Evictions surge in Arizona with housing shortage and rising prices

PHOENIX — Wearing a bulletproof vest and with a gun strapped to his waist, Constable Lennie McCloskey opens his folder and looks through the court orders: eleven evictions to be carried out today.

"It's a slow day" in Maricopa County, Arizona, he says.

Maricopa is home to Phoenix, one of the fastest growing cities in the United States, a place where rents have skyrocketed since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, leaving an ever-increasing number of people in trouble.

"I typically do between 19 and 25 (evictions) a day," said McCloskey, one of 26 such officers in Maricopa.