Baltimore aims to decrease evictions.

Story by the Baltimore Banner – 5/21/2024 5:07 p.m. EDT

Inside the Baltimore sheriff’s office, Sam Cogen boasts of the department’s new computer system, new equipment and new staff members brought on at his direction since the start of his term nearly 18 months ago.

But the biggest change? Look no farther than the top of his bookshelf.

There sits a copy of “Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City,” a Pulitzer Prize-winning bestseller by sociologist Matthew Desmond who went on to found The Eviction Lab at Princeton University. Desmond’s work has been credited for breathing life into the study of eviction and its relationship with perpetuating poverty and profit for those responsible.

It’s an unusual book for a sheriff to keep on hand — but to Cogen, its presence makes sense.

In addition to modernizing and reforming the sheriff’s office, Cogen has been cited by Maryland Gov. Wes Moore for his tenant protections advocacy. Cogen’s testimony on the governor’s renters’ rights bill helped clear the way for its passage earlier this spring, Moore said, one part of a trio of policies designed to create more housing supply, construction financing and tenant protections in Maryland. In public and behind the scenes, Moore said, Cogen helped convince lawmakers of the urgency of the matter.

“We would not be here if it were not for Sheriff Sam Cogen,” Moore said in April at a bill signing ceremony for the three policies. He presented the sheriff with the first of the ceremonial pens used to sign the bills into law.

The governor’s praise took Cogen by surprise. His unorthodox approach to the job has created some interesting tension, including when he was held in contempt of court earlier this year for attempting to defy an order to carry out an eviction at a Station North apartment building where the owner had long lacked a rental license.

Cogen’s outspokenness has also raised eyebrows: He went so far as to endorse former Mayor Sheila Dixon this spring against incumbent Mayor Brandon Scott ahead of the May 14 primary election, and he took multiple opportunities to criticize Scott as an ineffective law enforcement partner. Scott declared victory in the Democratic primary last week.

“I believe in private property, and you can’t live somewhere for free. But what are we doing to try to mitigate that harm in any kind of way?” Cogen asked. “Then you get in a position like mine, and you understand that, and you say, well, I need to do everything that I can to try to avoid the avoidable ones, and then try to help people once they have been evicted.”

In testimony, Cogen told lawmakers earlier this year that evictions require more department personnel than the office’s domestic violence unit or fugitive apprehension unit. He described himself as a glorified “debt collector,” since about 95% of the notices served are resolved without requiring an eviction, according to sheriff’s office data.

Cogen — who initiated the office’s eviction data collection initiative — said of the more than 37,000 eviction notices posted by his deputies in a five-month period ending on Jan. 31, around 545 were due to missed rent amounting to $250 or less. Another 758 eviction notices were posted due to outstanding payments between $250 and $500.

The sheriff says he understands on a visceral level the “tragedy” of eviction because he’s seen it all before. He’s evicted children; people who, out of anger, fear, or desperation, have attacked his deputies; and people who have gone on to kill themselves as a result of their displacement.

Sheriffs are elected, he said, to carry out the will of the community — and Baltimore, in electing him, has made clear that evictions should be reduced and paired with social services when possible.

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