“Well, my point is that you maybe give up a couple hundred dollars so you don’t lose these tenants who are coming in January.” The commissioner knew Sherrena could pocket Arleen’s security deposit, leaving an unpaid rent balance of around $320. “In exchange for an agreement that she won’t go after you—”
Then Arleen interrupted the commissioner. “I’m not trying to be in her money,” she said. She said it forcefully and looked offended. Arleen had gathered who was making the calls, and it wasn’t the white lady with the pearl necklace.
Sherrena, who had been mulling things over, leaned forward in her chair. “I don’t want to dismiss anything. I really don’t….I mean, I’m tired of losing out on every single—” She began slapping the table with each word.
Arleen looked at the commissioner. “I mean, I’m not trying to stay. I mean, I understand what she’s saying. That’s her place.”
“I understand,” said the commissioner.
“I’m not trying to be there.”
“I understand.”
The commissioner shuffled the papers and said nothing more.
In the pause, Arleen took another tack. She thought of the broken window, the sporadic hot water, the grimy carpet, and said, in a dismissive voice, “I would say something, but I’m not even gonna go there. I’m all right.” That was her defense.17
The commissioner looked at Arleen and said, “Here’s the deal. Ma’am, you’re getting to move out voluntarily by January first….If you don’t do that, if you don’t move out, then your landlord is entitled to come back here without further notice, and she can get a writ of eviction. And then the sheriff will come.”
—
When Sherrena and Arleen walked out of the courthouse, a gentle snow was still falling. Sherrena had agreed to give Arleen a ride home. In the car, Sherrena paused to rub her neck, and Arleen lowered her forehead into the palm of her hand. Both women had splitting headaches. Sherrena attributed hers to how court had gone. She was still fuming that Gramling Perez had reduced her money judgment. Arleen’s was from hunger. She hadn’t eaten all day.
“I don’t want to be putting you and your babies out in the cold,” Sherrena told Arleen as the car moved slowly through the slushy streets. “I wouldn’t want nobody to do me like that….Some of them landlords, they get away with murder down there. But there’s some like me, who get in front of the commissioner, and she say whatever’s on her mind, and that’s the way it’s gonna go….She knows this system is screwed. It’s all one-sided.”18
Arleen stared out the window and watched the snow settle noiselessly on the black iron lampposts, the ornate dome of the Public Library, the Church of the Gesu’s Gothic towers.
“And some of these tenants,” Sherrena was saying, “they nasty as hell. They bring roaches with ’em. They bring mice with ’em. And who gotta pay for it? Oh, what about Doreen Hinkston? With her ray-man noodles down the sink, and they keep calling me about the sink being stopped up….And I gotta call the plumber. Then you pouring grease down the sink from your fried chicken, you pouring the grease down the sink, and I gotta get a plumber out again.”
The car turned down Center Street, passing a church where Arleen sometimes picked up gift baskets at Thanksgiving and Christmas. She had always aspired to have her own ministry like that, to be the one handing out food and clothing.
“So, Arleen”—Sherrena pulled in front of Arleen’s place on Thirteenth Street—“if you ever thinking about becoming a landlord, don’t. It’s a bad deal. Get the short end of the stick every time.”
Arleen stepped out of the car and turned back to Sherrena.
“Merry Christmas,” she said.
PART TWO
OUT
9.
ORDER SOME CARRYOUT
Larraine was up before the sun, dashing cool water on her face. She usually rose before dawn, feeling her best in the morning. The day after her brush with Tobin was different. She had stayed in bed, trying to ignore the situation by burrowing under the covers. She only got up to let Digger out, looking through the cuts in the blinds for Tobin or Lenny before stepping out the door with the leash. Digger was her brother Beaker’s dog, a small black mutt. Larraine had agreed to watch him while Beaker was in the hospital for his heart.
Larraine’s trailer was spotless and uncluttered. When a visitor would comment on its cleanliness, she would smile and credit her handheld steamer or share tips, like slipping in an aspirin when washing whites. She had lived in her trailer for about a year and had come to like it, especially in the morning, before the gossips began congregating outside. She now had everything just-so. She had found white serving utensils to match the white cupboards in the kitchen and a small desk for her old computer. None of this made paying Tobin 77 percent of her income any easier.
The sun lifted higher and the trailer park began to stir with the sounds of children and car engines. Larraine studied her phone. She knew that there were two main programs in Milwaukee for people facing eviction. The first was Emergency Assistance for families at risk of “impending homelessness.” You could apply for these funds once every year if you were a US citizen, in possession of an eviction notice, at or below 115 percent of the poverty level, and could prove with divorce papers, a crime report, a pink slip, or some other documentation that you had experienced a sudden loss of income. But to qualify you also had to have dependent children in your home; so Emergency Assistance was out.
The second program was the Homelessness Prevention Program, offered through Community Advocates and mainly federally funded. But to qualify for that benefit, you not only had to have experienced a loss of income, you also had to demonstrate that your current income could cover future rents. Plus, you needed landlord buy-in, which Larraine didn’t have. Like Emergency Assistance, this service was reserved more for the unlucky—those who had been laid off or mugged—than the chronically rent burdened. Community Advocates was able to offer this benefit to only 950 families each year. It took Milwaukee less than six weeks to evict that many families.1
Larraine dialed a number by heart. “Yes. I was wondering. I was told that you help people with their rent?…Oh. Oh, no?…Okay.” She hung up. Larraine dialed the Social Development Commission, an antipoverty organization. They couldn’t help. Someone had told her that the YMCA on Twenty-Seventh made emergency loans. She called them. “Yes. I was instructed to call you because I was told you could help me with my rent….My rent….Rent. R-E-N-T.” Nothing. Larraine did not dial the number to a tenants’ union because Milwaukee, like most American cities, didn’t have one.
By midmorning, Larraine had dialed all the nonprofit, city, and state agencies she could think of. None came through. On a lark, she dialed one more number. She lifted the phone and heard the indifferent throb through the speaker. Larraine shrugged. The line to the Marcia P. Coggs Human Services Center—the “welfare building”—was always busy.
—