manage. I always seem to have to part with something whenever I go through the metal detectors of the district court building. Last time, it was a keychain flash light. This time, it was an ink pen. Why are these items prohibited in the court building? It really beats me.
After going through the detectors, I rode the elevators to the fourth floor, where I found one of our attorneys working on the case. He flagged me down, debriefed me about what was going on, and told me to sit tight as he worked things out with the tenant.
I found a wooden bench in an alcove of sorts that faced the doors to a landlord-tenant judge’s courtroom. This time, I brought a book and a journal to write in. Being that I had to relinquish my pen, I opened up my book. A few paragraphs in, two people sat next to me. They began to discuss the details of an eviction. Minutes later, two more people sat down on the other side of me. I became sandwiched between tenants and attorneys trying to figure out next steps in each case. What I could not help but overhear was too distracting for me to continue reading.
I closed my eyes and tried to block it all out, but that didn’t work. Instead, reflected about landlords and tenants.
The way our society is set up, landlords and tenants enter into a social and legal agreement around a basic human need: shelter. Landlords provide the land and a habitable place to sleep. In exchange, tenants pay rent for a place to lay their head and, in turn, a place to call home.
Here in Detroit, this social agreement is often tested. A stolen car, a family death, or a health scare puts strain on a tenant’s ability to pay rent. Choices have to be made. Pay the rent on time or replace a car in order to get to work? Pay off the health bill to avoid collections or put on a funeral for the death of a loved one? When economic resources are stretched at a personal and regional scale, something has to give.
At the same time, landlords have mortgages they must pay off and expect a certain return on their investment. Their tenants’ rent is what makes up retirement funds or money for a child’s college tuition. They expect and are legally entitled to the rent that their tenants agree to pay. The way this social agreement works, one cannot live in a home for free. No one is guaranteed shelter.
When tenants don’t pay, for whatever reason, we must go to court on the landlord’s behalf to help recuperate rent or the property itself. We must help uphold the social and legal agreement between landlord and tenant. In the past year, I’ve learned to develop a shell when it comes to evictions. Relying on law, policy, and responsibility, I’ve accepted eviction proceedings as a necessary evil.
Despite knowing that this is legally the right thing to do and that landlords should rightfully receive money for someone living in the property they own, I often wonder if evictions yield the best social and ethical outcome.
Getting evicted puts a mark on someone’s record that makes it harder to find a rental home in the future. Evicting someone removes a community member from a neighborhood. Evictions uproot young children and relocate them somewhere else entirely. Do individuals have the right to deny another person shelter, even if an agreement is violated?
The landlord-tenant relationship has evolved since its creation in medieval societies. Is it time for the next iteration of this social arrangement? If so, what would that look like? How would it guarantee equity and demonstrate compassion?
Do we all live on the same government commune? Does Castle become the world’s landlord and ensures that everyone has a place to call home? Is every individual granted a right to some amount of space on Earth?
I have no real answers, but this time, I left the court building feeling like it took something more than my ink pen. It also took a bit of my optimism and cherished naiveté about the world. Despite my blunted optimism, I’m glad that this particular court experience forced me to reflect about this aspect of my job and attempt to imagine a better solution. We might not be able to remake society now, but I’ve at least retained the optimism that something else is entirely possible.
