Svante Myrick, the mayor of Ithaca, N.Y., understands the emotional turmoil that comes with housing insecurity. When his mom brought him home from the hospital in the late 1980s, a red eviction notice was pinned to her door and her belongings were strewn on the sidewalks. He proceeded to spend his first few months of life in a homeless shelter—and returned to them, intermittently, over the next eight years. “I’ve seen firsthand how eviction is more than just a setback,” Myrick, now 33, tells TIME in a recent phone interview.