On August 30, the same day that federal, state, and local authorities were telling residents of the Southeast to stay inside during climate change-fueled Hurricane Idalia, Natalie Sabb and her two children were being evicted from their public housing unit in Fairfax, South Carolina.
Anna Sorokina
A few days beforehand, she spoke with The Progressive, noting that “everybody gets in that state sometimes where you’re trying to keep your car, trying to keep a roof over your kid’s head. Sometimes being a single parent, it gets hard.”
The nationwide eviction crisis and the global climate emergency are two rapidly accelerating problems that are now colliding. Although marginal efforts have been made to mitigate the climate emergency, few national policies exist to protect tenants and the homeless from its devastating effects.
“We’ve heard stories this year about people sleeping on the sidewalk in this extreme heat, with third-degree burns,” Donald Whitehead Jr., executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH), tells The Progressive.
He adds that the NCH has heard stories about tenants being evicted into extreme weather from every part of the country.
“We know that extreme heat, when a person is living in their vehicle, could cause death and have tragic consequences,” he warns.
In a terrible coincidence for Sabb, Hurricane Idalia struck just as August was turning into September, which is the time of the month when evictions normally occur.
Meanwhile, Idalia was up to 50 percent more powerful because of the Gulf of Mexico’s incredibly high temperatures, according to climate scientist Jeff Masters. Although the hurricane was less destructive than initially feared, more hurricanes of abnormally high intensity are on the way, despite the world’s El Niño pattern typically working against Atlantic hurricanes.
In North Charleston, South Carolina, where Hurricane Idalia brought a nine-foot tide level to the Charleston Harbor, eviction rates are currently the highest of any city in the United States, according to Princeton University’s Eviction Lab.
“It’s historically been the case that the wind [from El Niño] would not be favorable for hurricane season over the Atlantic Ocean, but in recent years, that’s not the case,” Xubin Zeng, professor of atmospheric sciences and director of the Climate Dynamics and Hydrometeorology Center at the University of Arizona, tells The Progressive. “The ocean surface temperature is so high in the Atlantic Ocean . . . it will win the battle with the El Niño effect.”
In North Charleston, South Carolina, where Hurricane Idalia brought a nine-foot tide level to the Charleston Harbor, eviction rates are currently the highest of any city in the United States, according to Princeton University’s Eviction Lab.
“We’re in a climate crisis, and these storms are only going to continue and continue,” says Kenya Cummings, director of the South Carolina Housing Justice Network, which assists tenants across the state. “We’ve had to make calls asking landlords for an [eviction] extension due to the weather. It just goes back to [the fact] that there are no tenant protections in place.”
Whitehead Jr. says the time is now to pressure elected officials to “dramatically create additional resources for people before it’s too late.” That strategy is now one of the NCH’s top priorities, he says.
Democratic Congressmember Jim Clyburn, who represents Sabb’s district, calls the lack of affordable housing in the United States “an epidemic” that is “especially poignant in South Carolina.”
“I was the only member of the South Carolina Congressional delegation to support the House-passed Build Back Better Act, which would have provided more than $170 billion to make housing more affordable,” Clyburn says in an email. “I’m committed to ending this epidemic and will continue working with my colleagues in Congress to help keep families safe and in their homes.”
However, the Build Back Better Act never became law, and according to federal campaign contribution disclosures, Clyburn has accepted tens of thousands of dollars from landlord groups that lobby to eradicate tenant protections. Clyburn didn’t address these contributions in his email response to The Progressive.
In the weeks leading up to her eviction, Sabb began looking for other places to live nearby. Unlike her Section Nine apartment, which had a solid foundation, the only place she could find was in a trailer park, which is a more dangerous environment during hurricanes. The rent there was also $300 per month higher.
“I love my place,” Sabb says, referring to her former home. “It’s a good environment for my kids.”
Before law enforcement could show up to knock on her door, Sabb and her children packed up and headed out into the hurricane.