Aletha Cole

Our cities contain an invisible underclass: tenants. To be a tenant means to be permanently insecure, to be between homes, broke, unhealthy, and tired. Tenants are subject to a place called Housing Court, where their human right to a home is judged. In Housing Court, tenants are punished for being poor, for being immigrants, for being women, or for being Black or brown. This is a book about the tenants whom I have served over twenty years as an eviction- defense lawyer. Here, I reflect on their stories, their struggles, their resilience, and their dignity. In New York City, hundreds of ...