One of the first and most fundamental safety precautions during the COVID-19 pandemic is to shelter in place. But that may soon become impossible for millions of people as eviction moratoriums begin to lift across the country. Tens of millions have lost their jobs due to the pandemic itself, and many are still unemployed.
 
Kansas City resident Tiana Caldwell is one of them. In March, she was laid off from her job teaching business skills at a local community college. Her husband, Derrick, lost his job around the same time. Both had dedicated years of hard work to their jobs, which they loved, but in the face of this global pandemic, that wasn’t enough.
 
The family would have lost their home if not for the Jackson County moratorium on evictions. The moratorium brought them some peace of mind, but that peace was limited. It expired on May 31, allowing landlords to resume evictions of those unable to afford their monthly rent. Now Tiana, Derrick, and their 13-year-old son A.J. may soon be without a roof over their heads. Nationally, many more families also face the possibility of eviction after the federal moratorium expired on July 25. 

https://www.youtube.com/embed/G9ELUWktarQ

Tiana and her family already know firsthand what it’s like to be unhoused. Last year, they were evicted and experienced homelessness for six months while Tiana underwent treatment for her second bout of cancer. As the bills and health care costs stacked up while Tiana was unable to work, her family couldn’t afford their rent.
 
“It was terrifying,” Tiana tells the ACLU. “With cancer, your chances are slim even if you have everything you need. I didn’t know what we were going to do, what I might be exposed to. I was afraid I wouldn’t make it.”
 
The prospect of being unhoused during the pandemic is even more terrifying. It’s impossible to practice social distancing in homeless shelters, and residents often lack access to facilities that would allow them to practice sufficient hygiene. On the other hand, those who seek shelter with family or friends must contend with the dangers of crowding more people into homes that are often already short on space. In either scenario, the risk of contracting COVID-19 is heightened. One infection in a home or shelter could easily spread exponentially in a matter of days.
 
For those who are immunocompromised, like Tiana, homelessness presents an insurmountable danger. After two bouts of cancer, a history of congestive heart failure, and decreased lung capacity, Tiana is at extremely high risk of serious illness if she contracts COVID-19. Contracting the virus could be fatal.
 
Tiana is taking CDC-recommended disease prevention measures, such as not leaving the house unless it’s absolutely necessary. “I have no peace of mind thinking about leaving the house, as vulnerable as I am,” she says. “I think about it every second.”
 
Her family members — including Derrick, A.J., and an older son who lives outside the home — have also adjusted their lives significantly to protect her.

“My son [A.J.] is very thoughtful about what he does,” says Tiana. “Even when I encourage him to get outside, he chooses to stay home because he understands the risks. He loves his mom.”
 
For Derrick, staying home is not an option now that he has found another job. “He’s happy to be employed,” explains Tiana. “But he’s terrified about what he might bring home.”

A nationwide crisis

Throughout the country, tens of millions of people face the same fears. Over 30 million people are currently unemployed and unable to pay for housing or basic utilities like water and electricity.

One in five renters will be at risk of eviction by the end of September. Tens of millions of people could lose their ability to shelter in place and to practice sufficient hygiene as the nation approaches what’s expected to be a second wave of COVID-19 infections.
 
Communities of color and low-income women are among the most vulnerable to the impending wave of evictions and utility shut-offs. On average, Black renters are nearly twice as likely to be evicted as white renters. Black women are evicted at an even higher rate — with evictions filed against them at double the rate (or more)compared to white renters in 17 out of 36 states. Those who face eviction must appear in court — sometimes in person — at a time when crowding into a courtroom poses unique health risks.
 
The dangers of eviction will last far beyond the pandemic. Landlords frequently discriminate against prospective tenants who have a prior eviction record, even when the eviction occurred many years ago or was ultimately dismissed. Often these renters are not even considered.
 
“They’ll tell you up front,” says Tiana. “There’s no need to apply.”
 
Because it’s more difficult to secure housing, renters who have been evicted often have to submit many applications before one is accepted. Applications often come with fees that many people who are out of work simply cannot afford.
 
The long-term harms of eviction further entrench people in poverty, especially women of color, and exacerbate existing economic inequalities. That’s why Black women and others who are directly impacted are leading the fight against evictions.
 
“They are the experts on their situation,” says Tiana. “They don’t need people to come in and tell them what’s going on.”
 
Tiana herself is a grassroots leader with KC Tenants and the national campaign for a Homes Guarantee at People’s Action. She has volunteered with KC Tenants for almost two years, and describes it as a multiracial, anti-racist, multigenerational group working across lines of division in society. That groups like these are operating during the pandemic speaks volumes.
 
“When you’re standing on the front lines, taking these chances, it has to be bigger than you,” says Tiana. “We do this so we can be stronger together. It’s so important that we not only take care of ourselves and our loved ones, but everyone else, because this is a pandemic that knows no boundaries.”
 
Congress has the power to prevent the coming wave of mass evictions that would throw millions of people — disproportionately women and people of color — out of their homes during the pandemic. It must extend and expand the federal eviction moratorium that expired on July 25 to cover more people’s homes. The next COVID-19 relief bill must also include at least $100 billion in funding toward emergency rental assistance, which would ensure safety and stability for millions of the most vulnerable low-income renters who have lost their jobs, including those who were already struggling to pay rent before the pandemic.

Hope out of sorrow

The eviction crisis is about more than economics and health. All people should have access to safe and stable housing. Everybody deserves a home.

After struggling through last year’s eviction, Tiana and her family were ultimately able to move into a new place. Throughout the past several months of instability, they have made their house a home. She recently gave the ACLU a tour over Zoom, pointing out the artwork she’s hung since moving in, including a photograph of Amsterdam and a painting that a hospice patient gave her during her time as a nurse, which matches her orange couch. Also in the house is a protest sign she carried during a demonstration that shut down a local highway.
 
#CancelRent
#ProtectMOTenants
#ItsAProblem
 
And while 13-year-old A.J.’s room was too messy to show, she explained to us how he fills his days with dancing, and provides the family with hope through a period of significant strife.
 
“After my first bout of cancer, I wasn’t supposed to have him,” says Tiana. “So we named him Azariah Jabez, which means, ‘God has hope out of sorrow.’”

Leila Rafei, Content Strategist, ACLU

When the Continental Congress appointed Benjamin Franklin as the first Postmaster General, our nation had not yet been founded. The Bill of Rights would not be drafted for another 16 years. Yet nearly two and a half centuries later, the United States Postal Service’s ability to provide every person in America with a private, affordable, and reliable means to exchange information transformed it from a mail delivery service into a baseline for the exercise of American constitutional rights.

Recent news that the Postal Service’s financial condition is being used as a pretext for degrading its service – including allowing mail to go undelivered for days and scaling back the hours of or closing post offices – threatens to degrade that constitutional baseline as well.

In an early response to novel coronavirus, Congress allocated $10 billion to help shore up the Postal Service’s finances, but the Treasury Department has held up those funds without explanation. Instead, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is preparing to make dramatic service cuts, treating the USPS like a private business facing bankruptcy. This should draw universal condemnation.

The U.S. Postal Service was never a business. It is an essential government service guaranteed to the American people by the U.S. Constitution and it should be preserved accordingly.

To understand how the Postal Service became so central to America’s national identity and the actualization of our constitutional rights, one needs to examine its history.

In the earliest days of our nation, Americans were more likely to identify themselves as citizens of their home states than of the United States. For our nation’s first generation, the Postal Service was often the only reminder the U.S. had a federal government at all. As America expanded westward, the Postal Service enabled new states like California, which otherwise would have been isolated by America’s vast Western Territories, to forge its connection with the rest of the country. Ultimately, the roads, rail stations, and rural post offices that were built or subsidized by the Postal Service drove our nation’s physical unification.

Even more important were the nationwide communications the Postal Service enabled. Prior to the invention of the telegraph, the absence of a local post office made exchanging ideas with the rest of the country impossible. In America’s early decades, one of the most vital steps taken by newly established towns was to request a post office.

Recognizing that receiving information was as critical to our national unity as communicating it, Congress mandated the Postal Service deliver newspapers for free or at a minimal cost. As George Washington wrote in 1788, “I entertain a high idea of the utility of periodical publications … spread[ing] through every city, town and village in America. I consider such easy vehicles of knowledge, more happily calculated than any other, to preserve the liberty, stimulate the industry, and meliorate the morals of an enlightened and free People.” Low-cost newspaper delivery endured until the Congressional Postal Reorganization Act was adopted in 1970.

Prior to the 1850s, the delivery of free newspapers and of mail to isolated frontier towns caused the Postal Service to lose money. It likewise strained the Postal Service’s financial resources when, in the mid-19th century, it decided to charge the same price for all first-class letters sent within the U.S. regardless of their destination.

These choices were possible then because the Postal Service was not burdened with financial self-sufficiency. Its sole mandate was to enable everyone in America to communicate affordably. In that respect, the Postal Service’s public benefit mission is more akin to the Armed Forces’ than FedEx’s, and no one is suggesting the military should pay its own way or face bankruptcy.

Another important piece in the Postal Service’s preservation of civil liberties came in 1877, when the Supreme Court, in Ex Parte Jackson, ruled that “No law of Congress can place in the hands of officials connected with the postal service any authority to invade the secrecy of letters and such sealed packages in the mail.” As a result, the privacy of communications sent via the USPS is constitutionally guaranteed. Good luck getting that with Gmail.

The year 2020, perhaps more than any other in American history, illustrates why Postal Service’s centuries-old mission must be upheld.

The U.S. Census Bureau, which is presently racing to complete the 2020 census, is relying on the Postal Service for much of its data collection. Government health agencies are depending on the USPS to provide critical COVID-related health information and supplies. Elected officials are using the Postal Service for cost efficient and sometimes free communications with their constituents, including about support programs during the ongoing economic crisis. And as we approach the November election, state and local election boards will be relying more than ever on the USPS to conduct voting by mail, which is critical to guaranteeing the right to vote during the ongoing pandemic.

Troubling though it may be, it is impossible not to worry that our unpopular president, who has already called for the delay of his own re-election vote, is seeking to degrade the Postal Service’s ability to timely deliver ballots, particularly in communities that are unlikely to vote for him.

Earlier this year President Trump called the Postal Service “a joke,” but there is nothing funny about the steady degradation of an institution that breathes unimaginable life into our constitutional rights.

At this critical time, Congress should do everything in its power to ensure the USPS remains vibrant and strong, and that burden falls largely on the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs and its chair, Sen. Ron Johnson, and the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, and its chair, Rep. Carolyn Maloney. Every member of Congress and every American, regardless of political party or philosophy, should be grateful that for 245 years “neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays the [Postal Service’s] couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” We should ensure that “nor politically-motived cost savings” is added to that list.

Chad Marlow, Senior Advocacy and Policy Counsel, ACLU

This piece originally appeared in USA Today.

As an organization dedicated to civil liberties, civil rights, and the rule of law, we at the American Civil Liberties Union believe that the government has both the authority and responsibility to enforce its laws — laws that promote justice, equality, and the general welfare. In recent weeks, the actions of federal agents have shown us all that the Department of Homeland Security isn’t capable of acting consistently with the Constitution, and should no longer exist in its current state.

The scenes unfolding in Portland, Oregon, and elsewhere are a reminder of the red flags many have raised about DHS throughout its history: that its powers are too great, and that it lacks the oversight and management to be effective. We can preserve our freedoms and our security better by dismantling DHS and beginning anew.

People across the political spectrum watched in disbelief as federal agents were deployed to American cities — despite objections by mayors and governors — to escalate violence against protesters. Paramilitary forces abducted people exercising their constitutional rights in Portland, placed them in unmarked vehicles, and took them to undisclosed locations.

The tactics deployed by DHS agents are unlawful and shocking, but they are no surprise: Back in 2002, we at the ACLU called the initial blueprints for the behemoth bureaucracy “constitutionally bankrupt.”

Dire warnings become DHS reality

And for nearly 20 years, we have seen many of our warnings about DHS become tragic realities. We objected to a knee-jerk plan that failed to respond to the intelligence law enforcement failures that contributed to the tragedy of 9/11. We believed that DHS would use the veil of “security” to target communities of color and immigrants, and urged greater civil liberties oversight.

Now, of course, we know that DHS has surveilled Black Lives Matter activist circles; descended into mosques and community centers to infiltrate Muslim communities; shot and killed foreign nationals across the border; and monitored protests using fusion center intelligence sharing hubs.

DHS is also responsible for separating children from their parents at our borders — a tragedy we continue to litigate.

The short history of DHS has been filled with violence, the stoking of fear, and a lack of oversight. The department’s horrific tactics are being used in cities across the country.

The fearsome tactics of DHS are well known to the communities against whom they are used. Its dysfunction is one of the Beltway’s worst kept secrets. DHS’s overbroad mandate and unchecked powers have turned it into a tinderbox, now ignited by a president willing to trample on the constitutional limits of presidential powers. While calls for reform have been loud and clear for years, new signals are now coming from the highest levels of the DHS diaspora.

Tom Ridge, the first secretary of Homeland Security, said recently that DHS “wasn’t designed to become the president’s personal militia.”

Former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff asserted that President Donald Trump’s deployment of agents to U.S. cities is “damaging to the department.”

And Richard Clarke, who served on the National Security Council for Presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, has called for dismantling DHS. 

Nearly 20 years of abuse, waste, and corruption demonstrate the failure of the DHS experiment. Joining 22 agencies with conflicting missions — including border security, disaster relief, and immigration enforcement, among others. Many insiders knew DHS to be an ineffective superagency, but President Trump has converted DHS into our government’s most notable badge of shame.

Break DHS into parts

Dismantling DHS, breaking it apart into various federal agencies, and shrinking its allocation of federal dollars will allow for more effective oversight, accountability, and public transparency. The spun-off agencies will have clearer missions and more limited functions. A behemoth of a federal agency too easily hides its problems and failings. Congressional oversight can be more readily divided among various congressional committees. Smaller agencies with clearer mandates will make Cabinet-level jobs more attractive to top-notch professionals.

There is also the added benefit that breaking up DHS will provide a larger number of Cabinet posts to reflect our country’s diversity. 

Most important, the very premise of a “homeland security” bureaucracy is chilling and ought to be questioned. Defense of the “homeland” became a rallying cry for hawks and some doves in the aftermath of 9/11, but this frame betrays the broader values that ought to infuse our democracy. Why, for example, is an agency responsible for citizenship and immigration under a threat-oriented department? Immigrants are not a threat to the “homeland.” 

Years of chaos and impunity make a clear case for the dismantling of DHS. President Trump’s use of DHS as his personal militia should be enough to start a meaningful bipartisan debate about DHS’ future. If there is one thing we have learned from the authoritarianism on display in Portland, it’s that we have to remove the loaded weapon that sits on the proverbial coffee table in the Oval Office.

Donald Trump should not be allowed to provide a precedent for future presidents with authoritarian tendencies to repeat the injustices we are enduring. Dismantling DHS into its component parts would restore greater balance to our system of checks and balances. And rather than tolerating misinterpretation of “homeland security,” we need our government to advance a “more perfect union.”

Anthony D. Romero, ACLU Executive Director