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South Florida Sees Increase In Evictions

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The New York Times

Published: June 8, 2008

MIAMI - In a decade handling evictions for the Miami-Dade County Police Department, Albert Fernandez has run across a middle-class father bankrupted by his daughter's cancer treatment, an old woman scammed by a gambling husband, and countless families perpetually on the edge of poverty.

But he has never turned out as many people as he does now.

It used to take a day or two for officers to get to an address after tenants received a notice. Now, with evictions up by roughly a third over last year, Miami-Dade's backlog is about two weeks.

"It is what it is," Fernandez said, looking at a list of addresses about to be emptied. "People of all walks of life are getting evicted."

If South Florida is a barometer for the housing crisis and the economy, the forecast does not look good. Like other areas nationwide, evictions are rising in the state, clogging courts and spawning a boom in companies that specialize in "eviction services," such as moving furniture to the curb.

In the first three months of this year, Broward County tallied 3,043 eviction requests - more than it has received in the same period since at least 1999, and an increase of 54 percent over last year. In Miami-Dade, landlords filed for 4,726 evictions from January through April, up 1,157 from the first four months of last year.

Much of the rise comes from foreclosures, which in Miami-Dade County jumped from 38 in January 2007 to 311 in January 2008, but more renters and business owners also are finding themselves unable to pay the bills.

In many cases, one failure leads to another. Owners, banks, renters and developers have become like prisoners attached by ankle chains: When one falls, the others slip, too.

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