The new fiscal crisis is triggering another outbreak of evictions

As the economy reopens, so does the festering, old wound of eviction - grossly unjust and unfair in light of windfall excesses reaped from tax breaks and other subsidies by the rich.

While corporations grabbed millions to which they were not entitled, drained programs of their funding in minutes, or Tweeted their way to riches:

After One Tweet To President Trump, This Man Got $69 Million From New York For Ventilators

The Silicon Valley engineer, who had no background in medical supplies but was recommended by the White House, never delivered the ventilators.

And at the other end of the spectrum?

Do you remember that a Pulitzer Prize in Non-Fiction was awarded to former UW-Madison researcher Matthew Desmond in 2017 for his devastating portrayal of low-income Milwaukeeans trapped and degraded by the eviction machine:

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City

From Harvard sociologist and MacArthur “Genius” Matthew Desmond, a landmark work of scholarship and reportage that will forever change the way we look at poverty in America.

Now we're in a new financial crisis on top of a pandemic that has killed scores and sickened many who are low-income Milwaukeeans - and across the country - yet the eviction machine is gearing up anew.

And while there is some renter relief funding available, an advocate for at-risk tenants is predicting mass evictions ahead because legal actions have begun prematurely.

Landlords jump the gun and file eviction actions before governor's moratorium expires

Raphael Ramos, head the Eviction Defense Project, said he expects many landlords to begin filing notices this week. Afterward, he said, they will either work out arrangements with tenants or file eviction actions. 

The onslaught of filings will likely begin next week, Ramos said, for evictions filed before March 27 that were frozen when the moratorium began, combined with new evictions actions that would have been filed earlier if not for the governor's ban. 

This is not good, and the situation will worsen because right-wing Republicans from Mitch McConnell to Scott Walker have argued against more federal aid to states.

Because nothing 'validates' the far-right belief that the public sector is inept than crises in cities that keep people scrambling for the basics and leaving less time time to organize, advocate and vote.
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