Protecting kids from eviction: They need us to take action

© 2022 Gwen Dewar, Ph.D., all rights reserved

Everybody says it. Politicians, corporations, lobbyists, investors, major media outlets, policymakers.

They say they intendance about children. They say we must make sure that our children are thriving. They say we must provide them with the opportunities they demand go happy, productive, contributing members of lodge.

Just these are empty words, and they will remain empty words until we follow through.

Today — in the U.s. — we have an urgent example of this.

How are things going for American families right now? Parents and their children?

Permit'southward have a look at the latest information for the summer of 2021. Data nerveless past the U.Due south. Census Bureau'due south Household Pulse Survey betwixt June 23 – July 5, and analyzed past the non-partisan think tank, The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Amidst adults living with children, one in 7 reported that their households "sometimes or often" didn't take enough to consume.

Amidst renters, i in 5 households with children were non caught upward on their hire.

And the biggest item of all:

Over 1 in 3 children living in renter households were facing food hardship, housing hardship, or both.

That'due south what the latest survey shows. That'southward the snapshot of American families taken between June 23rd and July 5th of 2021.

Why did the U.S. Demography Bureau behave this survey?

It'south part of a project started back in Apr 2020, an effort to monitor the economical havoc that has been acquired by the global pandemic.

What else has been done in response to this crisis?

For 11 months, the United states of america maintained a federal moratorium on residential evictions. It has offered some protection to struggling, renter families from being cast out of their homes.

In add-on, the federal CARES Deed of March 2022 was intended to provide greenbacks relief to both tenants and landlords.

Only, as the Center for Public Integrity explains, "more than 425 million dollars promised for rental assistance didn't make it to tenants or their landlords." State governments failed to laissez passer along what had been allocated.

And Congress dropped the brawl. They failed to take activity to extend the moratorium on evictions past July. On Friday, July 27, Congress officially adjourned for a summer break.

So now nosotros have a lot of families — families with children — who are at gamble for existence evicted during a pandemic. And many states and local governments are unprepared to cope.

What now?

I don't need to tell y'all that evictions are nightmarish, that they are linked with a pour of problems down the line.

Eviction puts a mark on your record, making it very difficult to secure housing in the time to come. It puts y'all at higher gamble for infection and mortality, particularly during a pandemic. It's linked with hunger. Kids who have endured eviction have twice the risk of experiencing food insecurity (Leifheit et al 2020).

And when millions of children get stuck living in poverty — or about poverty — it puts everyone at hazard. Information technology creates instability, a huge underclass of people who can't contribute positively to the economic system.

Merely no. I don't demand to go into any of this, because we're already in understanding, right? Everybody cares most kids. Even if kids were the only victims of these evictions, that would be enough. We'd human activity now.

Congresswoman Cori Bush is demanding that Congress immediately reconvene and address this crisis. If you care about kids, you know she is right. It doesn't matter what your politics are. It doesn't even matter who is to blame for the electric current situation (and in that location's enough of blame to go effectually).

What matters is we prepare it. That we commencement acting on our pretty words.

As I've argued elsewhere, raising children isn't a vanity project or personal hobby. Information technology's hard work, costly work, work that is essential for the continuation of gild. And it'southward too much work for parents to manage on their own.

Hunter-gatherers know this. That's why people in hunter-gatherer societies look out for each other. They help parents with the care-giving burden. They provide families with food subsidies. Considering it'southward impossible otherwise. Parents would fail. Children would wither. And the entire society would face up an existential threat. Group survival depends on strong, healthy, productive neighbors.

It can feel overwhelming, these terrible problems. But if parents put pressure level on politicians and policymakers, we volition have an touch on. So if y'all are in the U.s., tell your congressional representatives – at the federal and land levels – what you think.

You lot don't need to make a spoken communication or write a long treatise. A brief message is enough.

If you lot're not sure how to begin, this link, https://www.house.gov/representatives/detect-your-representative, will accept you lot to a page where you tin can await upwardly the person who represents y'all in the U.S. House of Representatives. Notice that person, and leave a message on their official contact course.

References

Leifheit KM, Schwartz GL, Pollack CE, Black MM, Edin KJ, Althoff KN, Jennings JM. 2020. Eviction in early childhood and neighborhood poverty, food security, and obesity in later childhood and adolescence: Evidence from a longitudinal nascency accomplice. SSM Popul Health. xi:100575.

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Source: https://parentingscience.com/protecting-kids-from-eviction-they-need-us-to-take-action/

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