Prevent Evictions, Don’t Pay For Them

At Greater Hartford Legal Aid, we read with interest Rebecca Lurye’s coverage [Sept. 7, courant.com, “Waterbury,

Hartford Among Top Evicting Cities In U.S.”] of the talk by 2018 Stowe Center Prize winner Matthew Desmond, founder of the Eviction Lab at Princeton.

Desmond has argued that evictions are not just an effect of poverty but also a cause of it. Evictions, obviously, burden families that lose their homes and possessions, but they also carry costs borne by the wider community: increased health care expenses, lost productivity due to interruptions in school and work, and assistance to those thrown onto our limited social safety net.

Desmond’s work challenges us to ask whether we want to continue to pay the bill for the high rate of evictions in the city of Hartford. Instead of bearing the costs of evictions that could be avoided, we should reinvest in eviction-prevention programs that have been closed or significantly limited in recent years, such as the Eviction Foreclosure Prevention Program (EFPP) and the security deposit guarantee program.

Giovanna Shay, Hartford The writer is the litigation and advocacy director at Greater

Hartford Legal Aid.