Forced Evictions for Victims of Domestic Violence

Many of our benevolent local overlords have regulations that can cause victims of violence to lose their homes and provide incentives for landlords to violate the privacy of their tennants:

Lakisha Briggs was a 34-year-old single mom living in the suburbs of Philadelphia in subsidized rental housing. Her boyfriend had attacked her repeatedly in her home, and the police had been called on several occasions to intervene—10 times in the first five months of 2012 alone, according to her legal filings. But because an ordinance in Norristown, Pa., says that a tenant who makes three 911 calls within four months can be evicted and that tenant’s landlord could have his or her rental license suspended, Briggs did not call the police on the night of June 23, 2012, when the same boyfriend hit her in the head with a glass ashtray then stabbed her in the neck with a piece of broken glass. The police had already warned her that she was on her third strike after their last visit. So she didn’t make the call and—just before she passed out—Briggs begged a neighbor not to do so on her behalf.

The neighbor did call the cops, and Briggs was airlifted to a nearby trauma center. The boyfriend went to prison for the assault. Then police served Briggs’ landlord with a notice that said if she and her 3-year-old weren’t evicted within 10 days, he’d lose his rental license. Meet the new face of disorderly conduct.

I’m guessing that our federal courts will allow this to continue because, after all, getting the federal government out of things means freedom!