What Is It Like Being Homeless in America? - Pulitzer Prize Winning Author Brian [0:00-5:00]

As I mentioned, the book follows five families, and each of them with their unique backgrounds and circumstances illuminate a specific aspect of this larger phenomenon. But this morning, I want to tell you about one family in particular, the Walker family, Celeste and her three kids. Celeste is a 46-year-old woman who grew up in Tampa and has now lived in Atlanta for many years. Confident and super smart, she's charismatic, has a great sense of humor, and she carries herself with an air of invincibility. Like whatever challenges are thrown her way, she's going to figure out a way not just to get past them, but to thrive. But on an afternoon in May 2018, a chain of events began that would prove insurmountable even for her. That was the day she received a frantic phone call from her neighbor saying her rental home was on fire. She had just picked up the kids from school after leaving her warehouse job. By the time they made it back to West Overdrive, their house had been completely destroyed. They lost everything. Their only possessions were what the kids had in their backpacks and a few hampers of dirty laundry Celeste had thrown in the car that morning, intending to go to the launcher mat after work. Investigators later determined that the fire had been set by a man Celeste had broken up with a few months earlier who she had just taken a restraining order out on for harassment and stalking. He was soon arrested for arson. While the family was still reeling from this tragedy, Celeste started looking for a new place for them to live. She was confident that they'd be able to rent an apartment relatively quickly. But after a couple of days of driving around and scouring listings on Zillow and apartments.com, her optimism evaporated. It seemed like the ground had shifted under her feet. In recent years, Atlanta had undergone a much celebrated renaissance with scores of newer, wealthier residents flocking to the city to enjoy its transformed urban landscape. And I just want to say that even though the book is based in Atlanta, I argue that Atlanta can easily stand in for any number of other cities across the country where these same dynamics are underway. But during the same time period, as Atlanta was undergoing this much celebrated renaissance, median rents had soared by 76% and Metro Atlanta had lost over 200,000 affordable housing units. Neighborhoods that were once affordable for people like Celeste had suddenly been revitalized, pushing property values up and poorer residents out. Celeste began asking friends and co-workers to allow her and the kids to sleep on their floor or on their couch or in their basement for a few nights at a time. And so that summer, as May turned to June and June turned to July, they bounced around from place to place, sleeping in her dodged aringo when they had nowhere else to stay. These nights were horrible for Celeste. She worried that the police would find her and the kids asleep in the vehicle and call child protective services. And actually, this fear was justified nearly a quarter of child removals in Georgia as in many other states are the direct result of what is officially categorized as inadequate housing. And then after months of all of this, she finally found an apartment that seemed promising. She applied, paid the application fees, and prayed. A few days later, she was shocked when the leasing agent called to say she had been denied. Why didn't you tell me about the recent eviction on your record? He asked, clearly annoyed. Celeste said that was a mistake. There hadn't been any eviction, but it turned out she was wrong. Eventually, she pieced together what had happened. Back in May when her house burned down, she had reached out to her landlord, which happened to be a private equity firm called the Prager Group. Celeste asked them if she could move into a different rental in their portfolio, and they told her that in order to break her lease at the burned down property, break her lease, she would first have to pay not only the current month's rent, the fire had happened to the beginning of the month before she had paid her rent, but an additional month as well. And she would lose her security deposit. Celeste hung up and discussed, and she thought that was the end of it. What she didn't find out until later after learning of the denial from the leasing agent was that the Prager Group had filed an eviction against her for nonpayment. She drove to her old house on Westover Drive, which still hadn't been repaired, and inside the mailbox, she found an eviction notice.