Welcome to the latest episode of our series, Heart Truths, I'm Nyla Boudou.

Last season, we unpacked the effects of systemic racism in the US and told you stories about

how this shows up in the lives of people of color, from voting to higher education to

the criminal justice system and beyond.

This season, we're looking at solutions and how cities across the country are tackling

these problems.

Today, we're headed to Philadelphia, a city that's taking a novel approach to lowering its

high rate of evictions, especially among black renters. It's a pandemic era program that

requires landlords and tenants on the verge of an eviction filing to sit down together and come

to an agreement before ever entering a courtroom. So far, most landlords and tenants in the city

have been happy with the results. Nationwide, black Americans make up 20% of renters,

but represent about one-third of the people who receive eviction filings. That's according to

the eviction lab at Princeton University. Experts point to discriminatory housing practices,

including redlining, as reasons black residents are less likely to be homeowners and are more

vulnerable to evictions. Evictions have a cost well beyond the immediate impact on tenants.

Here's a breakdown by the numbers. In August 2021, when the federal eviction moratorium ended,

4.2 million adults were at risk of eviction. At the time, the Urban Institute estimated it would

cost landlords across the country as much as $11.3 billion to evict all those people. For tenants,

the cost is an estimated $11.6 billion. And those effects ripple out to the cities that

house them. A recent study from the Department of Housing and Urban Development estimates emergency

shelter costs in the community are around $5,000 per family per month. That's why Philadelphia

rolled out its eviction diversion program two years ago. Here's how it works. If a landlord wants

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