Evicted in Harlem

That was like being right there. Trapped. Helpless. What is the basis for the NY state law that justified this eviction ?

Of the 67 evictions per day in NYC, how many are unlawful?

Bummer. Its one thing if junkies are bummed because they can't hang at a place, but if its a family. That is fucked.

So what is happening to the family now? And they should take this to court. I can see it now: The State of New York vs This family. Evicted for a stupid fucking reason, and left with nowhere to go...what is this country coming to?

Wow, powerful that is really all I can start with. You can not help but feel the terror of the children when they are taking down the door. The grounds for the eviction seem like a farce and the whole thing just agitates me. I want justice for this family.

This pod has a lot going for it. You have interesting subjects, a scene full of tension, and a truly important issue. However, there is simply not enough covered in the piece. I get no real sense of why they are being evicted. You start of by saying it is the rule that a husband and wife cannot have two apartments in one building, but you don't discuss the issue anymore. Did they pay their rent? Is it really just that rule? If so, I would love to see someone explaining the reason for that rule. Also, it seems disingenuous to make villains of the police and the marshal. Really the problem rests elsewhere in the bureaucracy. I would like to se that aspect of the issue.

Great work, these stories occur more often than we would imagine.

I wonder how the cops would have acted if the camera wasn't there?

Having grown up in public housing I know what it feels like to be evicted. A family can live there for what seems like forever. So if the rule is that a married couple cant posses more than one apartment in the same building you must comply. It doesnt validate your situation if you say that others are doing it too. There are thousands of families on these waiting lists for this housing.

This story definitely needs more explaination. Why were the husband and wife not living together? Why couldn't the family just move in with the husband? New York City gives tons of warning on evictions. If they knew it was coming, then why did they not start packing. Now not only have they lost their apartment, they have ALSO lost their belongings. Also, this did not look like a mother and 5 children. This looked like a mother with 4 adult children and 1 child. Isn't public housing based on income.......did that many adults together make such low income to make them eligible for public housing? The apartment was huge for an NYC apartment.....most people in NYC don't even have a dining room and many use the living room as an extra bedroom, so if this is indicative of the size of the apartments in the building there seemed to be more then enough room for all the adults and the 1 child to live with the husband. This pod does not make me feel for the family.....it needs much more explaination

Sorry, correction to above....it looks like 3 adult children and 2 children.

I just wonder how these cops feel throwing people out of their homes. Its a shame none of them show any remorse what so ever. I already hated cops, this is not helping.

I didn't get enough information from the story. Why not get to see all sides of the issue. If they had two apartments - what happened to the second? Who were all the people in the apartment during the eviction? Questions, questions, questions.

I think that this family is justified in their lack of faith in the justice/legal system. It's forgotten about those at the bottom, largely not giving them a voice amongst those who make the laws. While I'm sure that there is a perfectly good reason why a family cannot occupy two apartments, such as to make room for the hundreds (or thousands) of people waiting for public housing, the system does not incorporate the needs of families on a case by case basis. I think this the product of an impersonal bureaucratic system that is so prevalent throughout so many aspects of American life today.

Though I do wish that the cops would simply refuse to follow through with such an eviction, I think it's hard to blame the police for two reasons: (a) because it is the the job of the police is to carry out the LAW and (b) because they probably have been convinced that the law is right (or else why want to be a cop in the first place?). If they were to refuse to carry out this specific instance, they would probably be punished and then replaced by a cop willing to follow through. Instead, I think there is a problem with the whole legal system.