Compromise needed in eviction power

I am a senior at Mundelein High School. For a political participation project for my AP Government and Politics course, I attended a Mundelein Village Board meeting. Little did I know what I would discover about my town from that meeting.

One of the issues discussed at this event was if landlords should have the power to evict gang members from apartments.

The village of Mundelein feels this is discriminatory, and I agree. No person should be denied the right to own property simply because they are a gang member. We may not agree with their choices, per se, but they have the same rights as we do.

However, landlords feel that the presence of gang members in their apartments pose a legitimate safety risk to tenants not involved in gang activity, and it gives the apartment complex a bad name (because it houses gang members). Being that renting out apartments is a business, landlords feel they have the power to decide who to lease apartments to, and who to evict, if necessary. I agree with this side as well.

I think a compromise between the two sides can be easily negotiated. The village should allow landlords to evict a gang member if there is concrete evidence that said gang member was purposely creating a safety hazard for other residents (like drug trafficking or continued episodes of violence).

Landlords cannot evict a person solely based on their gang affiliation; however, if that gang affiliation is causing physical danger to residents by means of actions performed by that gang member, then they need to be evicted and taken care of.

Living in an apartment is a privilege, not a right. That is something society must begin to understand for this principle to take meaning.

Madeline Ley,

Mundelein High School