The Evictions- Is It Right Or Wrong?

It is a beautiful August morning and I enjoy my coffee while speaking with a friend on the phone. I feel at peace, a rare feeling for me.

Suddenly, my dogs bark and crowd in front of the window for a better look at something unusual happening in the street.
I shush them and look outside. What is happening? What’s the big fuss? My peace of mind goes out the window!

Outside, there is a sheriff and the landlord of a house across the street. The door to the house is wide open and one by one the tenants leave the house…

The family in the house in question had been living there for two years. Renting out.
Two years ago, they moved in with a few plastic bags. Often I wondered if they had beds to sleep on, tables? chairs? There was a family of two adults in their early 40’s and at least three kids.

I nodded hello and smiled a few times and tried to welcome this family, but my smiles were not returned. .
In short, I didn’t know them.

However, today, when I witnessed the eviction, my heart was thorn between the logic that they didn’t pay their rent and the eviction was the right consequence, and my gut reaction of fear! Watching each of the family members’ walking to their car in silence, holding small plastic bags made my heart pound with anxiety and hard to describe mixed emotions. The teenage girl, holding her cat is an image I cannot get out of my head!

The teenage girl left holding her cat…going… where? What was going to happen to them? I felt dizzy and popped in my mouth a high blood pressure pill. Breathe, breathe deeply, I told myself. Stay calm I kept telling myself but my heart wouldn’t listen!

This is why I decided to write this post, for a selfish reason, because my heart is thorn between the question: Is it right or is it wrong to evict people when a landlord has sound, legal reasons to do so?
The legal answer is yes, but how about our hearts!

Here’s my dilemma:
I could imagine myself in the shoes of the evicted, holding my dogs in my arms, going to nowhere in my old car, but I also could imagine being the landlord, needing to pay taxes and a mortgage on the rented property and being unable because my tenants pay no rent.

I wrote this post not because I have an answer to what’s right or wrong, but because I question…and it helps to share.

As I write, I conclude there is NO right and wrong but only a matter of perspective, and in whose shoes one walks…Perhaps it’s simply another reality of the world we live in, we built and bear the consequences. Sad consequences of our own actions.

Please comment and share your thoughts on evictions. Is it right, wrong? Why do you think?